synapsen

»I'm sure I read that before. Where was it again?« is the common, always returning question of every reader, and this is the point where Synapsen takes its position. Not only researchers and students of the sciences that rely on the written word are able to recognise this classical problem which this card-catalog seeks to remedy: Forgetting. How is it possible in the framework of a (text-based) scientific report to position the researched, reformulated piles of knowledge to the extent that even years later it is something that you have at your disposal?

Synapsen is for literature management that is specifically different from market-softare like ask-sam, Lidos, LiMan, EndNote etc. Besides simply managing bibliographic data, Synapsen also creates an information-architecture that grants the card-catalog the role of an author. Every dataset, which contains not only the bibliographic information pertaining to a text but also complete literature reports, is characterized by a list of catchwords. These are added by the user during the data-entry stage of a card. With the assistance of thorough internal comparisons, Synapsen finds cards that share catchwords. Every card is registered in a network of its own knowledge, which can be hypertextually tracked by the mouse-clicking user. In this way, the card catalog delivers unexpected connections and associates lines of argumentation via terms and relevant texts/locations that might not be seen or considered by the user — perhaps it was even forgotten. The card catalog in fact becomes an autonomous communication partner and helping hand of its own.