This program is BETA software! It is based on a reliable server, so complete data loss is not very likely. But other (hopefully minor) problems may occur. I think it's obvious: I'm not a native english speaker. Corrections are welcome.
Kaspaliste is a literature database. It handles all kinds of books, articles, journals, webpages etc. But the database goes beyond simply storing bibliographical information. There is the possibility to create annotated links between pieces of information (like the content of a book chapter) and to group the links in categories. An example:
The user interface works just like a web browser: You can change the records along the links or open a link, a new window. You can work back or forward through already opened records, change fields, and create or delete links, publication, authors etc. on the fly with just one mouseclick.
Kaspaliste does not only store information about publications but the publication as well. It handels various formats like html, pdf, ps, dvi and pictures (depends on the KDE-installation since the kpart-technology is used). You can for example store ocr'ed parts of interesting publications. The fulltext search covers plain text and html files.
Another nice feature is the automatic generation of BibTex files.
I'm a student of social sciences and I use the program (or earlier versions) since four years. I found it very useful to organize knowledge and to develop new ideas. Kaspaliste is based on a fullfeatured SQL-server named postgresql - a well tested and reliable system. The SQL-standard allows to switch over to other systems (even MS-Access) and to preserve your work in the case that you (for whatever reasons) won't use Kaspaliste any more. This is an important feature. My database holds now about 600 authors and 400 publications and more than 1000 links and notes. And that was pretty much work.
I think there are other computer and non-computer based literature databases out which are following the same ideas (especially Niklas Luhmanns "Zettelkasten") but I never found more information about them. If someone knows about them I would be glad if she or he drops me a mail.
Aug. 2000 - The first public version.
v0.31 - minor bugfixes and improvements, libpg++ is obsolete.
v0.32 - simplified installation, libg++ is obsolete, the user_lock patch is no longer needed.
v0.33 - cleanups, bugfixes, export of files, complete cut/copy/paste - support
v0.34 - bugfix
v0.4 - port to KDE 2.1, works with mimetypes and kparts