🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <199305201753.AA27909@well.sf.ca.us> nilesinc@WELL.SF.CA.US (Avi Rappoport) writes:
>> Is there anyway of reclaiming the use of the
>> numbers (sequence numbers in EndNote) for which references have
>> been deleted and will remain deleted?
>The basic assumption of EndNote is that a reference has a unique number in a
>library (and that you will only use one library).  This makes each reference
>unique, even when an author writes several articles in the same year.

I assume the reason why so many people want to reuse these numbers is so they
can file their papers numerically.  (Why?  I don't know.  I like alphabetical,
or alphabetical/subject, myself.  Easier to find things without referring
to the computer.)  

Perhaps EndNote should not make such numbers visible to keep the
temptation down.  For example it could use random text strings as the
article identifiers.  For example, [Bowdidge 1992 #AbOzOR0nraYGn].  Of
course, then we could add a new "paper #" field to each paper so that
the numerically-filing folks could store papers in their favorite
format.

Don't forget to check for obscenities in the random string generator, though.
:-)

-- Robert