Reference Tree
Has anyone seen a program where you can organize journal/conference papers based on referring documents into a tree structure? I'm picturing something where you could put a paper into a database with links to what it references and what references it. Then the program would give you a graphical display of a tree that you could browse through. I was thinking this would be useful for researching a topic and keeping all the references organized. The society that I use exclusively (IEEE) is supposed to have citation links when you are browsing their papers but they are usually not filled out.
..
I haven't found one yet. I'm thinking of making my own with a tree browser using the Google Maps interface.
Google maps?
Maybe I'm just confused, but why would you implement a tree browser in google maps? There must be better tree viewing programs that you can use that will have a better UI. E.g. VisANT is a generic network browsing program, though it may not be ideal for your project.
Also, in case you don't know about it already, the ISI web of knowledge website is great for looking up data similar to what you are talking about. Whenever I find a paper that I am really interested in (say, paper X), I go to the ISI web of knowledge citation reference search page, where I can see all the papers that have cited paper X. This is useful, for example, when you want to know if someone has already done the idea you had related to paper X.
Anyway, good luck with your reference tree.
Nope
But if you find one, post it; that sounds awesome.