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BibTeX and LyX

BibTeX is a standard program in all LaTeX-distributions for managing citations. The citations are stored in a so called BibTeX-database file (*.bib). Here is an example database file to see how it looks.

Using BibTeX has the advantage that you don't need to type the citations in every document. LyX allows you to choose citation references from the database and only the referenced citations will be printed in the reference list of the document.

A BibTeX-database file is included to a LyX-document with the menu
Insert→Lists & TOC→BibTeX Reference.
A gray box will be inserted and you can choose databases when you click on it.

To administrate BibTeX-database files you need an editor, or more comfortable, a so called BibTeX-manager. Here are some links to BibTeX-managers:

BibEdt: Open source minimal BibTeX editor for Windows (last update 14.08.2006)
BibTexMng: BibTeX editor for Windows, commercial, test version limited to 50 database entries (last update 10.05.2009)
Bibwiki: Bibwiki is an extension for MediaWiki to manage BibTeX bibliographies. With Bibwiki it's easy to import records from various sources, manage digital documents, export lists of references via BibTeX and create lists of references in Wiki articles (outdated)
JabRef: runs on all platforms, requires a Java-runtime environment (last update 04.10.2017)
Mendeley: runs on various platforms and also has a web interface, exports to BibTeX
Pybliographer Bibliography manager for Gnome. Runs under Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Command-line version runs on Windows
refbase: web-based reference manager which can import and export BibTeX
tkbibtex: BibTeX editor written in TCL/TK, runs on all platforms
WibTeX: BibTeX editor for Windows, can also work together with MS Word

Lastly, there are plugins that can interface with bibliographic managers to input cites into LyX. For example, Firefox add-on Zotero, a powerful bibliographic manager with online backup capability, has an add-on called Lyz that allows it to create bibliographies and reference pages in LyX.

BibTeX Bibliography