Show HN: I built Goodreads for academic papers to help my wife survive her PhD(paperstack.ac)
paperstack.ac
Show HN: I built Goodreads for academic papers to help my wife survive her PhD
https://paperstack.ac
7 comments
Serendipitous, as I was just planning a lit review on a topic I am unfamiliar with, and was frustrated by my increasingly messy list of "to read".
Quick thoughts:
- I would like a "not read" stack, for papers that I peeked at but decided against reading.
- The registration link took a few minutes to come in, I thought something was broken.
- I keep trying to click the stack titles to take me into the stacks, but they aren't clickable.
- I couldn't figure out how to use a summary credits
- I couldn't figure out how to search/export my notes and tags
- I would like a way to quickly see my own 1-line summaries of the papers I have read. Maybe under the titles/authors.
---
Long Thoughts:
What does this do that a "to-read" folder on Zotero doesn't? This post made me ask myself why I don't just use the to-read folder I already set up in Zotero.
1) Adding something to zotero is a bit of a process, and feels like I have to be 100% committed to reading it, and thus I hesitate to put the "I'll check it out later" papers into my to-read folder on zotero. Your website is much more focused and low-effort to use.
2) I often forget why I wanted to read something in the first place. I like to store items on my to-read list according to the parent paper I discovered them in, to remember what I was doing when I added them to the list. Zotero notes/relations are not the easiest way to do this, so I stick to a markdown list.
3) My to-read list is so long, with so many papers from 2 years ago that I didn't end up needing, that I don't know where to start when I look at it. It would be nice to have a way to rank papers on my list by priority, or group them by topic tags, etc.
Quick thoughts:
- I would like a "not read" stack, for papers that I peeked at but decided against reading.
- The registration link took a few minutes to come in, I thought something was broken.
- I keep trying to click the stack titles to take me into the stacks, but they aren't clickable.
- I couldn't figure out how to use a summary credits
- I couldn't figure out how to search/export my notes and tags
- I would like a way to quickly see my own 1-line summaries of the papers I have read. Maybe under the titles/authors.
---
Long Thoughts:
What does this do that a "to-read" folder on Zotero doesn't? This post made me ask myself why I don't just use the to-read folder I already set up in Zotero.
1) Adding something to zotero is a bit of a process, and feels like I have to be 100% committed to reading it, and thus I hesitate to put the "I'll check it out later" papers into my to-read folder on zotero. Your website is much more focused and low-effort to use.
2) I often forget why I wanted to read something in the first place. I like to store items on my to-read list according to the parent paper I discovered them in, to remember what I was doing when I added them to the list. Zotero notes/relations are not the easiest way to do this, so I stick to a markdown list.
3) My to-read list is so long, with so many papers from 2 years ago that I didn't end up needing, that I don't know where to start when I look at it. It would be nice to have a way to rank papers on my list by priority, or group them by topic tags, etc.
Realized I forgot about the golden rule of feedback: start with something positive! I will end with it instead.
I thought the UI was slick. You have identified a very real problem I am having as a PhD student, and this solution genuinely feels like something I would use. Cool stuff.
I thought the UI was slick. You have identified a very real problem I am having as a PhD student, and this solution genuinely feels like something I would use. Cool stuff.
This feedback has been really great and detailed, just what I was looking for!
- I've added an option in user settings to turn on a 'Skipped' stack.
- Card titles should now all be clickable!
- It's now more obvious that you need to upload a PDF before you can use the AI summary (because the LLM has to read the PDF).
- I've made a dedicated page to see all your tags just like you already have with stacks. You can't reorder them yet but hopefully I will add that soon.
- Export and search are coming soon!
- I'm thinking about your other suggestions, thank you!
- I've added an option in user settings to turn on a 'Skipped' stack.
- Card titles should now all be clickable!
- It's now more obvious that you need to upload a PDF before you can use the AI summary (because the LLM has to read the PDF).
- I've made a dedicated page to see all your tags just like you already have with stacks. You can't reorder them yet but hopefully I will add that soon.
- Export and search are coming soon!
- I'm thinking about your other suggestions, thank you!
Always have some type of demo without requiring a login/signup. You lose out on so many people like me that just immediately close as soon as I find out that I can't see what it is without signing up.
That's a very good point. I've just put up some screenshots on the landing page - it's not a demo to be fair, but at least you can see what using it might look like!
I can't read that text ... make it at least so if i click them, they expand to full mode ...
You could record yourself with Loom or OBS and record a quick video you using it -- have that either as a video / GIF -- typically either one big one or one per feature... Just some ideas
I've built a little demo on the landing page now! Enjoy!
So I built her Paperstack. It's basically Goodreads, but for research papers:
- Save articles to familiar To Read/Reading/Read stacks - Tag articles with logical projects/chapters/whatever your system is - Get AI-generated summaries so you can quickly decide if a paper is worth your time
I would love feedback from any students and researchers managing paper overwhelm!