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I, Librarian

Open source PDF manager with annotation, full-text search, and tagging for research papers.

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About I, Librarian

I, Librarian is a self-hosted application for organizing PDF files, research papers, and digital documents. It indexes the full text of your files so you can search across your entire library in seconds. The tool supports tagging, custom metadata fields, and attachment management, making it useful for academics, students, or anyone managing a large collection of reference materials.

The software runs on a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, PHP) and includes a built-in PDF viewer with annotation capabilities. You can highlight text, add notes, and create bibliographic entries. It integrates with Zotero and supports importing from BibTeX and other formats. The project is maintained by a small open source community and has been in development since 2014.

Version 4.5 is the current stable release. I, Librarian is offered under a dual license: an open source free version with core features, and a commercial version with additional functionality like OCR and advanced search. It is best suited for users who want full control over their document library without relying on cloud services.
Database

Quick Facts

Pricing
Freemium
License
Dual License
Platform
Linux
Version
4.5
Developer
Marcin Kuciński