PaperLabWho it's for · Research groups
For research groups that care where a claim came from
For a principal investigator, the question is not which features a tool has but whether its output can be trusted. PaperLab keeps every note attached to the passage it came from, labels every piece of AI text with the model and prompt that produced it, and keeps papers and notes on each member’s own machine. It is free and open source, so a group can adopt it without licences or accounts.
What gets in the way, and what helps
Students citing summaries, not papers
Answers cite the passage they used; checking takes one click.
Ask a paper →Unclear AI involvement
You, AI, or AI · edited on every note; nothing passes for human-written.
Anchored notes →Unpublished work and confidentiality
Local models and local storage; cloud is always a visible choice.
Local-first and private →Onboarding new members to a literature
A graph of the group’s core papers shows foundations and clusters.
Library graph →
A workflow that works
- Agree on a highlight colour scheme for the group.
- Use workspaces per project; share core paper lists.
- Ask students to show the passage behind each claim in meetings.
Guides for you
- How to chat with a PDF locally, without uploading it — Ask papers questions with a local model, and check every answer against the page.
- Can you trust AI with research papers? — Invented citations, and a five-step check for any AI answer.
- How to map the literature on a topic — Citation graphs, co-citation and coupling, and tools that draw the map.
Questions people ask
Can a group share one library?
Not yet: PaperLab is one user per machine. Each member keeps their own library.
Is there a cost per seat?
No. It is free and open source. Only cloud AI models, if you choose them, have a cost.
Can I see a demo for my group?
Yes. Get in touch through the PaperLab page on LinkedIn or GitHub.
Also for: PhD students · Master’s students · Librarians · Developers