Using a remote Bibtex file

As mentioned previously:

1. I am using version control software to backup my work
2. I'm using LaTeX
3. I don't like duplicating files around my system
4. I'm working between both Windows and Linux

So I've found myself today writing an end of year report (housed within its own folder in my filesystem) and wanting to pull in some references from my bibtex file (housed within the literature review folder in my filesystem). I could use the copying hack that I previously devised for figures, but that wasn't very elegant.

There are plenty of questions about this out there in internetland, mostly with the following suggestions:

• Move your bibtex file to within the tex installation root - I can't really do this because of 1. above.
• Use symbolic links to the original in the local folder - I can't do this becuase of 4. (windows doesn't support them)
• Give a relative filename reference e.g. '\bibiography{../literatureReview/references}'
• Adding the location as an environment variable as described here.

Both of these later two methods seemed to work for me. I went with the relative referencing for portability between systems. Odd that such a straightforward solution works for references but not for figures!?