I make individual literature notes and then link to those notes as I record my own thoughts elsewhere. Local graph view is useful in this process because it helps put my notes on the literature into the context I have already started building. Sometimes this reveals a potential connection that I had not thought of. I think many of us are doing this in some way, especially now that the Citations plugin has made it so easy.
Building a knowledge graph in Obsidian is similar to some emerging tools for exploring literature. For example, Connected Papers essentially builds a “local graph view” of a given publication based on citations and other data.
Could a plugin connect my own knowledge graph with the online literature? I’m imagining this as a small pane similar to the local graph view, except it shows the Connected Papers output for the literature I have cited in the current note. I’m guessing the plugin could search for DOIs listed in literature notes by following links within the current note. Perhaps it would be easier to implement a simple tool which simply lists the top citation connections to the papers I’m linking to. To be clear, I’m thinking this tool should not create or edit any notes - it should only serve as a window to the outside.
At minimum, this tool could help identify important references that might otherwise be missed. In rare cases it might inspire a new connection (like local graph view), but importantly this tool would reach into the knowledge that others have built - not me.
There are probably other interesting tools that could be built based on this question: “how does my knowledge network relate to the literature knowledge network?”