Managing pdf collections

I want to create a seemingly simple function for my websites, but I cannot figure out a good way to do it. Please help!

I need my websites to display lists of academic articles, basically a small directory of pdf files with download option. They could just present as a list, author-year-title. I don’t think I need anything else for displaying the files than what WP has out-of-the-box. If I had just a couple of files, I would be fine using Gutenberg’s file block to display a clickable list with download buttons (and clicking would open the pdf in a new browser tab).

My problem is that I expect the number of files to grow into the dozens. I want to be prepared for maintaining that collection. So I think my issue is with file management rather than pdf handling.

I’ve tried the Media Library Assistant plugin, which is great in that it lets me assign a special category to those files and edit in bulk, but I cannot think of a way to create a self-updating directory on the site. I would love to be able to just upload files, assign categories and have them appear on the site.

I’ve also tried Memphis Docs. I like some aspects of it, like the folder system, but uploading felt tedious and it’s not connected to WP own media library. On one of my sites, it didn’t work at all for some reason.

I’m guessing the solution is somewhere in between creating a file management system with a separate media library and Gutenberg’s built-in blocks.