1. Reference Management Tools: Which One is Right for You?
Yolanda Koscielski, Criminology, Philosophy, and Psychology Librarian

2. Agenda Common features and functionality
Quiz: What citation manager is right for me?
An overview of RefWorks, Zotero & Mendeley

3. How are you managing references now?
What citation manager are you using now?
None | RefWorks | Mendeley | Zotero | MS Word’s References tool | EndNote | Other
None | RefWorks | Mendeley | Zotero | MS Word’s References tool | EndNote | Other

4. Reference managers: What’s the point?
+Centralized location for storing and accessing references
+Creating a bibliography, rendering in-text citations
Demo: Write-N-Cite
Before the class, download Vancouver2010.doc (sample essay on the citation software page)
During class, use Vancouver2010.doc to demonstrate inserting in-text citations and generating the bibliography
+Centralized location for storing and accessing references
+Creates a bibliography, renders in-text citations

5. Common Features and Functionality

6. Commonalities Import citations from various places
Direct, PDF, bookmarklet, RIS, BibTeX
Access & store citations in one place
Manipulate citations
Folders, tags, editing, searching

7. Commonalities Share citations with a team or as a reading list
Automatically generate bibliographies and in-text citations
Data stored on non-Canadian servers
More commonalities than differences

8. Quiz time! Which Citation Manager is Right for Me?
Please take 5 minutes to fill out the self-quiz
We will then review the results

9. An overview: RefWorks, Zotero and Mendeley

10. 1. Your library of references: web-based platform to access & manage your references
2. MS Word plug-in: insert citations & create bibliography (Write-N-Cite)
RefWorks consists of two parts
Main web-based platform for accessing & managing your references
Downloadable plugin for inserting citations in your paper, creating a bibliography (Write-N-Cite)

12. Advantages:
Robust (brutally-literal) interface
Well-behaved – does what it is told; demonstrates little initiative
Friendly to citation entries from a wide variety of bibliography types (books, magazines, journals…)
A citation management software “classic”

13. Disadvantages:
Not without glitches (e.g. working between versions of Write-N-Cite on PC and Mac platforms)
Learning investment – economical if you have lots of citations
Weaker for social networking features

14. 1. Your library of references:
Zotero for Firefox, or
Zotero Standalone, or
Zotero Web (not useful?)
2. MS Word plug-in: inserts citations in your paper and creates a bibliography
Zotero has the same two parts, but you have a few options for how to access/manage your library of references.
Zotero for Firefox
Zotero Standalone
Zotero Web (not that useful)
Downloadable plugin for inserting citations in your paper, creating a bibliography
- Works with MS Office and LibreOffice/OpenOffice

15. Zotero for Firefox interface:

16. Zotero Standalone interface:

17. Advantages:
Drag & drop PDFs into your library (it will extract bibliographic information for citations)
Simple to use once you have it set up
Works with nearly every information source
Simple to share sources with others
Can take notes, tag records

18. Not as user-friendly to log in
Disadvantages:
Not as user-friendly to log in
Free space limits storage to 300 MB (for 6 GB of storage space = $5/month)

19. 1. Your library of references:
Mendeley Desktop, or
Mendeley Web
2. MS Word plug-in: inserts citations in your paper and creates a bibliography
Mendeley has the same two parts as Zotero and RefWorks. There are two ways you can access/manage your library of references.
Mendeley Desktop (the main application, that contains the most features)
Mendeley Web
Downloadable plugin for inserting citations in your paper, creating a bibliography
- Works with MS Office and LibreOffice/OpenOffice

20. Mendeley Web interface:
Describe interface
Use it to connect with other researchers and to create your research profile

21. Mendeley Desktop interface:

22. Advantages:
Drag & drop PDFs into your library (it will extract bibliographic information for citations)
Annotate/highlight/tag documents
Networking with other researchers
“Watch” a folder on your computer and automatically import new documents into your library
Free account includes 2 GB of storage space
Google citations

23. Disadvantages:
Not as seamless with databases (doesn’t always grab all the bibliographic information)
Can only create 1 private group with up to 4 members (pay $50+/month for more members)
Need to pay for more storage space (for 5 GB of storage space = $5/month)

24. Which tools is right for you?

25. Thanks for your participation!
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