cpd23: Thing 14 – Zotero, Mendeley, CiteULike

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Thing 14 discusses (free) reference management software.

I have been using the following reference management tools:

  • RefWorks – is actively supported by our library which provides free licences too all students and members of the universities in Bremen as well as support and training.
  • Bibliographix – a commercial product. Six years ago, the most attractive reference management software for organising references as well as notes and ideas. To this date, my main reference manager.
  • Citavi – Ais another commercial software. Complete changeover in design and functionalities a few years ago. Offered for free to students by many German universities.

In addition, my library’s search engine offers download buttons not only for RefWorks and Endnote, but also for Bibsonomy, Bibtext, RefMAN/RIS as well as formatted text.
So far, I haven’t used any of the free reference management software available online. I am aware, that some of our professors and staff recommend different programs to students, i.e. Zotero, JabRef, EndNote Web. Thanks to today’s task, I expanded my knowledge about different tools and their pros & cons. Here is what I am going to memorize:

Zotero
Mozilla Firefox add-on (Mac and PC) for collecting everything on the web.
Kurzinformation Zotero, created by Züricher Hochschule der Künste, Medien- und Informationszentrum, Nov 2009.
Zotero: Tour of Zotero.

Mendeley
For Mac, PC or Linux, integrated reading and annotating of PDF files. Social bookmarking tool for collaborating. Start off with folder full of PDF files and extract metadata of PDFs retrospectively.
Kurzinformation Literaturverwaltung: Mendeley, by Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Medien- und Informationszentrum MIZ, Sep 2010.
What is Mendeley, by MendeleyResearch, Aug 2011.
Webinar: Mendeley for librarians, by MendeleyResearch, Jul 2011. (40 min!)

CiteULike
Social bookmarking service – Delicious for articles.
A tour of Citeulike, created by AJ Cann, Dec 2009.

JabRef
For BibTex/LaTeX users.
JabRef walkthrough, created by jorg3cardoso, Nov 2008.

In the end, it always depends on the features of the reference management software and how they fit your way of working and writing.


Photo credits: Blockland, Bremen. (c) Sabine Rauchmann, 2011.

How could it help achieve some of my own goals?
For creating list of publications as well as a publicly accessible reference list on some topics of interest to me.

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