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CHOOSING THE RIGHT CITATION awkward and time-consuming initially introduced in 2006 as an MANAGEMENT TOOL: ENDNOTE, process. Citation management extension for the Firefox web MENDELEY, REFWORKS, OR software was introduced in the browser. It is now available as a ZOTERO 1980s and used primarily to organ- standalone application [6]. First EndNote. Clarivate Analytics, 1500 ize references, search databases for released in 2008 [7], Mendeley is a Spring Garden Street, Fourth Floor, articles on a particular topic, and free cloud-based citation manager Philadelphia, PA 19130; generate bibliographies [1]. Over with desktop and online versions. http://endnote.com; standard edi- the years, users’ needs have It also serves as an academic re- tion, $249.95; student pricing avail- changed, technology has advanced, search network, offering a variety able; cost includes unlimited cloud and many new features have been of social networking features. added, including options for social storage; EndNote web included All four products share a core networking and portable document with some library subscriptions to set of features that allow users to format file (PDF) management. other Clarivate products. import, organize, and manage cita- Mendeley. Elsevier, Suite 800, 230 There are now many biblio- tions and associated full text. Users Park Avenue, New York, NY graphic management packages can import references from a varie- 10169; http://www.mendeley.com; available and many factors to con- ty of databases, create in-text cita- basic account free; includes 2GB sider when choosing the product tions and bibliographies, and online storage; premium and insti- that best meets the needs of the import bibliographic information tutional accounts and additional individual user or institution. Pop- from web pages. All offer an exten- storage plans available for pur- ular tools include RefWorks, End- sive list of citation styles and the chase. Note, Zotero, Mendeley, and F1000 ability to edit existing styles and Workspace. This review will cover create new ones. RefWorks. ProQuest, 789 East Ei- the first four; F1000 Workspace was The remainder of this review senhower Parkway, Ann Arbor, MI reviewed in the Journal of the Medi- focuses on how these products dif- 48108; http://refworks.proquest.com; cal Library Association (JMLA) in fer with respect to the most com- institutional subscriptions only; con- 2017 [2]. tact vendor for pricing. monly used features of citation First released in 1988 [3], End- managers and the advantages and Zotero. Roy Rozenzweig Center for Note is a commercial product that disadvantages of each product. Ta- History and New Media, George is primarily marketed via sales of ble 1 summarizes key differences Mason University, 4400 University its desktop application (currently between the products. This review Drive, MSN 1E7, Fairfax, VA 22030; version X8). A basic online version is based primarily on current desk- https://www.zotero.org; free; in- is free, but it has limited features top versions (if applicable) of the cludes 300 MB online storage; stor- and functionality. RefWorks, first products as of February 2018, age plans available for purchase. released in 2001 [4], is an entirely though online versions are dis- web-based application marketed to cussed as needed to provide a libraries as an institution-wide tool, complete picture of a tool’s func- though a vendor representative tionality. For Mendeley, this review indicated that individual accounts covers the free version only. For used to be available and will be RefWorks, this review covers the INTRODUCTION offered again [5]. The product is new RefWorks only; it does not Citation management has not al- currently transitioning to a new address the older version, known ways been as easy as it is today. interface, referred to by the vendor as Legacy RefWorks. Years ago, references were manual- as “new RefWorks.” Zotero’s free, ly organized on index cards, an open source citation manager was
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Table 1 Citation management tools at a glance
EndNote Mendeley RefWorks Zotero Platforms Mac, Windows Mac, Windows, Linux Not applicable (web-based Mac, Windows, Linux only)
Browsers Internet Explorer IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari IE, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Firefox, Chrome, Safari (IE), Firefox, Safari, Chrome Chrome, Safari
Browser IE (Windows only) IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari IE (Windows only), Safari Firefox, Chrome, and Safari plug-ins and Firefox (Win- (Mac only), Firefox, Chrome, dows and Mac) and Microsoft Edge
Mobile apps iOS (iPad only) Android, iOS None; mobile-friendly site None; mobile-friendly site available available
Word pro- Microsoft Word Microsoft Word (Windows and Microsoft Word (Windows Microsoft Word (Windows cessing inte- (Windows and Mac) Mac), LibreOffice (Linux, Mac, and Mac), Google Docs and Mac), Libre Office gration and Windows) (Linux, Mac, and Windows)
Importing Refer/BibIX, tab BibTeX, EndNote, XML, RIS, Mendeley, RIS, filters for Bibliontology RDF, BibTeX references delimited, RIS, ISI- Zotero library, txt, Ovid (Med- hundreds of databases browser bookmarks, Citavi 5 CE, filters for hun- lars reprint), Pub- XML, CSL JSON, EndNote dreds of databases Med/MEDLINE (nbib), XML, MAB2, MARC, Mendeley web catalog MARCXML, Pub- Med/MEDLINE (nbib), MODS, Ovid tagged, Primo normalized XML, PubMed XML, RDF, Refer/BibIX, RefWorks tagged, RIS, Web of Science tagged, XML Con- textObject
Add refer- Available by search- ArXiv ID, DOI, PMID Not available ISBN, DOI, PMID ence by iden- ing external data- tifier bases in application
Offline avail- Yes, references and Yes, references and files stored Only with link to Dropbox Yes, references and files ability files stored locally locally account stored locally
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS, on functions only with the online Users can search within databases, BROWSER EXTENSIONS, AND version of Mendeley; the Zotero mark references to save or export, MOBILE APPS add-on requires the desktop ver- and select from a variety of options All four products offer plug-ins for sion for full functionality; and the to add references to their preferred Microsoft Word. EndNote, Mende- EndNote add-on can be used in the citation manager tools. Choosing a ley, and Zotero offer desktop cli- desktop and online versions. direct export option opens any of these tools that are installed on us- ents, while RefWorks is entirely Of the four products, only ers’ computers, and references can web-based. Table 1 shows plat- EndNote and Mendeley offer mo- be added with one mouse-click. forms and browser compatibility. bile apps. While RefWorks and Each of the products has direct ex- All four products offer a web-based Zotero do not have mobile apps, port options for at least one of the version that works with recent ver- they do have mobile-friendly sites. sions of popular browsers. Some following databases: PubMed, Web tools offer plug-ins for other of Science, Science Direct, EBSCO browsers as well, and all offer SEARCHES FOR AND IMPORTING (CINAHL), and ProQuest OF REFERENCES browser add-ons (bookmarklets, (PsycINFO). All four systems allow extensions, etc.) for importing bib- All four tools allow users to import direct export of records from EB- liographic information from web files of references from databases SCO (CINAHL), while EndNote is pages. The Mendeley browser add- or other citation management tools. the only tool that has a direct ex- port option for PubMed.
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Users can also use the browser The tools also offer several oth- users to create a subject bibliog- add-ons to automatically import er ways to add references. Mende- raphy that is based on one or more references into their reference col- ley users can add references by keywords in users’ citations. Both lections. The add-ons for Mende- entering a PubMed ID (PMID), dig- Mendeley and Zotero allow users ley, RefWorks, and Zotero allow ital object (DOI), or ArXivID. Simi- to drag references from the desktop users to import references to their larly, Zotero users can add client into a word processor, where reference collections from multiple references using the international they will be formatted according to databases. Depending on the data- standard book number (ISBN), the style that users have selected, base, users can select individual DOI, or PMID. In the online ver- the quickest and most user-friendly references or batches, and the ref- sion of Mendeley, users can search method of bibliography creation. erences and associated PDFs are and import references from Mende- RefWorks includes a feature that imported. Mendeley and Zotero ley’s web catalog, a collection of all allows users to generate a bibliog- users can use the browser add-ons the references that have been add- raphy from a batch of references in to import references from PubMed, ed to the personal libraries of Men- a folder, but that feature did not Web of Science, and Science Direct. deley users [8]. EndNote and work when we tested it, leaving no Using Zotero, the reviewers were RefWorks also allow users to way to generate standalone bibli- able to import references from search databases and library cata- ographies from citations. ProQuest (PsycINFO), but the logs from within the application More commonly, users create Mendeley browser add-on was not and import selected search results. bibliographies from in-text cita- able to recognize the bibliographic EndNote offers an extensive list of tions in a manuscript. All four tools metadata in ProQuest (PsycINFO) free and commercial databases for offer Microsoft Word plug-ins to references. Errors were experienced searching. As of this writing, the support this functionality. Table 1 with both Mendeley and Zotero new RefWorks only offers PubMed provides details about which tools when we imported references from and the Library of Congress as work with other word processors. EBSCO (CINAHL). search options, and, when tested, In EndNote, the bibliography is neither search option was function- EndNote’s Capture Reference automatically generated as the cita- al. According to the RefWorks lead bookmarklet has more limited tions are inserted into the docu- product manager, institutional ac- functionality than the browser add- ment. In Mendeley, RefWorks, and count administrators can allow us- ons for the other three products. Zotero, inserting a citation and cre- ers to search any database that is When displaying a list of PubMed ating a bibliography are separate accessible via the Z39.50 search search results, Capture Reference steps, and at least one citation must standard. He also indicated that only imported all references on the be added to the document in order ProQuest is building application page; it did not allow us to select to create a bibliography. All four programming interfaces (APIs) to specific references to import. Cap- products made occasional small integrate RefWorks with other ture Reference did not work at all errors in citations, especially when ProQuest tools such as Summon for us with a list of results from we cited web pages, but Mendeley and Primo, which should increase Google Scholar. The only way to performed especially poorly, omit- in-app search options [5]. import these results was to open ting key information from web each one and then capture it. It also page citations, such as date ac- did not directly capture biblio- CREATION OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES cessed. graphic information about web All four applications allow users to pages as easily as the other add-ons create standalone bibliographies in MANAGEMENT AND ANNOTATION did. When we attempted to import virtually any word processor, in- OF PORTABLE DOCUMENT FORMAT information about a web page us- cluding Google Docs. With End- FILES ing Capture Reference, it created an Note, users can create a standalone Each tool offers different options RIS file that we then had to import bibliography by selecting citations into EndNote, whereas the other for adding PDF documents. All and an output style, and copying four systems allow users to add three add-ons added information and pasting into a word processor about web pages directly. PDF documents by dragging and document. EndNote also allows dropping them into their reference
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collections and by attaching them electronic collections. Users can they are following via the Mende- to existing citations. EndNote and specify the baseURL of their librar- ley Newsfeed [12]. Mendeley users can drag and drop ies’ link resolver in the product PDFs both individually and in settings, and the products will use OFFLINE AVAILABILITY folders. RefWorks users can only metadata from a citation in their add PDFs one at a time, while libraries to attempt to locate full EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero Zotero users can add multiple text for that item. In Zotero, this collections and documents are PDFs at once. Mendeley users can feature is called Library Lookup. stored locally and, therefore, avail- also add PDFs by putting them in a Users click on a reference in their able offline. RefWorks is a purely designated folder called a Watch collections, and if full text is found, cloud-based system, so access to Folder. Mendeley monitors the con- the PDF file can be easily dragged the application itself is not availa- tents of these folders and automati- and dropped into their reference ble offline. Users can, however, link cally adds any PDFs to reference collections. EndNote users can ac- a DropBox account to RefWorks to collections. cess full-text through their institu- provide offline access to full-text tions by using the Find Full Text documents in RefWorks [10]. All four products can generate feature. Mendeley used to allow metadata from PDFs to create a integration with a library’s link citation record, but they use some- UNIQUE FEATURES resolver but no longer offers this what different methods to do so. feature [8]. For RefWorks, institu- Of the four products, EndNote is When we tested articles from three tional administrators can configure the only one that offers a journal different journals, all four products a link resolver for all users at that matching feature, known as Manu- extracted metadata inconsistently institution. script Matcher, to help users find and occasionally inaccurately. For the right journal for their manu- example, one product extracted scripts. Users of the online version metadata completely for a given COLLABORATION AND SOCIAL can provide their article titles, ab- NETWORKING article, while another failed to ex- stracts, and references, and End- tract key information (e.g. author According to RefWorks documen- Note will provide a list of journal name, page numbers) from the tation, RefWorks users can only recommendations based on its same PDF, and a third failed to im- share collections with users at their analysis of Web of Science citation port any metadata from the PDF. own institutions [10]. The Ref- data [15]. RefWorks is the only All products exhibited these fail- Works senior product manager product to offer a plug-in for ures, though RefWorks appeared to indicated, however, that as of fall Google Docs, an especially useful be the least accurate, with at least 2017, RefWorks users can share feature at universities where one significant error with each of folders with other RefWorks users Google tools are used heavily by the three PDFs that we tested. across institutions [5]. EndNote X7 students. It is also the only fully All of the products, other than and X8 users can share with each cloud-based product. While both Zotero, support PDF annotation in other in groups of up to 100 mem- Mendeley and Zotero are free, the application. Zotero users can bers [11]. Mendeley and Zotero Zotero is the only open-source open PDFs in the application of users can create both public and product among the four. Its source their choice, annotate them, and private groups [12, 13], though code is hosted on GitHub and save them back to the Zotero data- Mendeley users with a free account freely available under an AGPLv3 base. An add-on called Zotfile [9] can create and own only one pri- license [16]. allows users to extract annotations vate group, and private groups and perform other PDF manage- created by free accounts are limited CONCLUSION ment tasks. to three members [14]. Mendeley offers additional social networking All four of the tools reviewed here features in the online version that are usable for standard reference INTEGRATION WITH LIBRARY the other products do not provide. manager functions, and each has COLLECTIONS Mendeley users can search for and strengths and weaknesses. For ex- EndNote and Zotero can use an follow other researchers with simi- ample, in our testing, Zotero’s openURL link resolver to help us- lar interests and receive updates on browser add-on was the easiest to ers retrieve full text from a library’s actions and events of researchers use and captured data more accu-
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DOI: dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2018.468 rately than the other add-ons did. 2. Brody ER, McGraw KA, Renner BR. 11. EndNote. Library sharing [Internet]. EndNote offered the most choices F1000 Workspace [review]. J Med Libr EndNote; 2017 [cited 7 Mar 2018]. Assoc. 2017 Jan;105(1):98–101. DOI:
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