Bibliography tools?

[Yetanotherdegree]

I'm reading books and articles that I hope will contribute to a dissertation one day. I started by buying used books online, but now that I'm back in grad school, I've been reading e-books through my institution's online library, and I'm sure that my list of things read is going to get out of control pretty quickly.

So, can anyone recommend a method of keeping track of items for a potential future bibliography? I've been keeping info on index cards, including notes scribbled while reading the book (i use it as a bookmark and take it wherever I go, including times when I dont have technology handy.) Anyway, I'm wondering if there are better ways to do this.

Do you use any system, app, or word processing tool to keep track of things you read? Any recommendations before things get out of control here?

[asdfx3]

I use Zotero, although I primarily use it for journal articles rather than books.

[shossain]

JabRef is a pretty good reference manager and makes putting references in LaTex super easy!

 

http://jabref.sourceforge.net/

[jmu]

I use refworks. It's the one I have the least complaints about.

[biotechie]

I used Mendeley for my masters thesis (which I just submitted, today!) and will use it for my PhD as well.

www.mendeley.com

 

You can bring in any PDF and match it to your citation information, and it will link to Word or Open Office to do your citations. It also gives you the option to search for keywords through your whole library, though I know that is no good for scanned things. It was a life-saver for me, especially when I could remember which article I'd read a piece of information in.

 

If you have any specific questions about it, I can try and answer them.

[TakeruK]

I also used Mendeley for my MSc and I also use it for all of my projects, papers, and eventually, my PhD! In addition to what is said above, for those fields that use LaTeX, Mendeley also exports BibTeX files for use with bibtex! And I think it can also directly export bibliography entries in LaTeX form if you don't use BibTeX. 

 

Usually if you give a PDF to Mendeley, it will automatically read off the title, authors, year, etc. if it's a modern PDF file. Otherwise, it will try to guess and you can fix any issues. You can also add an entry without a PDF -- just add it manually. Basically, it would be the electronic version of writing up index cards, except now you don't have to type them up later into a paper, and you can easily organize, store, and sync them up between multiple computers or other devices.

[rising_star]

I use Zotero now and used EndNote during my MA and early years of my PhD. I'll probably switch back to EndNote once I can find someone else (aka, an employer) to get the license for me, in all honesty.

[biotechie]

I also used Mendeley for my MSc and I also use it for all of my projects, papers, and eventually, my PhD! In addition to what is said above, for those fields that use LaTeX, Mendeley also exports BibTeX files for use with bibtex! And I think it can also directly export bibliography entries in LaTeX form if you don't use BibTeX. 

 

Usually if you give a PDF to Mendeley, it will automatically read off the title, authors, year, etc. if it's a modern PDF file. Otherwise, it will try to guess and you can fix any issues. You can also add an entry without a PDF -- just add it manually. Basically, it would be the electronic version of writing up index cards, except now you don't have to type them up later into a paper, and you can easily organize, store, and sync them up between multiple computers or other devices.

 

If you're pulling anything that has a DOI number (most will) or a Pub Med ID (PMID), you can also just enter that number and let it search. It'll be able to pill all of the information, and then you probably won't have any information to enter.

@rising_star: Mendeley is free, and is like Endnote on steroids, so it might be a good option, even if you only use it until you can get Endnote. You can treat it like Endnote, and you have the added option of reading/highlighting/annotating/searching within all texts within Mendeley. I have both, and ended up preferring Mendeley. You can import your stuff from Endnote into it. If you ever have to export your stuff, it can export into formats that Endnote will take, and though I have my Mendeley organizing my files into folders by year and then naming files by year and last name, you can have it export those files later so you can back them up. You don't have to have the place always on your drive.

The ONLY issues I've had were that since my professors don't use it, I had to check for their citations (not hard, since they weren't formatted the same and we used "track changes") and I had a little issue with the references at the end of my document inserting twice, but that second one was my own fault.

[Yetanotherdegree]

Thanks, everyone! I'm going to try out zotero and mendeley and see which one works best for me.

I appreciate the suggestions

[rising_star]

biotechie, I know Mendeley is free. I tried it out once before but didn't like how it handled books. Actually, it handled them like EndNote, which meant it was a pain. One of the things I love about Zotero is how easy it is to add a book, journal article, web page, newspaper article, etc. to my library without any fuss or extra steps. As someone that references a lot of physical and e-books, it's important to me to have an easy way to do that. And, at least several years ago when I tried Mendeley, it took longer than it did while using Zotero, which is why I switched to Zotero.

 

FWIW, I think everyone should investigate if their university has any free options and, if so, what those are. At my MA institution, all graduate students could download a personal copy of EndNote free of charge. At my PhD university, students can download RefWorks free of charge. In cases like that, it's highly likely that your professors (at least those on campus) will be using whichever is free, so that might be the one you should use too.

[Yetanotherdegree]

FWIW, I think everyone should investigate if their university has any free options and, if so, what those are. At my MA institution, all graduate students could download a personal copy of EndNote free of charge. At my PhD university, students can download RefWorks free of charge. In cases like that, it's highly likely that your professors (at least those on campus) will be using whichever is free, so that might be the one you should use too.

Excellent point.

[HYHY02]

My university promotoes/uses Refworks for all of it's students. I find it that it gets the job done well. I know some people who have had in proper citations in their bibliography when using the automated tool on Refworks, and didn't check. I use the tool, but always check myself if everything is fine, but I don't recall ever having problems with it. Love the ability to organize all my references, and it's even better when the journal/article search engines I use have Refworks part of the citation tools, which makes it easier. Can't speak for the others, but I'd recommend Refworks from my experience.

Edited September 5, 2013 by HYHY02

[danieleWrites]

I use Word and OneNote because I'm boring that way. My bibs are annotated. However, I will be looking into things like Refworks and Mendeley. I'm all for using the right tool for the job.

[juilletmercredi]

I hate hate hate EndNote.  In fact, I hate EndNote so much that my advisor actually started a Zotero account so that I could sync our libraries and he could see mine (he doesn't mind).  I don't have any rational reason to hate EndNote so much except that I found it difficult to use and enter my information.

 

I am currently trying to decide between Zotero and Papers2.  Zotero I really really like because of the online synchronization of all of my articles, which makes it easier for me to access my information from multiple computers; because of the ease of entering new journals and books into my libraries; and because of the easy organization of the articles into collections and subcollections that make sense.  Papers2 I like because of the ease of finding metadata for journals I already have; the ability to read, annotate, and highlight PDFs right in the app; and, most importantly, the synchronization with my iPad through the Papers for iPad app.  Zotero requires an add-on and a $10 app for my iPad to properly sync and I have yet to decide whether it's worth it.

 

What I want to be able to do is read, highlight, and annotate papers on my iPad, save them, and then be able to read them on my computer with all of my notes and highlights intact (and thus use them when I'm writing my literature reviews).  But I'd also like to be able to see them if I am using the library computers for some reason, and I'd like to be able to easily find them within my library and be able to find the PDF for a citation I have.  So right now I am leaning towards Papers2 because it has more of what I want but I rarely use other computers aside from my own.

 

I also know that Mendeley is FREE and has an iPad app, and it seems to have everything I want, but I just didn't get it.  Perhaps I should try again.

[rising_star]

Don't feel bad, I didn't get Mendeley either and totally gave up on it. I'm now at the point where I've really got to make a decision because I'm beyond the free storage part of Zotero so my stuff doesn't actually sync anymore, which is annoying when I'm working in my office vs on my personal computer. I can't convince myself that it's worth the (admittedly small) amount of money because I could probably find something free... Any ideas?

[pears]

Excellent point.

 

Also agreed. I'm very lucky, in that both my undergrad and current grad schools offered RefWorks for free, and tutorials for how to use it. A good place to start might be asking your library whether they offer any "how-to" type tutorials for bibliography tools; even if they can't necessarily give it out fo' free, they might be able to find you discounts, or you can get good enough at one specific biblio tool to make it worth paying for.

[demogragirl]

I use EndNote -- it is expensive compared to free options but if your advisor or other source can offset the cost, I think its worth it!

[jamesshaffer85]

I'm in love with Endnote. As soon as I started using it, I have no problems with citing my sources. Moreoverm it saves the materials I once used and allows to create something similar to your personal database. I highly recommend you this tool

[30rus]

mandeley is great, i read it here and have only been using it for around a couple of days but its fantastic, and very user friendly and not complicated unlike Endnote and stuff. 1;you give it your pdf's and papers and stuff 2.check if it got their information out correct 3.install the word plugin and your ready to go

[Tox Student at Purdue]

I use Mendeley and have been able to recycle all the hard copies of journal articles! Going paperless! My committee all use EndNote, but have had no complaints about Mendeley. Also, for stats... GraphPad Prism. It is wonderful. Out of this world amazing. But $$$.

 

Good luck.

[toasterazzi]

I've used Mendeley, Endnote and Zotero, and I've found that Mendeley works best for me.