Reference Management

Tracy Kent, Open Access Coordinator, Information Services, University of Birmingham ( t.k.kent@bham.ac.uk )

Recent developments in Reference Software

Outlined below are some of the new packages around that support the reference process. It seems that the trend dictates repurposing the citations (HistCite and Publish or Perish) or customising the software to fit more of your user profile (Knightcite, Refworks and Endnote). If you have any suggestions for inclusion please do let me know.

HistCite

A program recently launched that is very similar in concept to RefViz ( www.refviz.com ). It allows the user to download a set of search results (currently from Web of Science only) into HistCite. Once there, they can be manipulated based on frequency of various key bibliographic elements or based on citation relationships. You can determine the most cited articles, authors or institutions, which can prove useful if you are trying to populate a repository! The software is able to create diagrams of the citation relationships which show the subjects' areas key events, their chronology and their relative influence. It comes highly recommended, as Eugene Garfield, the program's inventor, is the founder of bibliometrics. Further details from www.histcite.com where a 30-day trial is available.

Publish or Perish

A refreshing title for a software program! It is designed to help individual academics to present their case for research impact to its best advantage. This software program retrieves and analyses academic citations using a variety of measures including total number of papers, total number of citations and average number of citations per paper. It uses Google Scholar (which uses the citation feature like the ISI citation element but is slightly broader in its coverage) to obtain new citations, then analyses them. You can then save the results to various software programs, including Endnote and CSV. It is free for personal, non-profit use. Further details from http://www.harzing.com/resources.htm#/pop.htm .

Knightcite

This is perhaps the future of citation software for undergraduates. This free package has been developed for staff and students at Calvin College and is effectively a cut down version of all the other packages you find. Instead of being marketed as offering hundreds of output styles, it offers just the three main academic citation styles. This means less confusion for undergraduates about which style to present their references in, whilst emphasising the need to maintain accurate citations. The software recognises a range of reference types, including sacred texts and cartoons, and can deal with a mix of print and electronic sources. Students create an online account and develop different papers online and mix and match citations as appropriate. Further details can be found at www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/

RefWorks

RefWorks has a number of new features worth noting. These include the new Mac Write-N-Cite which has a Citation Editor feature; Customisable Output Style List using the Output Style Manager; and finally ensuring that in the AccuCite, all the recommended fields for that output style will be displayed together. This makes it easier to see which fields of information AccuCite recommends. Further details can be found at www.refworks.com

Endnote

A reference software column would not be complete without mention of Endnote. There is now an update for Endnote X1.0.1 (downloadable from the website or from under the Endnote program updates on Help) which includes the following features:

• Ability to create more groups in each library
• Endnote for Windows mobile/pocket PC
• Formatting support for Open Office Type ODT files using the Format Paper command
• And very usefully, the reference preview now displays active URLs for quick release.

If you are wanting an alternative to daytime TV, you can always download the “What's new in Endnote X1” video!

And finally WenXianWang

Google Scholar has allowed the setting of your preferences for downloading an import file for BibTex , EndNote , RefMan , RefWorks , and WenXianWang. This makes Google Scholar far more useful than before. However I cannot find anything about WenXianWang. Even Google Scholar seems to make no reference to it. Can anyone help me? All answers on a postcard please to the author of the column.