Reference Management

Tracy Kent, Digital Assets Programme Advisor, University of Birmingham ( t.k.kent@bham.ac.uk )

In the last column I gave an overview of the packages available that were free, on open source or available via commercial routes. What I did not highlight (and thanks to Alan Aitken for mentioning this) are those packages that organisations may well pay for through institutional subscriptions. For the researchers, these are seen as “cost free” although institutions are tied into the bibliographic tool that is provided with the package. Such packages include

• Refworks
• Endnote Web

Refworks is a basic reference software package, aimed mainly at graduates, and works exclusively with Microsoft Word. Currently there are no plug-ins for Open Office, iWorks or Word Perfect for Linux. Before formatting (outside of Microsoft) users need to convert the paper to RTF. There is a new version due out at the end of January 2010. This may be an issue, and suggests that users may be forced to use a specific word processor to use a university-provided subscription service.

Often the downside is that once researchers leave the organisation they would have to pay to continue using the service or change packages. Refworks, in recognition of this, has just begun an Alumni program that allows alumni to stay with Refworks, provided the organisation maintains a subscription.

Endnote Web is a Web-based version of the latest available version of Endnote, if you subscribe to ISI Web of Knowledge. It is a bit clunky in parts, but mainly services the post-graduate audience, or those researchers who work between home and office, and who wish to download toolbars onto computers they use most often and thence access the data from either location. The issue here is more about students who do most of their work on publicly accessible PCs, as most will not allow the downloading of toolbars. Again, organisations are dependent on retaining subscriptions to a specific package. When times are tough this might be a reason to retain a subscription

Kile
For those against Microsoft domination and who use TeX/LaTeX, there is Kile 1.9.3 open-source software, which has been developed by Jeroen Wijnhout. It is a user-friendly TeX/LaTeX editor for the KDR desktop environment, with the easy insertion of citations and references

http://kile.sourceforge.net/index.php

It may be that users simply require the use of something like Citation Machine which, via a simple interface, allows you to add your data and have a reference list fully formatted in your chosen (albeit small number) style.

http://citationmachine.net/

A new package worth exploring is iCyte, which enables you to highlight and save text on any webpage allowing you to recall the most relevant information. It is available at

http://www.icyte.com

AIP UniPHY, a reference management product overlaid with social networking technology to allow, encourage and facilitate connections between users and research output, has been developed by the American Institute of Physics. Content is taken from the API's SPIN database, essentially basic author information, and enables you to create author profiling. Although set up for the physical sciences it does have applications and uses across most disciplines. Users need to build their profiles and then build the network they wish to be associated with. A unique feature is the graphical representation of your results (for example, worldwide location of authors in your chosen field).This can be developed further to include views of who has worked with whom, and where.

http://www.aipuniphy.org/Portal/Portal.aspx

Although ResearchGATE is a professional network for scientists, it has a useful tool that enables researchers to add papers to the network for discovery, especially those which are open access and so can be linked to. The cite and share options are also embedded.

https://www.researchgate.net/

Finally, a recommendation on identifying practical solutions for open source can be taken from Nicole Engard's book entitled Practical Open Source Software for Libraries , due at the end of May. Nicole is an Open Source Evangelist at LibLime. It provides a very useful overview of open source, explaining what it means, and provides links to a toolbox full of freely available open-source products to use in your library – including reference management options! A full review will appear in a future edition of Elucidate .

You may also be interested in the UKeiG Annual Seminar and AGM on Wednesday 16th June 2010 in London, entitled “Are you Leading or Following: Practical Implementation of Open Source Applications”. If you are using open source (or indeed any other software) in your institution as a reference management tool, and would like to contribute to this Seminar do get in touch.