Please recommend bibliography software.

December 20, 2010 8:25 AM

Bibliography software recommendations?

I'm an academic and am currently using endnote to manage my bibliographies. I'm wondering if there is something better/less annoying.

Endnote definitely works, I just find it annoying - I feel like it does more than I need, I don't like the interface, and it seems clunky.

The things I want are:
(1) the ability to import citations from journal websites or web of science;
(2) the ability to export selected citations in bibtex format;
(3) good search of the library (including abstracts);
(4) the ability to link PDFs of journal articles to the citation in the library;
(5) something that runs on windows 7.

Any suggestions?

posted by lab.beetle to computers & internet (11 answers total)

I use Refworks through my university. It works pretty well, though I don't know about some of the specific features you have mentioned.
posted by Canageek at 8:36 AM on December 20, 2010

Mendeley.
posted by sinfony at 8:46 AM on December 20, 2010

One other thing: it would be helpful to be able to import information either from my current endnote library or from my collection of PDFs.

I'll look into Mendeley and Refworks, thanks.
posted by lab.beetle at 8:51 AM on December 20, 2010

A lot of people I know like Zotero.
posted by RogerB at 9:09 AM on December 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

In graduate school, we were encouraged to use EndNote. I liked it back in the early 2000's and would imagine, but can't verify, that they've kept up with the times.
posted by bluejayway at 10:39 AM on December 20, 2010

Should have previewed...actually, should have fully read the question.
posted by bluejayway at 10:41 AM on December 20, 2010

I like Zotero a lot.
posted by bardophile at 11:17 AM on December 20, 2010

I like both Zotero and Mendeley. I used to only use Zotero, but now I have a tablet computer that doesn't run Firefox, so I've switched to Mendeley.
posted by lollusc at 3:40 PM on December 20, 2010

I'm not sure what version you're using, but EndNote should have the ability to do 1, 3, and 4. It's actually made by the same company as Web of Science, so... definite export there.

I'm not sure about the other things, but I'd check. Do you have anyone on your campus who you could ask about EndNote?

The other suggestions in this thread are good, too, but I think EndNote already does some of what you want, unless I misunderstand the question.
posted by lillygog at 6:47 PM on December 20, 2010

You didn't specify what platform you're on, so this may not help, but on the mac I love BibDesk, which is a front-end for BibTeX. You can import citations in BibTeX format from Google Scholar, a lot of journals (the ACM Portal is most relevant to me, but I know IEEE does it too, and a lot of other journals I've seen). BibTeX can integrate with Pages and Word via various bib-generation scripts, and is the thing for LaTeX typesetting. I know that similar software to BibDesk exists for Windows, but I can't recommend it since I've never used it.
posted by Alterscape at 8:50 PM on December 20, 2010

Try Zotero. It is still evolving but works fine, and I personally find that its complete integration with the browser (Firefox only for a while longer) is a very comfortable way to work.
posted by Mngo at 7:30 AM on December 21, 2010