I really like Cornell’s table of similarities and differences among RefWorks, Zotero, EndNote, EndNote Web, Mendeley, and Papers. I also enjoy the irony that it has two dates, July 2009 and the last update date, currently March 4, 2011, so it would be difficult to choose the appropriate date to cite this table.
Recently a librarian listserv had a discussion of comparative merits of different citation management tools. A few of the messages pointed out advantages or disadvantages of particular tools. The differences were small. One handled citations with journal abbreviations worse than another. A couple exported references to BibTeX better than the others. The differences would be important for people in specific situations, but they wouldn’t matter much to most people.
I switched from EndNote Web to Zotero for my last paper for my own quirky reason. The version of Word on my office computer didn’t have an up-to-date Cite While You Write plug-in. I could install the Zotero add-in to Word without administrator privileges, but I would have had to contact a system administrator to install the one for EndNote Web. Administrator privileges aren’t a make-or-break concern for people on their own computers, but it mattered to me.
When students ask me which citation management tool is best, I honestly say that I don’t know. I usually suggest that their field, and so they can find other people in the department when they run into (inevitable?) technical glitches. I’m just glad that they are asking. I can’t imagine how someone could study for comprehensive exams or write a dissertation without something to help keep track of what they’ve read and to take care of most of the citation formatting.
1 comment:
In perfect timing, there's an article with comparisons in the latest Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship.
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