Reference Management Software Revisited
Back in Fall of 2014 we discussed reference management software and apps. Bibdesk and Zotero seemed to be the most popular options at the time. A reader has written in asking us to revisit the topic, noting that when it comes to information technology, a year and a half is a long time. What new options are out there? Have people’s preferences changed? Let us know. Thanks.
(1) This might have come up last time, but this comprehensive comparison of Docear, Zotero, and Mendeley has been useful to me: http://www.docear.org/2014/01/15/comprehensive-comparison-of-reference-managers-mendeley-vs-zotero-vs-docear/
(2) For those who use Zotero and have a Mac, iPad, and/or iPhone, you might look into Papership: http://www.papershipapp.com/
The obvious advantage is syncing and accessing your Zotero database across all devices. An ancillary advantage is a different (better looking?) UI. Also, you can add citation info from your iPad or iPhone from Papership’s iOS app.
To be clear, Papership requires one to use Zotero.
What I really need is for other people to refer to my work. Does anyone know about reference magnitism software?
I hear one of my counterparts is working on such software. He’s having problems determinately referring to the “plus” method, though, and worries that the calculation of citation counts might start delivering “quus” values at some point.
I continue to see some value in Mendeley as a way to manage my collection of PDFs, but I used it as a citation manager recently while working on a short paper and don’t plan to repeat that experience. It increased rather than decreased the time that I spent on my citations.
Mendeley has been a positive experience for me, but I’ve only used it with Word. It’s flawless there, so far as I can tell. It has an option to keep an updated .bib file, I haven’t tried that.