About citation managers
A citation manager helps you keep track of articles and books as you find them, tag and annotate them, and easily create citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word. Using any citation manager will be more efficient for most scholars than not using one at all. Each manager has its own plug-in for Microsoft Word and some also have browser plug-ins for easy capture of web links. Each manager also has built-in connections to Google Scholar and common library reference databases. Each manager has options for group-based collaborative research.
RefWorks, the most popular choice on campus, is provided by Penn Libraries for the Penn community (including alumni). It is a stable, well-established platform, but has limitations in terms of working with PDF files.
Endnote, the oldest of the five, works well for the health sciences and for large collections of articles, despite some technical and installation issues.
Zotero is an open-source software program that is notable for its ease of use, its ability to grab screenshots, and its capabilities for archiving website content for local storage.
Mendeley, the newest option of the five, is a cloud-based proprietary system that includes Facebook-style social networking, PDF annotation, a platform for self-promotion and crowd-sourcing of citations and annotations. Mendeley has a wide range of functionality but suffers from performance and accuracy issues.
We recommend that you explore a variety of citation managers, consulting with library staff as needed, before choosing one. We can provide guidance on best practices and share our experiences.