Thanks to everyone who sent ideas and thoughts on freeware citation management systems. There was overwhelming support for Zotero, but below is a summary of the various frameworks suggested (Mendeley not included, since that was the one I was war-ing with originally):
1. Zotero – Firefox add-on. http://www.zotero.org/ - Don't expect the style library to be perfect, but at least you can make your own modifications. - I like Zotero. I've tried Jabref as well, but prefer Zotero. ********************************* 2. I have heard good things about http://www.citeulike.org ********************************* 3. Have you thought about usig BibTeX (http://www.bibtex.org/) or JabRef (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/) I have tried Mendeley too but came back to EndNote... - BibTex is a decent way to manage refs (I use BibDesk), but I don't think there is a way to generate bibs in anything other than latex or tex documents. It works great in the LaTex world, but if you are not in this world, it may be a hassle. ********************************* 4. Try Bibus ********************************* 5. Bibdesk and JabRef are both free bibtex-based managers. BibDesk is the one I am familiar with, but it is Mac only. As far as I can tell, JabRef is very similar, except that it is cross-platform. Both of them can be described as having an itunes-like interface for managing references. BibTex is a really good, robust, simple and free system for managing citations, but is somewhat underappreciated in ecology. The easiest way to get BibTex data is to set the preferences in Google Scholar to include a download bibtex link (all the way at the bottom of the preferences page). ********************************* 6. On another sciency list-serv, there was a similar discussion topic, which I was extremely interested in. You'll probably be interested in the following link/reference that was sent out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software ********************************* 7. Endnote Web. https://www.myendnoteweb.com/EndNoteWeb.html ********************************* 8. A couple of months ago, somebody asked the same question on eco-log. (http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg17423.html) ********************************* 9. A friend uses one called 'Papers' for macs that she likes, its not free but its cheap. ******************************** -- ------------------------------------------------ Meg Krawchuk, Ph.D. Post-doctoral Research Fellow Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management 335 Mulford Hall University of California, Berkeley office phone: 510.642.9499 web: http://nature.berkeley.edu/~megk/ mailing address: 130 Mulford Hall MC #3114 University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California 94720 U.S.A.
