Reference management

Manually keeping track of and citing the sources you use can be a time-consuming process. A reference manager, like EndNote, Mendeley or Zotero, helps you with this.   

Reference managers are software that store bibliographic information in a personal online 'library'.

Reference managers enable you to:  

• store and save references and publications in one place; 

• organise sources in folders and with tags;

• insert well-formatted citations and bibliographies in different citation styles; 

• add notes and comments to sources;

• share references with others.

The three most-used reference managers are EndNote, Mendeley and Zotero. Would you like to know more about these programs? Read the instruction manuals or follow the tutorials!

EndNote, Mendeley or Zotero – which should I choose?

There is no single reference manager that is in every respect better than any other. However, a particular programme may be better suited to the type of work you do or the field you are in.

There are already many overviews that compare the features, advantages and disadvantages of different reference managers. See, for example, Comparison of Reference Management Software (Wikipedia) or Choosing a Reference Manager (Bodleian Libraries).

When choosing a reference manager, consider the following questions:

• Which reference manager do people in my field use? Using the same program makes it easier to share sources.
• How much storage space do I need?
• Is the reference manager compatible with the word processor (e.g. MS Word) that I use? 
• Which databases and types of sources do I use frequently? Is there a reference manager that integrates these better?

Do you use a wide variety of sources and want to import them directly into your library? In that case, Zotero is a good choice. Additionally, Zotero is a non-profit, open-source program. If you don't want to worry about storage space, EndNote is a good option – Leiden University offers unlimited storage in EndNote via an institutional licence. If, in addition to saving references, you’d also like to easily read and annotate PDFs within the program, Mendeley, with its comprehensive PDF reader, is a good fit for you. 

Change your mind and want to use a different reference manager? Fortunately, it is relatively easy to switch to another program, even if you have already added items to your library.