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Reference managers

Systematically collecting, organising and citing your literature can be an overwhelming and time consuming process. A reference manager can help you with that.   This is software with which you can gather, store and organize your references, including pdf-files. You can insert citations and a bibliography in your Word document and change the references in almost any style, like APA or MLA. The reference manager allows you to search, sort and share your references. Leiden University provides a campus-wide subscription to EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero.

Reference management software enables you to:  

  • search and store literature, including PDF files, in a personal database  

  • import citations from databases   

  • organize citations by characteristics or in groups  

  • automatically insert well-formatted citations and bibliographies into Word in your style of choice  

  • share citations  

On the right side of this page, you can enroll for one of our courses on each of the three reference managers Leiden University has to offer. You can also visit the pages dedicated to its own reference manager, on the left side of this page.

Which reference manager should you choose? 

Which reference manager you want to use depends on different aspects. Firstly, a specific reference manager may be preferred within your discipline. To make collaborating easier, picking the reference manager your peers use, might be a good choice. This will allow you to share documents, annotations and references more easily.   

Other factors to take into consideration are your personal preferences and working style. Do you primarily collect PDFs from e-journals, or do you collect bibliographic references from catalogues? In case of the former, you’ll most likely prefer Mendeley because of its elaborate PDF feature. In case of the latter, you may want to use EndNote, as its exporting feature is very straightforward. Zotero gives you the possibility to add websites and other online sources directly to your library, which might be very useful in your field. 

  For a more comprehensive comparison of reference management software see this Wikipedia article. Not sure which programme to use yet? Don’t worry, it is relatively easy to switch to another programme if you change your mind!  

Which reference managers does Leiden University offer?  

EndNote is the standard, licensed bibliographic software used by Leiden University. Read more about EndNote on the dedicated webpage. 

Mendeley is a free programme that you can download to your own computer, but it can also be downloaded to the university computers, using your own account.  Read more about Mendeley on the dedicated webpage. 

Zotero is a free open-source tool that you can download to your own computer or use online to collect your sources and cite them. At the moment it is only possible to download Zotero on a university computer by requesting it via the ISSC. This is the paid version of Zotero, which offers more storage. 

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