Refworks
Refworks is a web-based bibliographic management utility. That means that it stores references of the sort that you use in an academic paper. Refworks is somewhat outside the scope of this site because it’s not anywhere near free. However, many colleges and universities (like SCSU) subscribe to it for their students and faculty, so from the user’s point of view it may be free for use.
You must set up an account with Refworks, either via the university server or using the Group Code assigned to the university. (Contact the Reference Department for more information.) Once you have the account, you can log in from anywhere. There are no required downloads.
There is a Refworks Tutorial from Refworks, plus a Buley RefWorks Tutorial and a RefWorks QuickStart Guide designed by Buley librarians. Buley Library also offers classes on using Refworks, see http://www.library.southernct.edu/refworks.html for a schedule.
Most of the major databases allow for automatic importing of references in Refworks, though each one does it in a slightly different fashion. For most, mark the citations you want to import and go to the Save function. One option should be to save/import into bibliographic mananagement software. For databases like EBSCO’s Academic Search Premier, Refworks is a direct option. For others, like Science Direct, you must download a file in RIS format and import in 2 steps. Check the help files in the database or Refworks, contact me or the Reference Department for more information on individual databases. You can also import directly from library catalogs and PubMed through the Search function. Imports may need some editing, especially for format. Print Journal is the default for most imports. Occassionally, links will need to be moved to the URL field for proper electronic citations. You can also enter citations manually.
You can organize your citations within Refworks into folders for different projects. Since a citation can be in more than one folder, you can reuse citations in different projects. Folders provide the basis for creating Bibliographies/Reference Lists, so it is to your advantage to create a new folder for each paper/project. Citations are also searchable.
The real gem of Refworks is the ability to create Bibliographies in nearly any citation format. Bibliographies can be created from any folder of citations, and displayed or downloaded for copying into a word processor. There is also a downloadable program called Write-N-Cite which works with MS Word. Using Write-N-Cite, you create in-text citations and the bibliography is automatically generated at the end of the paper. Check the tutorials for more information, as the process is a little too complicated to cover in this review.
There are several fields to use for user notetaking. The Notes field is sometimes used by the import function for database information. However, there are 5 User fields which are also searchable, and so make very good note fields. You could use these fields for quotations you wanted to use, commentary on the article itself, or cross references to other articles, or any other notes. There is no indication of a character limit for any of these fields.
Refworks is not designed primarily for collaboration. There is a separate product, RefShare, (not subscribed to by SCSU) for collaborative efforts. However, users can assign a Read-Only password for others to view their citations, and a group could share a password, though someone still has to provide a primary email address for registration. There is no particular notice against this in the Refworks Terms of Use, but as it is a subscription service, you should not share with someone outside the university who would not be able to get their own account.
I have not seen anything else that is quite as comprehensive a bibliographic management program that is accessible over the web.
