Hi Bart,
I use Endnote to both archive and reference. It's fairly easy to get used to and manage. If your university has a CHEST licence you can buy your own own copy for about £60 - £70.
You can get more infromation at http://www.adeptscience.co.uk/a4e/search/5/6/EndNote+(CHEST+Licence).html
Pia

Thanks for the advice!

I'll check them out.

Refworks may be a free service through your learning institutions library. It is a free service for registerd students at SJSU through our school library portal. Also you can use a web based product such as delicious bookmarks which is free. You can access all you saved websites and articles from any computer as it is a web based product. Also has some search features as well.

You can also use refworks but it gets a bit complicated sometimes...

Does anyone know any good tools to manage my ever-growing collection of literature?

At the moment I'm just putting the .pdf files in folders. However I anticipate that this way of archiving will not work in the long run.

I imagine a program with a good search function, maybe with tags?

What do you use?

Managing literature was a challenge for me as began my research. However, the key is to begin to think about your research before getting the research together. Having said that, like someone mentioned in another post, using various software to organize notes and references could get to be a bot overwhelming. Just one more piece to a puzzle that makes things that much more challenging. In my case, it seems to have lengthened the process of getting the dissertaion completed. It's costly (money and emotionally) and simply takes too much time.

So, what I use to store what notes, comments, bibliographies, references, etc., is Onenote from Micro$oft. It uses a tabbed interface, merges seamlessly with M$ Word, Excel, Outlook (if use it), and it appears to be more user friendly. As someone whose never written at this magnitude on this level, all I need is for another software program to get in the way, so to speak. Technology is great. But when its a hindrance or adds extra work, it's something I don't need to add to my thought process. Old fashion note taking is still the great way to go!

I am researching what off- and on-line referencing tools early-career researchers are (discovering and) using. I am trying to identify different opportunities so this thread has been a great help. If there are other tools that people are aware of, please share this with the community.

I am also trying to assess the usuage of some of the newer online tools and the disadvantages and advantages people have experienced. Please share your experiences. Any thoughts and comments would be great not only for this research project but for others in the community.

I personally used EndNote for my dissertation as this was already installed on my computer when I got it. I therefore didn’t really shop around at the time or evaluate the advantages or disadvantages of other opportunities. As it was also installed I didn’t think about the cost. I found it very intuitive to use but did find it a problem when I went to the university computing room or library and used other computers as I could obviously not access my library.

I have also heard a lot about Zotero (open source). I have so far read some very positive reviews on Zotero but that the only constraint being that because it is open source it needs to be run in Firefox. I would really love to hear from anyone who has/is actually using it. I am considering trying it out for this current project. Actually, exciting the key lead on the Zotero project, Dan Cohen of George Mason University, is actually coming to give the second Arcadia Lecture in Cambridge in April so I hope to have suitable questions ready....so if anyone has any specific feedback about Zotero I'd also be very interested to hear about this too.

Unison (Google "Unison File Synch") is a good, free tool for keeping folders in synch between computers. I use it to keep synchronised between PC at home, a USB key, and at uni. I currently keep quite a large number of PDFs organised into a folder structure, plus notes and data in other structures. Experimented with Zotero, but don't find myself using it that often. Also have just started looking at "swish-e" (free) which can create index files, including PDFs, I believe on Linux and Windows, but seems to require a bit of effort and technical know-how ... there do seem to be other free alternatives which may be simpler to get going. I can see such a tool becoming useful as my document and research collection grows.

Thanks everyone for continuing to update my search for different online referencing tools. Checked out all the tools listed here.

So far my preference lies with Zotero. I very much like the fact that it is an Open Source project rather than some of the other commercially-driven sites. It is very intuitive and has good integration features and allows you to easily store, organise, cite any source of information. You can also automatically synchronise the work you have done locally with your research materials between multiple computers. Would definitely recommend people checking out this particular tool.

I just found out that EndNote has an online tool called EndNoteWeb. I haven't used it myself but the idea of using a relatively familiar software to access references online does appeal to me.

Has anybody got any experience of EndNoteWeb?

Hi Matthew,

I have always been a little dubious about throwing myself into using Mendeley as I really like the Open Source movement and I feel like using something with a coding and support 'community' means it is likely to be more sustainable in the future. So that point I agree with Esther. I've also heard rumours and read a couple of blog posts about some copyright issues with Mendeley that they are getting into trouble with.....

I prefer Zotero because of the open source aspect and also the credibility that it has being attached to a University, with a big grant behind it. I would always use an open source software if it is comparable quality to the commercial options (Mendeley, EndNote, RefWorks etc). Zotero meets my needs and is comparable if not better than other options.

Hey Jimme,

It looks great, but how does it differ drastically from other document management like GoogleDocs?

Cheers,

Katie

Dear all Bart and Kateneva,
Thanks for sharing Zetero and Connotea, These can be a choice for those who can't buy Endnote and Refworks.

Thanks
Alemneh

Another good place to find literature is Worldcat which indexes more than 10,000 libraries around the world and also gives you online tools to create reading lists and bibliographies.

http://www.worldcat.org/

I have used this before and it seems to be growing really nicely with a nice easy to use interface - definitely one to try out.