Literature management

Exponential growth of scientific publications and increasing sensitivity towards plagiarism make the organisation of literature and their correct citation more important than ever. Literature (reference) management software helps authors cope with these tasks and generally provides a variety of other useful functions.

Software features

Typical functions of software for literature management include:

• Searching & collecting references (bibliographic information and corresponding full texts)

• Organising and editing references (incl. annotations, tags, PDFs, websites etc.)

• Citing references and generating bibliographies according to the citation style required

• Sharing references with other colleagues

• Syncing/accessing reference libraries to/from various devices (e.g. desktop, laptop, smartphone, tablet)

We recommend and support Endnote and Zotero (incl. trainings).

Finding the best software for you

Besides Endnote and Zotero, plenty of further software solutions are available. Each of them has its specific pros and cons. Frequent switching between software is strongly discouraged! 

The following points should be taken into consideration to find out which one is the best for your needs: 

• If you have many collaborative projects, which software is used predominantly by your collaborators?
• How important is it for you to use the software also outside of an institutional licence? 
• And most importantly: Which one fits best in your personal workflow?