Software for science reference management



It is a common task that can become a struggle for scientists to collect, organise, and cite references. Several pieces of software have been made over the years to help us with those activities. If you know any please share them here with your comments on usability, features, and reliability.

Cross-platform bibliography solutions

 * Bibus - opensource bibliography manager similar to EndNote for RefMan (Mac, Win, Linux)
 * Zotero - Firefox extension to help collect, manage, and cite references
 * CiteULike - online bibliography management (see also Wikipedia entry on CiteULike)
 * Mendeley - Desktop (Win, Mac & Linux) and online social software for managing and sharing research papers. (Free)
 * RefFormer - online software for extraction of journal references from text

Reference software for the Mac

 * BibDesk (BibTex reference database w PubMed download, free)
 * Skim - PDF reader and annotation software (free)
 * Papers (bibliography software by MekenTosj, shareware)
 * Endnote was also ported to the Mac but has been more or less buggy during recent version history; also different library and search windows cause a lot of screen clutter
 * add your favorite here with a comment

Reference software for the PC

 * Endnote by Thomson Scientific (see wikipedia)
 * Reference Manager also by Thomson Scientific (see wikipedia)
 * Mendeley - Desktop application with web integration (Also available on Mac & Linux)
 * add your favorite here with a comment

Reference software on Linux/UNIX

 * LaTeX together with BibTeX
 * add your favorite here with a comment