In November 2001, the ISI ResearchSoft company released an upgrade to their Reference Manager citation software. The accompanying press release described how version 10 “streamlines the process of publishing research by providing a new level of integration with Microsoft Word, new ways to store links to online and Web-based research, and direct access to ISI Web of Science.” This statement captured the essence of the enhancements made to one of the major software programs of this type.
Citation managers are increasingly valuable to scholars and researchers. Generally useful as organizers for literature references, these programs now combine traditional features with new selections for handling sophisticated interactions with electronic resources. Advanced options for direct searching and retrieval of citations and linking to online articles are now important components of the software. These features extend the core functionality of automatic insertion of references and formatting of citations and bibliographies.
Bibliographic managers such as the Reference Manager program are designed to work in tandem with word-processing software. First, users build personalized databases of bibliographic citations. Using a few quick keystrokes, these references can then be inserted in documents or manuscripts. The final stage makes use of “output styles” to format the citations and bibliography. Output styles are templates based either on standards set by specific journals (e.g., JAMA) or generally accepted guidelines set by a particular publisher (e.g., American Psychological Association).
Reference Manager users can create an unlimited number of databases containing records with key data on a variety of standardized “reference types.” These entries describe different kinds of information resources, from journal articles and books to Internet communications and unpublished works. Each data record contains fields with information needed for citing a resource, as well as fields (such as keywords and abstracts) that help with the general management of research information. One of the earmarks of the Reference Manager version 10 upgrade is the addition of new fields that facilitate use of the program as a personal digital library. This aspect of the program has become increasingly important, reflecting the challenge of keeping up with the explosion of digital information. Previous versions of the software included a single field for entry of hyperlinked “Web/URL” information. The current version provides four additional dedicated, hyperlinked fields: link to PDF, link to full text, related links, and image(s). Moreover, an addition to the program provides hot linking from a bibliography listing containing a uniform resource locator (URL) to the electronic full text of the article. These new fields provide convenient options for maintaining links to an electronic “reprint file.”
As with version 9, Reference Manager version 10 provides direct connections to Internet resources that are Z39.50 compliant, including PubMed, library catalogs, and fee-based databases. In fact, Reference Manager enables simultaneous searching of more than 250 resources using this feature. Previously, the connect option defaulted to searching PubMed, the freely accessible public version of the MEDLINE database. With version 10, ISI Web of Science is now the default “Internet Search” selection. The company also boasts that Reference Manager users are now “allowed pay-per-view access to ISI eSource reference and documents.” Such blatant promotion of other ISI company products tarnishes a very useful component of the software.
The majority of the changes to Reference Manager version 10 involve the program's interaction with Microsoft Word, what is known as “Cite While You Write” (CWYW). These enhancements actually mirror those recently made to another ISI ResearchSoft citation management product, EndNote 5. Specifically, CWYW now includes instant formatting of citations and bibliographies, entering notes to citations without adding special codes, a “traveling library” containing complete bibliographic data for easier collaboration with colleagues, a quick command for removing behind-the-scenes codes (often needed before manuscripts are submitted to journal publishers), and quick customization of in-text citations. These additions to what was already a sophisticated and extremely useful part of the program strengthen the CWYW component of Reference Manager.
Although most of the changes made to this version of Reference Manager can be considered worthwhile improvements, experienced users of the software are likely to be the main beneficiaries. Overall, Reference Manager is a difficult program to learn and master. While powerful, the program is not intuitively designed. For example, listing the bulk of the Internet search options in a drop-down menu as “Z39.50 sites” seems unnecessary and confusing. Some features, such as grouping of records using Reference Index, only work after going through a frustrating series of steps. Even changing program defaults using the array of choices under the Tools menu requires careful study. Other features, such as the search window used for Internet queries and internal database searching, are effective but clunky in design. Exacerbating this situation, the manual is dense, not well indexed, and often difficult to follow.
Given these shortcomings, it is difficult to review Reference Manager without comparing it to EndNote, ISI ResearchSoft's most popular citation manager. Since acquiring EndNote in 1999, ISI ResearchSoft has greatly enhanced what had been a solid, well-designed, easy-to-use program that lacked the power of its chief competitors, Reference Manager and ProCite. EndNote version 5, released in June of 2001, successfully incorporates the traditional strengths of EndNote with the more sophisticated features of Reference Manager and ProCite. This is particularly evident in comparing the Cite While You Write portion of EndNote 5 with earlier versions.
For experienced users of Reference Manager, who have already invested the time and effort to learn the software and master its idiosyncrasies, upgrading to version 10 is an easy choice. For those who are at the stage of investigating options for bibliographic management software, EndNote 5 seems a much better alternative.