Acknowledgement
This guide was adapted, with permission, from the University of Texas at Arlington guide on RefWorks Migration Information.
Librarians who can help with specific citation managers
While we hope that you will contact your subject librarian first, you may also get in touch with these people about these products.
EndNote Basic: Necia Parker-Gibson, neciap@uark.edu; Luti Salisbury, lsalisbu@uark.edu; Jeremy Smith, jjs04@uark.edu
Mendeley: Jay McAllister III, jtmcalli@uark.edu; Norma Johnson njohns@uark.edu
Zotero: Beth Juhl, bjuhl@uark.edu, Norma Johnson, njohns@uark.edu; Laura Cameron lecamero@uark.edu; Sarah Spiegel, sspiegel@uark.edu; Melanie Griffin, melanieg@uark.edu
*December 2020 Expiration of RefWorks and What You Need to Know*
Campus Access to RefWorks to End
The University of Arkansas Libraries’ subscription to RefWorks will end on December 18, 2020. Please choose a new citation manager, such as EndNote Basic, Mendeley, Zotero, or another product, and transfer your references by December 18, 2020. After the deadline, RefWorks users who signed up through our campus, including alumni, will no longer be able to access their accounts.
The availability of free citation managers, coupled with budget constraints, drove the difficult decision to not renew our subscription to RefWorks. The following guide is designed to help you select a new citation management tool, and to answer questions you may have about migrating to a different one. To reiterate: please choose a new citation manager, such as EndNote Basic, Mendeley, Zotero or another product and transfer your references to it before the end of the Fall 2020 semester.
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Streamline your writing — and collaborations — with these reference managersNature 585, 149-150 (2020)
Note the comparison chart at the end. Thanks to Dr. Melody Herr for the suggestion!
Exploring Citation Management Tools
Need help organizing your sources?
Use a citation management tool to create personalized databases of your source references.
Citation management tools allow you to:
- import and organize citations
- create folders for different projects
- share folders with collaborators on group projects
- format citations and create reference lists in various styles
- write and store your personalized notes and annotations
Migrating Your RefWorks Data to a New Citation Management Tool
You can migrate your citations easily from RefWorks in to EndNote Basic, Mendeley, or Zotero. Detailed instructions for each are listed below.
- Exporting from RefWorks into Zotero
- Exporting from RefWorks into Mendeley
- Exporting from RefWorks into EndNote Basic
Converting RefWorks Word Documents to a New Citation Tool
RefWorks stores citation codes in your Word document linked to specific citation IDs in your RefWorks library. This structure makes it difficult to convert your Word document to an EndNote or Zotero document in one step. It takes several.
To convert an existing Word document, we recommend saving two copies of your RefWorks Word document:
- Save one copy with the notes and works cited / bibliography.
This version will still have the RefWorks codes embedded. - Save a second copy with a different name without the codes.
You can disable the codes with the Write-N-Cite plugin. There is a button to "disable field codes."
This is your clean copy that will continue to work independently of RefWorks.
Then, with your new citation manager running and the Word plugin installed, open the coded copy of your Word (number 1 above) and insert the citation references from your new citation manager.
Use version 2 to verify the citations you wish to insert.
Problems? Ask us. We can make an online appointment with you to walk through the process together.
Workshops
Librarians are prepared to offer help in migrating your citations to a new citation manager. Please contact your subject librarian for guidance. Workshops on using the various citation tools and migrating your RefWorks account will be posted soon.