LibGuides: Reference Managers: Home

What are Reference Citation Managers?

Reference managers provide invaluable assistance as you research and write. They help you get organized and stay organized! Finally, they save a lot of time with formatting final papers. Here are just a few things they can provide for you!

Keep track of articles, books, and other sources you might use in your writing,
Organize, read, and annotate citations and PDFs.
Automatically generate in-text citations and bibliographies in your papers!
Annotate records with your notes.
Share and collaborate PDFs with others!

Free Reference Managers

The library does not subscribe to or support any reference citation manager. The following are free reference citation managers we highly recommend for use on your PERSONAL laptop or computer. These can not be downloaded to government computers. You can create a free account with options to upgrade with premium plans, if you need more storage or features.

Mendeley
A free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research in your field. It helps for storing a large number of PDF files. Huge online database of articles that you can easily add to your library. Free version comes with 2 GB of storage.
Zotero
Zotero is a non-profit company and is entirely open source. Zotero has been around since 2006. It is one of the first reference managers. Like Mendeley, it's easy to organize all your references. This is a great citation manager if you're likely to cite blogs, videos and webpages, and it captures relevant information with one-click. As it is open source, you can code it to suit your needs. Free version comes with 300 MB of storage.

Comparison of Mendeley and Zotero


Reference Manager	Mendeley	Zotero
Operating Systems Supported	Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux
Accessible from Web & Desktop	Yes	Yes
Cost	App: Free Storage: 2 GB Premium Plans: $4.99 + per month	App: Free Storage: Up to 300MB Premium Plans: $20 + per year extra storage
Mobile Apps	No	Yes
Ability to Share/Create Groups	Yes (private only)	Yes (public and private groups)
Tools to Help Capture Web Sites	Yes	Yes
Allows PDF Sync	Yes	Yes
Word Processor Plug-in	Microsoft Word, LibreOffice	Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, Google Docs
Pros	More free storage space; user-friendly; free searchable online database; good tools for adding and annotating PDFs.	User-friendly; open source; auto-detect items using web tool; unlimited no. of private or public groups.
Cons	Limited number of private groups/and collaborators	Limited storage space with free account