RefWorks
Beyond Bibliographies
By Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit
Do you enjoy most aspects of research, but dread the final job of creating a formatted bibliography? Thankfully, the days of sweating over where to add each comma in bibliographic citations are gone; software that generates and formats bibliographies now makes the tedium associated with this important but time-consuming aspect of research a thing of the past. Like most academic institutions, NYU supports the use of these bibliographic citation tools. Included among those supported by the NYU Libraries are RefWorks, ProCite, and Endnote (see http://library.nyu.edu/bib/). This article will focus on RefWorks, one of the most powerful and easiest to use of the major bibliographic management tools, and available to NYU students, faculty, and staff through a free account from the Libraries.1
Bibliographic software programs offer a myriad of citation format options, from the standard MLA and APA formats, to the far more obscure. With hundreds of styles to choose from, few researchers armed with a RefWorks account will have to construct their own citations. With RefWorks, researchers can automatically generate a bibliography from the database of sources they've selected and stored; footnotes and citations within the text of a paper are similarly easy to produce.
Beyond bibliographies, RefWorks and the other tools noted above are increasingly used to manage and organize research. With RefWorks, researchers can create a database of all types of material, from books found in a library catalog (like BobCat), to articles in databases and pages from websites. References can be added "on the fly" from most electronic sources while searching, thereby alleviating a lot of extra work and effort. Once added, the citations can be organized into any number of folders. In addition, a practically unlimited Notes field is available, allowing the researcher to add personal information, including quotations and other details taken from the work to be cited.
Figure 1. The SFX tool is easily accessible from within RefWorks.
RefWorks is web-based, and so can be used from any computer with Internet access. Many of the Library's searchable e-collections allow direct exporting to RefWorks and the other bibliographic citation tools. The Advanced tab within SFX (
)—a tool in many of the Libraries' databases that leads you to full text versions of e-resources—offers direct export to any of the three citation software programs, making it easy for researchers to execute a search, find items, and, with a mouse click, add them to the bibliographic tool of their choice.
Advanced Features
Since citing and using websites for research is now common practice, RefWorks also provides a bookmarklet that allows researchers to "grab" website data, which is then directly imported into their RefWorks databases of citations. The RefGrab-It bookmarklet can be added to web browser toolbars or included among the browser's favorites. Once the website is added to a RefWorks database using the bookmarklet, the captured website data can be edited for proper citation output.
Figure 2. The option to download a citation using RefWorks is
available within the SFX Advanced tab.
While these citation software programs are primarily used as convenient tools for generating formatted bibliographies, they provide additional functionality to keep pace with the increasingly social nature of the Internet. Realizing that their academic audience might want to share research with one another, RefWorks includes a feature called RefShare. This tool allows scholars to share their research—stored in RefWorks—with select colleagues, or with the entire University. Options can be selected to allow group editing of these shareable folders, as well as to create RSS feeds. These features are particularly useful for faculty who might want to include folders of references in NYU Blackboard or other course management systems, rather than individually include article citations.
In an effort to become a one-stop online research portal, RefWorks now includes an RSS feed reader. Whereas many researchers used to subscribe to subject "alerts" and journal tables of contents via email, many journals now deliver their table of contents through RSS feeds. Any RSS feed can be added to the RSS section of RefWorks. Once a feed is added to the RefWorks RSS area, the researcher can view and search any of the articles in the feed seamlessly within the RefWorks interface, and add the citations to any of their folders within RefWorks. They can also set up an RSS feed for their own shareable folders, as mentioned above. For details about these advanced features, see http://library.nyu.edu/tools/refworks/tutorials/guidesandtutorials.html.
Catalog Your Personal Library—the Easy Way
In addition to managing items found in libraries, RefWorks can be very useful for researchers with their own personal libraries. Large collections of books, journals, and other materials can be challenging to maintain. When collections become large and unwieldy, finding a desired item can be daunting—that's why libraries have catalogs. With a RefWorks account, researchers can quickly "copy catalog" items, and even assign them a Library of Congress Dewey classification number; items so cataloged can be shelved and retrieved with ease.
Figure 3. RefWorks makes it easy to edit and annotate your saved references.
Open a RefWorks Account—It's Free!
To begin using RefWorks, visit the NYU Libraries' website, http://library.nyu.edu/tools/refworks/basic.html, and follow the instructions found under "Getting Started with RefWorks." Even if you leave NYU at some point in the future, individual accounts can be maintained for an annual subscription fee (currently $100 a year).
Footnote
- Technical support for ProCite and Endnote is also provided by the Libraries, but these tools must be acquired by the researcher.
Author Biographies
Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit is the Instructional Design Librarian at NYU's Bobst Library.