Welcome to the Select a Citation Manager guide! We hope this guide will help you answer the following questions:
What are citation managers?
Citation managers are tools that can help you organize your references, PDFs, and other files as you conduct research. They can also help you format citations when writing and some can be used to collaborate and share references with a group.
Why should use a citation management tool?
What tools are available?
There are many citation management tools available. The Belmont University Libraries offer support for 3 tools: EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero. Those three tools will be presented on this guide.
| Zotero | Mendeley | EndNote | EndNote Basic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free (but can purchase additional cloud-based storage) | Free. Paid Premium plans available for additional storage and sharing capabilities. | Free through Belmont for grad students and faculty | Free |
| Access | Anyone | Anyone | Faculty, graduate students | Undergraduate students |
| Where is my database stored? | Cloud (300 MB for free, paid upgrades available), on computer | Options to store on cloud with online account or to download Mendeley Reference Manager for local computer storage with web-based syncing between computers |
Cloud (online) Desktop (software) |
Cloud |
| Offline access | Yes | Yes, with Mendeley Reference Manager | Yes | No |
| Word-processor compatibility | Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, Google Docs | Microsoft Word 2016 and above, the Word app for iPad and Word Online | Word app/desktop version is recommended | |
| Export citation from library databases | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Import citation information from web pages | Yes | Yes with Mendeley plug-in | ||
| Manage large libraries | Unlimited | Yes, no known issue. May need to purchase extra space. | Unlimited storage | 50,000 references |
| Storage capacity | 300MB cloud-based storage is free, paid upgrades available + any other limit is based on device storage capacity |
Free version - 2 GB personal storage for personal documents. Permission to create 5 groups of up to 25 collaborators for sharing common documents. 100MB shared storage across all groups. |
Unlimited storage | 50,000 references |
| Attach associated files (PDFs, etc.) | Yes | Yes | Yes, unlimited storage | Yes, up to 2 GB |
| PDF Annotations and Notes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Sharing capabilities | Yes, via Zotero Groups. Groups are synced and require use of the group owner's storage. |
Free version - 2 GB personal storage for personal documents. Permission to create 5 groups of up to 25 collaborators for sharing common documents. 100MB shared storage across all groups. |
Can share entire libraries and groups | Can only share groups, not entire libraries |
| Built-in citation formats | 10,460+ styles available | Comes with 10 most common styles, but you can install additional styles | Yes, 7000+ predefined citation styles | Yes, 21 most popular citation styles |
| Mobile app | Yes (Apple app is from the developer, Android apps are third-party) | Official apps discontinued - third-party solution | Yes | |
| Learning curve | Intuitive to learn. No official customer service but the official Zotero forums are fairly active. | Fairly easy to learn. Good Support Center, including Email and Chat available. | Difficult to learn, but easy to master. | |
| Strengths | Easy to learn, browser integration, free, PDF annotations, sharing - learn more | Great for those working primarily with PDFs, especially if you want to share PDF files. Great annotation features. | Great for storing large quantities of references, annotating PDFs, and functionality with Microsoft Word. | |
| Weaknesses | Limited free storage, apps are limited, accessibility, customer service, interface - learn more | Limited number of groups for sharing for free version | Can only share PDFs when sharing an entire library and organization is limited to Group Sets and Groups. | |
| Developer | A nonprofit (Corporation for Digital Scholarship - grant funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services) | Clarivate (owns library databases including Web of Science, ProQuest) | Elsevier (owns ScienceDirect - a library databases and publishes many scholarly journals) | Elsevier (owns ScienceDirect - a library databases and publishes many scholarly journals) |
Our citation manager comparison table was created for this faculty workshop. It was inspired by and adapted from the work of the libraries linked below.