I am in the early stages of my PhD and am wondering about software to manage references. I can use end note on the computers at uni and get a discounted version (£55) for home use or I can use endnote web and export backwards and forwards. I also have word 2007 and so could use onenote in that.

What do you think I should do?

I use endnote web a lot as I don't have endnote at home. It works fine for me especially with linked sites such as WoK. It means a little more to and fro-ing occassionally but not so much that I feel the need to buy endnote, and I'm getting towards the end of it all now. That said £55 sounds like a decent price. Is that just for one year of use or is it indefinate?

I'd get Endnote to be honest - it makes managing your references pretty effortless.

I'm kind of heading that way. The £55 seems to be so long as I am a registered student which seeing as I am part-time will work out at about £11 per year so seems good value.

:) Definately get it then. It'll save some hassle. I don't often miss not having Endnote over Endnote web as I live about 5 mins away from Uni. But there have been occasions where it would have saved time having the full version on hand.

Sorry to hijack your thread here Jepson but I am also thinking of getting EndNote as I am starting my PhD later this year and already losing track of my many research papers and articles; a lot of what I am using for my MSc, and a few of the things I used during my Undergrad degree will definitely be useful so it's not like I am starting totally from scratch. I think I'd prefer to use EndNote, but I have Windows 2007 so would it be better/easier to use OneNote?

Also, how does the online version of EndNote differ from the version you pay for? When I start my PhD I will be in uni approximately 3 days a week and they have EndNote on the computers there, would it be easy to transfer data from the uni computers to my laptop at home?

Finally, my dad is doing a part time MA in art history with the OU and may benefit from Endnote as well (might be an incentive for him to put a bit of money towards it!). Is there a way that I can have two separate sections on it, one for my PhD and one for his MA? Also, could I install it on my laptop and his desktop, but only pay one fee?

Hope those questions make sense, but I'm quite ignorant when it comes to things like this!

Nx

No problem hijacking the thread - I'll be interested in the answers to the questison you raise.

Yes you should be able to have multiple reference databases. And I have EndNote installed on 3 computers at home, but only paid once.

The online endnote, endnote web, doesn't come with quite as many bells and whistles as the full version. You make an account and then can load paper references to it. You can organise them into different lists and the export them as various file types (word, notepad, rich text, html even) with various referencing styles. You can also export your lists as endote compatible files to add to the full endote library as well (though I'd check on the versions used as sometimes I can get cranky). Endnote web is pretty usefully for organising, reminding yourself of studies and what sort of area they are in and making quite work of references and bibliographies. The full endnote is much better at building full libraries of references and referencing in text. As far as I'm aware anyway, as I stick mainly with web.

It should be fairly easy to keep updating and moving from endnote at uni to web at home but if you're doing it often, and can get if for a decent price you might as well just get the full version.

As for installing it on more than one computer....normally the license is for one computer only and installing on more than one is technically illegal (Piracy). But it's possible and probably easy enough to do, and I doubt anyone is going to shop you in for it. I'm not saying do it, but I am saying the rate of software piracy amongst academics, for such programs, is high ;)

I've just rechecked (I'm not in favour of piracy and was sure I hadn't done that this time): the license I bought says it's for "single-user, non-concurrent licences". And since it's just me using the package, but using it on my various different computers at different times, that's ok.

But it could be a problem for Natassia and her Dad.

Good point! (up)

Sorry I should have mentioned the differences in seat licenses and user licenses. You're quite right (and I didn't mean to imply you were a pirate ;) ). A single user license is fine for your situation across multiple computers but not Natassia's.

Only solution could be having a full version installed as portable on your USB hard drive - by this way you will have full backup on separate device and you can use it anywhere through USB, I googled it and it is possible but not sure if endnote will allow this - I guess they will,

Jabref; which another user suggested on previous post is open source and doesn't cost anything, but we need to compare it with endnote (which is recommended by many users).

Jabref is indeed open source, platform independent (as works on Java) and FREE!

I should get commission the amount of evangelising I do about it...

Endnote - schmendnote!!!

What you want is a bit of Mendeley action folks!! It's free software, available for download on the web, so no piracy issues, it has an online account so you can install it on several comouters and have access to your papers anywere, and it's simply fantastic. It extracts all the info from papers so you just drag and drop pdf's into the account and it saves it, it has a facility to allow gropus so other people in your dept who have Mendeley can share papers through the same folder and it's so user friendly! I'm in final year and just gutted that I didn't know about it sooner!

Thanks algaequeen;

I guess mendeley is well ahead in the race, and compatible with all major OS; Free 1 GB web account is a plus :) and I think we won't use much web space; because all the files will be stored locally, I installed endnote as well but this one looks very professional - Thanks for the sharing