Reading Lists, Referencing and Citation
What are they?
Reading list management, referencing and citation tools are all tools that aim to simplify the process of managing reading lists, references, citation and bibliography creation. They allow the collection of fully referenced sources in one place with functionality to simplify distribution. Often these tools are integrated with library catalogues and online resources banks or repositories to provide a seamless experience. Frequently these tools allow annotation of references. In addition they increasingly allow for collaborative creation of references which can be a useful learning activity. Some of this functionality overlaps with Social bookmarking.
How can I use them with my students?
These tools facilitate the experience of research by managing a process by which you provide a reading list/bibliography for students or let them build their own. Many of these tools now operate in web 2.0 (LINK) interface and offer additional functionality such as tagging to add value to this process.
You can use these tools to create reading lists and bibliographies that can be distributed to subject librarians, fellow academics and students in a variety of ways: • Text formats that can be sent in an email or included in printed course support materials • XML/HTML formats that can be placed online or in a VLE Students can also use these tools to share references and to build up their own bibliography of a subject area.
Examples
You can read a case study of the use of Talis here: TalisList: web-based reading lists. Web-based reading lists made simple! by Michael White. Alt Newsletter October 2005.
Where can I get them?
These are usually commercial tools, the most well known being End note. Other similar tools include RefWorks or Talis. However recently there have been an increasing number of free open source tools in this area. Perhaps the most well known at the moment is Zotero and extension for the Firefox web browser.
