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The End of EndNote Desktop

AU Library will be canceling our subscription to EndNote Desktop in May 2021. This guide will help EndNote users determine how best to move forward and will include details on maintaining access to the current version of EndNote, as well as how to chose w

Overview

As a result of AU's current financial situation and after careful consideration of usage, we have canceled our subscription to EndNote Desktop and it is no longer valid as of May 14, 2021. As such, no use of the software as provided by American University is permitted.

The library support team is ready to assist faculty members and students in learning about other citations management programs, such as EndNote Online, Mendeley, or Zotero. These are often considered to be easier to use than EndNote Desktop, and they have the capabilities that most EndNote Desktop users require. In addition, by using a free program, students will be able to access their citations after they graduate.

This guide provides step-by-steps tutorials on transferring your EndNote Desktop citations to EndNote Basic, Mendeley, or Zotero.

The library is strongly committed to supporting you through this transition so that you end up with a satisfactory citation management option.

Which Citation Manager Should I Use?

Deciding which program to replace EndNote Desktop with? Here is a short summary of the pros and cons of a few different programs, as well as a handy chart. AU Library primarily supports EndNote Basic, Zotero, and Mendeley so we will focus on comparing these three.

EndNote Basic

Pros:

  • Easy syncing process with EndNote Basic
  • Integrates easily with Web of Science, since both are Clarivate products. Also works well with PubMed and EBSCO
  • Clarivate manages citation style options, which adds a level of control

Cons:

  • Owned by Clarivate– software is free to use, but your data is harvested
  • Not good at capturing metadata with browser plug-in
  • Multi-step integration process with ProQuest databases

Mendeley

Pros:

  • Best option for creating citation records from article PDFs
    • Can rename and/or reorganize PDFs on your computer
    • Can highlight and notate PDFs within Mendeley
  • Works with BibTeX
  • Connect with other users, and discover research through Mendeley.com

Cons:

  • Owned by Elsevier – software is free to use, but your data is harvested
  • Optimized to work best with journal article PDFs
  • List of source types not as robust (20 source types available)

Zotero

Pros:

  • Open-source product with an active user community that assists with making improvements to the product
  • Integrates with Google Docs
  • Browser plug-in excels at grabbing metadata from websites
  • Not quite as facile with PDFs as Mendeley but users can drag and drop PDF into library to populate full record

Cons:

  • Lower storage capacity

Criteria

Zotero

Mendeley

 

EndNote Basic

 

Download From

https://www.zotero.org/

https://www.mendeley.com

https://endnote.com/product-details/basic/

Must be online?

No

No

Yes

Web-based?

Can sync with online account; connectors for Firefox, Chrome and Safari and Opera available

Not primarily, but can sync with an online account which is editable

Yes

Must be online?

No

No

Yes

Cost

Free for basic account, some cost for more online storage space

Free for basic account, some cost for more online storage space

Free  

Word-processor compatibility

MS Word, Open Office, Google Docs

MS Word, Open Office, LaTex

MS Word

Import from databases

Yes

Yes

Yes

Import citation info from web pages

Yes, also archives the page and you can add annotations

Yes, with a bookmark for a limited number of sites (mostly publishers or databases)

Yes, with Reference Capture tool

Storage capacity

Unlimited local storage and data syncing; 100MB free Zotero file syncing (larger syncing plans available for purchase); or can use WebDav

Unlimited local storage and data syncing; 1GB personal and 100MB shared online space (larger online storage plans available for purchase)

Limited to 50,000 citations and 2 GB of attachment storage

Attach associated files (PDFs, etc.)

Yes, with option to attach automatically

Yes, and can highlight and annotate PDFs

Yes

Search full text of PDFs

Yes

Yes

No

Create group or shared libraries

Yes

Yes, free for up to 3 group members (larger group plans available for purchase)

Yes

Create bibliography with different styles

Yes

Yes

Choose from 7,000+ styles if accessed via Web of Science. 21 styles if accessed directly.

Automatic citation extraction from PDFs

Yes

Yes

No

Other features

Sync library with multiple computers
Use tags to organize/search

Sync library with multiple computers
Sync with Zotero library