Going Where No Note Card Has Gone Before

“If I had to go back to writing papers without it, I don’t know what I would do,” says Karen Koch, University Libraries’ 10,000th RefWorks account holder. RefWorks is a web-based citation management tool provided by the University Libraries where students, faculty, and staff can create their own database of references and generate bibliographies in different formats. It is available free of charge to University students, faculty, and staff and can be accessed from any Internet-accessible location. Comparable software can cost $100 or more for a single copy to use on a single computer. RefWorks gives users the flexibility to sort, search, organize, and reorganize their references to their heart’s content, something that note cards are hard pressed to offer. The Libraries were the first RefWorks customer to hit 10,000 accounts, and the milestone was celebrated in March at informal receptions around the Libraries. Koch, a class of 2007 Ecology, Evolution, and Animal Behavior major, explains, “I now use (RefWorks) with all my papers and research…It is hands down the best tool I have found to help write my papers.”