Our subscription to RefWorks (both the legacy and new platform) will expire at the end of January 2021, and will not be renewed. You have until February 28, 2021 to access your account and export your citations. We have carefully reviewed the pros and cons of our site license and have concluded that the high cost of the annual subscription can no longer be justified when there are other free or low cost citation management programs available that are as good or better than RefWorks. Below is some helpful information to help you plan for the transition away from RefWorks.

What citation management software do you recommend instead of RefWorks?

We recommend RefWorks users move to using Zotero. Zotero is a free, open-source, web-based tool for managing citations and PDFs, and creating bibliographies. It is highly customizable with a robust user community, and works online and on your desktop. Since it is a freely-available tool, you can continue using it even if you leave DU and/or graduate. To learn more about Zotero, you can watch a recording of a recent online workshop or contact the Research Center. Additional citation tools that you may wish to explore include Mendeley (free), Endnote (fee-based), and ReadCube Papers (library subscription).

How do I move my data from RefWorks to another tool?

To move your RefWorks library to another tool, you will need to export all of your citations and then import them into a new software program. If you want to keep all of your folders, you will need to export one folder at a time. Please note that you CANNOT export attachments (like PDFs) so you will want to make sure that you have them saved in another location. Please see our FAQ for a step-by-step guide to exporting citations from RefWorks to Zotero or our FAQ on exporting citations to ReadCube. The RefWorks user guide has additional details on exporting and importing citations to/from various tools.

We know that changing citation software, particularly if you are in the middle of a big research project, can be challenging and we are here to help! If you have any questions, please contact the Research Center or make an appointment with a research librarian who can guide you through the process. Each reference librarian has a profile on the Research Center appointments page so you can see who has expertise in the citation software you’d like to use.