Do you do some of your research at home and some on campus?  Do you mark some records and save them at home, and other marked records you save on your H drive on the university network?  Then when it comes time to compile your research and write the paper, or it is time to put the finishing touches on the paper-the all important bibliography-you discover that you don't have all the citations on hand.  These irksome experiences can be put behind you once and for all.

The library subscribes to RefWorks, a bibliographic management tool.  Logging on to RefWorks for the first time is about the hardest thing you will encounter in learning to use this tool!  When you click on this tool from the alphabetical listing of the library's databases (go to Find on the homepage menu bar, scroll down to Database by Title, then click on R and scroll down to RefWorks), this is the page that comes up:

The casual user will focus on the log-in boxes requiring a name and password.  But, you don't have a name and password until you first "Sign up for an Individual Account"!  The smallest line of the page is where all new or first-time users must go.  By creating an account, you enable this tool to store any and all of your ongoing research.  With this account, you can use RefWorks from any computer anywhere.  As long as you have Internet access-and the site is up-you will be able to get to your work.  As with any "private" account, be sure to log out when you finish working with RefWorks for the day; not formally logging out in one place may prevent you from accessing it in another.

RefWorks has excellent tutorials, found under the Help link.  If you don't like tutorials, there is a link for each that allows you to print out the directions.  I encourage you to take the time to view these tutorials; you know what they say about pictures-they're worth a thousand words.

However, I will go over the basic process of exporting citations into RefWorks.  The first thing I suggest you do after creating your account is to "create" folders for any of your ongoing projects.  I have found the process to be much less cumbersome if you first create folders rather than exporting a citation, and then setting up a folder to keep your work organized.

Working in ABI, we'll assume you have done a search, and you have a workable list of results.  As you read the articles, it is important to "mark" the article you want to keep; just click in the little box to the left of the title.  Once you have reviewed all the potential articles and have marked the articles of note, then return to the results list.

Notice under the tabs we have 4 marked items.  You can email, cite, or export these citations.  For purposes of RefWorks, you need to export.  When you click on export, this page comes up:

Clicking on the first option-export directly to RefWorks-brings up the login page.  Assuming that you have already created your account, all you have to do is enter your user name and password.  It's that easy!  Just remember that in ABI, or any ProQuest database, you always have to export from the results listing page; you cannot, from the article level, export a citation.  What you can do from the article level is to choose the "cite this" option.  The information is presented in APA format, though you do have the option to choose another style.  Then you can copy and paste this single citation into your document.

If you are using Business Source Premier, an Ebsco product, the export button is available at the individual article level. 

(it's the icon with the green arrow!)

The question now becomes:  how do you work with all these citations you have exported to RefWorks?  As soon as you click on the export button in any database, the RefWorks login screen will appear.  Log in, and this page then comes up:

Notice the Globally Edit box.  Depending on the citation style of choice, you may want to input the name of the precise database from which these citations came.  In this example, I would add AIB in the database box.  Be sure to click on the Edit Fields button once you have added all the extra information you want.  At this point you are ready to "View Last Imported Folder."

Mark these most recent citation additions, and then select the folder in which you want to place them.  Then choose "Folders" on the menu bar and scroll down to "View."  Once you have the folder open, you are ready to create your bibliography.  Click on this option in the tool bar.  This page comes up:

Here you have the ability to choose the citation style as well as the file type.  When those choices are made, click on "Create Bibliography."  It's that easy.

However, there is a caution:  please review the order of the information, the capitalizations, the completeness of the citation as is required by your citation style of choice.  This is not a perfect tool, but it can certainly make your life a lot easier.