Reference Manager

(Redirected from RefMan)

Reference Manager[1][2][3] was the first commercial reference management software package sold by Thomson Reuters. It was the first commercial software of its kind,[4] originally developed by Ernest Beutler and his son, Earl Beutler, in 1982 through their company Research Information Systems. Offered for the CP/M operating system, it was ported to DOS and then Microsoft Windows and later the Apple Macintosh. Research Information Systems was acquired by Thomson Business Information (later Thomson Reuters) in 1994. Subsequently, Thomson acquired EndNote and ProCite, the other two leading bibliographic management programs. Rich Niles, founder of EndNote, joined Thomson Reuters as head of that division, and put all development focus on EndNote. Sales of Reference Manager continued until December 31, 2015, and support ended on December 31, 2016.

Reference Manager
Developer(s)Research Information Systems, later acquired by Thomson ISI ResearchSoft
Initial release1984 (40 years ago) (1984)
Stable release
12 / 02-09-2008
Operating system
Available inEnglish
TypeReference management
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.refman.com

Operation

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Reference Manager is most commonly used by people who want to share a central database of references and need to have multiple users adding and editing records at the same time. It is possible to specify for each user read-only or edit rights to the database. The competing package EndNote does not offer this functionality.

Reference Manager offers different in-text citation templates for each reference type. It also allows the use of synonyms within a database. Reference Manager Web Publisher allows the publication of reference databases to an intranet or internet site. This allows anyone with a web browser to search and download references into their own bibliographic software. It includes the functionality to interact with the SOAP and WSDL standard services.

Research Information Systems also created the "RIS Format" which is now a standard for interchange of bibliographic information.

Updates

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After abandoning the development of Reference Manager in 2008, Thomson Reuters discontinued its sale on December 31, 2015, to focus exclusively on EndNote.[5] In 2018, the Science division, which owned EndNote, separated from Thomson Reuters to become Clarivate. EndNote X7 can import Reference Manager databases and convert Word documents formatted with Reference Manager into EndNote formatting.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Beutler, E. (1987-08-21). "Reference manager". Science. 237 (4817): 824. Bibcode:1987Sci...237..824B. doi:10.1126/science.237.4817.824. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17771371.
  2. ^ van Gijn, J.; Overbeke, A. J. (1998-03-28). "[Reference manager: a personal database on literature for consultation and word processing]". Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde. 142 (13): 724–733. ISSN 0028-2162. PMID 9623148.
  3. ^ Matus, N.; Beutler, E. B. (June 1989). "REFERENCE UPDATE and REFERENCE MANAGER: personal computer programs for locating and managing references". BioTechniques. 7 (6): 636–639. ISSN 0736-6205. PMID 2698652.
  4. ^ Schmid, K.; Böhmer, G. (January 1987). "Reference master: A microcomputer-based storage and retrieval system for bibliographic references". International Journal of Bio-Medical Computing. 20 (1–2): 107–121. doi:10.1016/0020-7101(87)90019-5. ISSN 0020-7101. PMID 3549574.
  5. ^ Thomson Reuters Reference Manager web page urging switch to EndNote
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