Reference Management Software for Assisting Researchers: A Comparative Analysis of Usage and Usability

An academic library is supposed to help its users, e.g. students, faculty, and staff members, to find the best resources with an efficient strategy. By assisting users in creating search strategies, sparingly utilising resources, conducting research, and clearly and concisely presenting ideas and conclusions, reference management software (RMS) also works toward the same objective. Since most RMS are geared toward the same goal, their attributes and work architecture are considered to be comparable. Aside from these shared characteristics, each RMS has its own identity and offers some unique features. The main goal of this paper is to examine, contrast, and present the current situation of five distinct RMS, including Citavi, EndNote, Mendeley, Qiqqa, and Zotero, in terms of the features they offer and their current demand in the user base. The data on the websites of the RMS and their manuals are taken into consideration to portray the state of the art of the five selected RMS and identify their advantages and disadvantages. While some prior research was also referenced for comparative analysis. Data from the last 52 weeks of Google Trend Analysis are used as the foundation to assess the current RMS demand. The feature-wise comparative analysis helps a user to choose the best suitable RMS for his study. And the Google Trend Analysis indicates that Mendeley is the most preferred (79.06 hits/week) RMS among the five while Qiqqa is the least one (~0 hits/week).