Many JSTOR users have expressed an interest in exporting bibliographic information from a JSTOR article or citation list in a format compatible with their local bibliographic software. These requests have come from numerous professors, students, and librarians, and reflect the increased popularity of electronic research and bibliographic software programs such as EndNote®, ProCite®, and Reference Manager®. In response to these frequent requests, earlier this year JSTOR began developing a feature that would facilitate the export of citation information from the archive in a variety of formats. As Virginia Benjamin, Faculty Liaison for Electronic Library Services of the University of Georgia libraries, noted, "I have a student or faculty member ask on almost a weekly basis about JSTOR compatibility with the citation managers, so I'm thrilled to hear of your progress."

Released in November, the new citation manager functionality gives users the ability to save citations from the search results, table of contents, article view, and citation view pages. Users can then export citations in a variety of text-based formats: tagged fields, tab delimited, or printer friendly.

There are also a variety of export options. Citations can be downloaded as a text file, sent in an email, or viewed in a new browser window. More information about these export formats and options is available at http://www.jstor.org/help/citationmanagerhelp.html.

After export, researchers then have the ability to manipulate JSTOR citations for the creation of personalized bibliographies. Items that have traditionally been especially difficult to manage, such as stable URLs and abstracts, are now easier for researchers to organize, store, and utilize.

In this initial implementation, the exported citation data is compatible with EndNote, ProCite, and Reference Manager, with the flexibility to adapt to other bibliographic software in the future. For added convenience, JSTOR is also providing downloadable filters for each of these programs. Links to the filters and instructions for downloading them are available at http://www.jstor.org/help/filters_help.html.

The inclusion of JSTOR citation data in a tab-delimited format will also allow users to approximate specialized bibliographic software functionality with other more common desktop applications, including spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel. More information about exporting citations to bibliographic software, including spreadsheets, is available at http://www.jstor.org/help/export_help.html.

The new functionality also benefits JSTOR users who do not use bibliographic software by allowing them to save, print, or e-mail the citation information found through JSTOR searches or browsing. Each article citation includes a link to save the citation to a Saved Citations list. From the Saved Citations list page, users are allowed to choose their export options and export their citations.

If you have questions about using this new feature, or would like to offer suggestions for future implementations, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@jstor.org.

Last updated on September 8, 2006