New York University | Bobst Library: Essential RefWorks

Research Assistance

Essential RefWorks

What is Refworks?

RefWorks is a free (to the NYU community) Web-based program you can use to organize your research. Enter citations as you work, import references retrieved from online bibliographic databases into your RefWorks database and create bibliographies in a variety of formats.

What can you do with RefWorks

Create & organize your own personal database of references
Search your RefWorks database
Format bibliographies according to chosen style (MLA, APA, etc.)
Import references from a variety of catalogs & databases
Share your RefWorks database with users inside and outside of NYU

Using RefWorks

Create a folder

From the folders menu, choose create a new folder and name your folder. Create as many folders as you'd like.

Note: Make sure to allow pop-ups in your browser while using RefWorks.

Adding BobCat catalog references from within RefWorks

You can search BobCat (NYU Libraries online catalog) directly from RefWorks. This is a quick way to add references to materials found in BobCat. You can also add journal article citations by searching some of our databases from within the RefWorks interface. However, we have hundreds of databases, and most are not available from RefWorks. Most databases provide the option of exporting your references to RefWorks, so for database searching, it's easiest from within the database.

From the search menu select online catalog or database
Choose NYU / BobCat from the drop down list (it should be the first item listed)
Perform a search using Quick or Advanced search
Search results will appear in a new window. Use the check boxes beside each citation you'd like to import (or if you'd like to import all references on the page, make sure the radio button All in list is selected.
Once you've chosen which references to import, choose your appropriate folder.
Your citations have now been added to your RefWorks database, both in the folder you've selected, as well as in the "last imported folder" (all new references automatically get added to the default "last imported" folder) When you next log into RefWorks these citations will be stored in the folder you've selected for them.