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For Researchers/Writers

Research Resources


Research Services and Guides


Medical Library Research Services

The Medical Library provides research/consultation services in the following areas and others. Please contact us by email, phone, or schedule an appointment with a librarian.

  • Systematic reviews
  • Literature search strategies and techniques
  • Database selection
  • Reference management options and software
  • Tools for conducting systematic reviews
  • Scholarly Communication
  • Techniques for locating meeting or conference abstracts
  • Strategies for keeping up with the literature including current awareness tools and automated search alerts

For help on our services please Ask an Information Expert

Citation Managers and Citation Information


Reference Management tools help you organize and cite references for your research. The tools listed are either free or provided through the library. They can help you pull and save references from online sources such as eBooks or databases (like PubMed) and then create the citation (footnote, bibliography) in a wide variety of different style guides, using your favorite word processing program. We have linked our libguides for each tool below for more information and instructional videos.

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool that helps you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share your research. It is available for Mac, Windows, Linux and iOS. To use Zotero, go to Zotero Account Registration, and create a free account, and then download the Zotero app to your computer. You do not need to use your OU email or password to access Zotero. It is also available on our study room iMacs.

ZoteroBib Just need a quick bibliography? You can use ZoteroBib to add citations quickly online without an account.

Mendeley is a free reference manager that can help you store, organize, note, share and cite references and research data.

EndNote EndNote is a similar tool designed to save and organize references from databases like PubMed, retrieve articles automatically for those references, and then generate formatted bibliographies in thousands of different styles. The full version is installed on the iMacs in the Collaborative Study room and on a MacBook that may be checked out from the Medical Library office for up to two weeks. A free version is available online with less features.

RefWorks allows you to create a personal list of references and to format your bibliography in any citation style. It is currently offered through Kresge Library for all OU students but will only be available through June of 2023.

Citing with AMA Style