Instruction of Citation Management Tools by Academic Librarians: The Need for Training the Trainers

The present paper is the result of a research which aimed to review the current level of support and training provided for the reference management software (also known as citation management tools) by academic libraries. The data was gathered on the basis of a survey of Iranian universities’ websites. The results revealed that in about 50 percent of Iranian universities, there is no information about reference management software at their websites at all. In less than half of the remaining 39 universities, central library is responsible for introducing and training of citations and reference management software. Research deputies and faculty scholarly associations have been other organizers of reference management software training. Furthermore, the results show that more than 90 percent of universities perform their training in face to face format only. EndNote is the only citation management software supported approximately by all universities. Teaching other reference management tools, such as Mendeley or Zotero, has been very limited. Central libraries of 11 universities have regular training programs for EndNote. Authors suggest that librarians themselves get instruction on using citation management tools to be able to teach library users. Also, there is a need for providing online tutorials on reference management software.