EasyBib's EasyLife: Student Life Made Smarter.

Ever find yourself fighting a losing battle with a bibliography?...

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:16:20 -0400

Ever find yourself fighting a losing battle with a bibliography? We’re sure you used to, prior to using EasyBib of course. Check out our new video and pass it along to all your friends!

EasyBib Source Guide

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:58:00 -0400

While EasyBib helps students quickly and accurately create their bibliographies, some students still need help distinguishing one source type from another. Do they know the difference between a journal and a magazine, or an article from a general website from one found in a reference database? Now EasyBib has introduced the EasyBib Source Guide, which provides source definitions and examples, and suggests alternatives on related sources. It will help students identify and understand how sources differ, and ultimately help students fully grasp the reference process and create better bibliographies.

To access the source guide, click the blue help link on the tab bar, or the red help link on the form page. You will then see a variety of sources related to your chosen source, along with definitions and examples. Once you click on a source type, EasyBib will ask you the specific medium where you found the source, and direct you to the appropriate form.

We hope you find it helpful!

Updates! Journal Autocite & Tagging

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:23:00 -0400

Hey everyone,

Here are a couple updates just in time for the school year!

Journal Autocite: First books, then websites, then newspapers, then magazines… and now, journals! The autocite march continues. You can now cite journals just by entering in the article title or DOI number of the source. It’s that easy!

Tagging: We’ve had a number of requests over the years to add tagging to sources. It is now implemented. To tag a source, just click “tag” next to the source that you’ve cited. That means you can sort sources by primary or secondary (by tagging them as such), or by how they apply to your paper (background, opposing viewpoints, pro/con, etc.). You can even sort by tag, or just export citations with the tag you want.

On the agenda: more things to make your research paper life faster, easier, and more efficient. Stay tuned!

Bibbin' in the sun: Google Docs Integration, Facebook, & more!

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:21:00 -0400

We’re thrilled to announce a round of new updates to EasyBib!

Export to Google Docs: If you’re one of the growing number of users who have ditched your desktop office suite, you’ll be happy to note our new integration with Google Docs. After citing your bibliography, just click “Save to Google Docs” and we’ll import your bibliography right into your Google Docs account. It’s that easy!

Login via Facebook, Google, Yahoo, & AOL: If you don’t want to create your own account on EasyBib, we now support logging in via multiple providers. Just click on their icon and you should be logged in automagically.

Developer documentation: If you’re a third party Web site looking to add citation capabilities, check out the EasyBib Citation API and widget!

Citation guide: One of the biggest problems students have when citing sources is finding out where to get the information they need for their citation. Our brand new visual citation guide solves that by showing students exactly where they need to find stuff.

That’s all for now. Hope everyone is having a great summer!

The Bib Team

New updates: design changes & more!

Tue, 25 May 2010 11:56:06 -0400

Hey Bibs,

You may notice a few design changes underfoot. We’ve brought our Autocite features out in the open. Now you’re able to cite the most popular sources right off the homepage! Of course, we still offer the largest number of citeable sources online - just click “All 55 options” at the end of the tab box.

We’ve also increased the color contrast a bit, as many of our users have indicated that some of the layout has been too light and they had trouble seeing the different parts of our site. We hope that’s no longer an issue for anyone :)

Additionally, our School Edition subscribers now have the ability to add their school logos and library links right on EasyBib! This can drive further engagement with library resources, as they’ll be front and center while a student is using our service.

Lastly, our international users should now be a lot happier! While we’ve always had Unicode support, we’ve made significant improvements to ensure that different character sets are fully supported.

We know many of you are on the verge of heading home for the summer - have a good break, and when you return you’ll have a lot more features to look forward to!

Cheers!

Darshan

New updates: Autocite even more!

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:45:17 -0400

Hey everyone - new EasyBib updates!

Autocite for newspapers: We’ve plugged into Google News to let you cite newspaper articles automatically.

Autocite for magazines: You can now search for magazine articles and autocite those, courtesy of HighBeam Research.

Improved website Autocite: Now, where we can, we grab authors and publication dates! (Even less for you to do ;)).

Default list styles: If you have an account, you can now choose a default style for your list. No more having to remember the different styles for each list that you may need.

Cheers!

The EasyBib Team

A click and a citation later on Credo

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:28:00 -0400

With one click of our logo (see the top right of the article), you can cite a source from Credo Reference on EasyBib. Yup, its that easy =)

EasyBib Brand New Redesign!

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:50:00 -0400

Hey everyone!

You may have noticed that EasyBib is sporting a brand new design! After over a year of collecting user feedback and months of design work, we’ve proud to announce this launch.

In the new design, we’ve added:

The ability to Autocite many more sources: Now, cite everything from films to conference proceedings to government publications just by searching!
Cleaner forms: We’ve modified our forms so they’re easier to fill out and easier for you to keep track of your information.
A faster experience: EasyBib’s pages now load over 40% faster.

.. And of course, tons of changes suggested by our users, including different default publication tabs for different sources (thanks Heidi!), more prominent buttons for MS Word exports, clearer language regarding our contributor fields, and we could go on.

This is just the beginning. Over the next several weeks and months, even more pieces will start coming into place.

Cheers,

The EasyBib Team.

EasyBib has partnered with Yolink, a great browser tool that...

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:36:00 -0400

EasyBib has partnered with Yolink, a great browser tool that lets you search deeper within links. Now, when using the Yolink tool bar, you can click a button and cite any website you view through Yolink. You’ll research, discover, and cite faster and more efficiently than ever! Check out the video to see how Yolink and EasyBib work, and definitely download Yolink.

Partnership with Credo Reference!

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:05:00 -0400

We know the end part of research is challenging - creating and organizing bibliographic data - but the initial part, conceiving your idea and gathering general research can be equally as difficult.

We are happy to announce a partnership with Credo Reference, an award winning online reference library. In the upcoming months, Credo’s platform will allow you to organize bibliographic information seamlessly on EasyBib, and our new services will help make Credo content more discoverable. We hope our partnership will make your research experience robust yet easy at the same time!

You can learn more about the partnership at this link.

Updates: Search by title, third party database uploads!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:41:03 -0500

We launched a fresh round of updates yesterday! Take a look:

Autocite books by title, author, keywords, or ISBN: You no longer need to remember a book’s ISBN number to cite a book - now you can search by its title or any other keyword to find it! We’ve partnered with the OCLC and its library database, WorldCat, and are searching over 60 million books. Take a look at WorldCat, it’s a great way to find where books are in your local libraries.

MLA capitalization: It’s one of the hairier aspects of bibliographical formatting - how do you know what to capitalize and what not to? Now, EasyBib has made that much easier! We automatically lowercase words that should be (prepositions, articles, coordinating conjunctions, etc.), and proper case the rest.

Import third party software and database citations: This has been by far the most requested feature from universities and graduate students. Now, files from any database that exports to EndNote or BibTex (pretty much all of them), or any reference manager that exports to either of those formats (EndNote, Zotero, Refworks), can be imported into EasyBib. This is a premium feature, meaning you’ll need to subscribe to MyBib Pro or School Edition to have access to it.

EasyBib ISBN autocite upgrade

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:48:51 -0500

One of the most popular features on EasyBib is our ISBN autocite function that allows Bibbers to automatically cite books simply by entering its assigned 10 or 13 digit ISBN number.

As part of our never ending battle to bring you the best citation management tool around, we’re extremely proud to announce that our ISBN database has just gone through a major upgrade.

Over the past three days we’ve added roughly 2,440,000 titles to our database, bringing the tally to an astonishing 22,450,000 supported ISBN numbers.

ISBN autocite is available free of charge for all EasyBib users. Looking to give back to EasyBib? Help us spread the word! Tell a friend, teacher, anyone that will listen! We truly appreciate all the support.

Keep Bibbin,

The EasyBib Team

EasyBib partners with textbook rental company BookRenter

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:38:10 -0500

Although we certainly appreciate the various collegiate “Rites of passage”: battling hordes of students, rotting in endless lines, and emptying your checking account for the semesters required reading was never high on the priority list.

That’s why we’re happy to announce our partnership with BookRenter.com. With a little forward thinking you can easily save over 75% off retail textbook prices.

Why buy when you can rent? With BookRenter you search for your ISBN or book titles, just as you do on EasyBib, select the period you want to rent the book for (month, quarter, semester, etc), and you’re all set.

Right now they’re offering free shipping both ways, and 2-day shipping as low as $6.98. The next time you need textbooks, be sure to check them out. They claim they can save you over $500 a year!

Also, we’d love to hear about your experience with BookRenter, please
shoot us an email and let us know how it went!

Bibbin' updates: Citation management and IP authentication

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:27:00 -0500

Hi everyone,

We’re happy to announce a round of new updates to EasyBib.

Citation management: This has been the most requested feature of EasyBib. Now users can copy citations into different bibliographies, combine lists together, or export specific citations directly to Word or HTML. We have also made it possible to edit citations across multiple lists and view all the references you’ve created from one screen.

IP authentication: When we launched our School Edition product in August, a lot of schools requested that we provide access via IP authentication. Now if a school provides us with their IP ranges, we can provide premium services to their students automatically, without any registration or login necessary. Learn more about School Edition here.

Citation help: Many students often have questions about articles they find online and what specific source types they should use to cite them. We’ve added fields to our Web site and database forms that now help point users in the right direction.

Minor bug fixes: Speed improvements, more robust error reporting, and so on.

Happy New Year everyone!

From our community: Plagiarism awareness videos!

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:06:44 -0500

Hope everyone is having a great break. Many of the teachers and librarians that visit our site have suggested that we post materials to help students research and write more effectively.

One of our visitors, a librarian hailing from Northern Kentucky University, passed this link along. Students from NKU’s film department made a number of videos that discuss plagiarism, copyright laws, and intellectual property issues. We think every student should be aware of plagiarism and know how to avoid it.

As a service that formats citations appropriately, EasyBib encourages everyone to be aware of plagiarism. You can always download our own PDF guides on how to cite sources properly.

Happy holidays and have a great new year everyone!

Holiday giveaway: Win an Ipod touch in seconds with EasyBib's Facebook competition!

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:39:21 -0500

Fan us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/easybib
On your personal status update, direct a message towards us by writing @easybib and select EasyBib, Free Bibliographic Composer.
On the lock icon, next to the share button, be sure to share the message with everyone, so we can see it!
Write a message on i) why you love EasyBib ii) how you would spend the holidays with EasyBib or iii) anything creative - holiday or end of the semester related. Even a upload picture! For example, “EasyBib, all I want for Christmas…is you!”
Those with the most creative messages can win either an Ipod Touch, Flip Video Camcorder, or a EasyBib premium account

Be sure to have your friends like the status messages so we can gauge what’s popular!

We’ll announce and contact the winners via Facebook.

Updates completed on December 9th, 2AM-7AM Eastern

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:20:00 -0500

Hi All,

If you were around this morning you may have noticed some downtime. We were trying to do some backend changes, but the time it was taking started bleeding into the school day.

We’ve re-scheduled the changes to tomorrow, Wednesday December 9th, at 2AM. The site will be down until 7AM, for a total period of five hours.

Update: Updates completed successfully. Total downtime was from 2AM - 7:45AM.

The Campus Socialite's Interview with EasyBib

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:04:00 -0500

The Campus Socialite's Interview with EasyBib:

The Campus Socialite, a blog that prepares students with skills to succeed both in and after college, recently interviewed us. Check it out!

EasyBib on Amazon's Cloud

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:33:54 -0500

We’ve made some changes that we are proud to report. If you were up early this morning you would have noticed that we were down for a few hours of “scheduled maintenance” from 6:30AM to 9AM Eastern.

During that time period, we switched our servers from where they are located (here in NYC) to Amazon’s Web Services cloud. If you’re familiar with that term, you’ll know that there are a significant number of Web startups and services moving in that direction.

If you’re unfamiliar with what I’m referring to, Amazon Web Services is a “cloud computing platform” by Amazon (yes, the books company) that allows Web sites to easily adjust their server infrastructure to meet the needs of their Web traffic.

That means as more people use EasyBib, we can add more servers to keep things speedy. We’ve cut down a process that used to take days: ordering a server, getting it shipped, then installing it - to a few minutes: clicking a button to launch a new server.

There are additional benefits like better data backup, cheaper access to storage, and more, which we like too. We’ll discuss that more in a future post.

Anyway, this is our first day in the Amazon cloud. While things certainly will not always be smooth (Amazon has had it’s fair share of downtime), right now we’re pretty thrilled. If you experience any hiccups let us know.

Shoutouts: CouchDB (thanks Jan for all the debugging/erlang-rewriting help), Rightscale (for the countless support back-and-forth emails), Amazon (for existing and continually innovating), and of course, thanks to all of you bibbers out there, the fuel of our fire.

New updates

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:25:26 -0400

Hi everyone,

You may have noticed, but we’ve deployed a couple of minor changes across the site.

New help fields: We’ve placed a help caption next to every field on EasyBib’s citation forms. This way, if you’re confused on any particular source field, you’ll be able to learn more about that item in the help section. The help fields used to be placed at the bottom of our page, but we’ve received a lot of feedback and decided to update the positioning.

New APA 6th Edition reference guides: If you’re a teacher or librarian and like our reference guides, take a look at our newly updated versions!

Best,

The EasyBib Team