Easy reference management using CiteULike,BibTex and Latex

I have seen many grad students having difficulties is reference management. They go for expensive software like EndNote, still having difficulties in integrating with their text editors.

For Linux users this is not a big problem, they have everything in their hand. I am just giving here one combination of tools which is useful for reference management. I maintain my reference library in CiteULike. You can have a posting button in web browser. When you see an article, you can just click that button, then that article is added to your library. You can optionally give a key, which could be used as a reference key in Bibtex. Once you have done, you can export complete library to bibtex(.bib) format. Then you can add this .bib file in your latex file
\bibliographystyle{alpha} (style for references)
\bibliography{bibtex file} (without .bib extension)

where ever you want to cite an article from your bib file, you can just give \cite{key} where key is the bibtex reference key.
The compiling is bit different, you have to compile several time to get the correct output.

1. pdflatex input-file : complains about undefined citations
2. bibtex input-file : generates a bbl-file
3. pdflatex input-file : complains about undefined citations
4. pdflatex input-file

You will have to repeat the procedure every time you add or remove citations, as they will imply changes in the bbl-file.

We can easily change the style, just by changing one word. This gives the greate flexibility and advantage.