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If you peer back through the mists of time – back to the last century – and picture an academic, it is likely her office would be full of journals, papers covered in post-it notes, highlighters and unwieldy scribblings in the margins. You may not, though, need to look so far as you probably know lots of labs and offices like this today. The evolution of technology has dramatically changed our world, but it seems to have bypassed many of our community.

Why is this? Many people prefer to read on paper rather than a screen, and although mobile devices are eating into this habit, they are more popular with shorter texts. Others are wedded to their highlighters, pens and notepads to record notes and references, and haven’t seen the benefits of moving online.

There are many reference management tools on the market to help the busy academic, and a year ago we launched what we, and many of our users, believe to be the best.

F1000Workspace is a web-based reference library and citation tool that enables users to instantly collect and annotate papers while automatically storing them in cloud. You can collect your references in an ordered folder system, or as we call them, “projects”, that can be shared with a group of people to facilitate collaborations.

A recent milestone

At the end of April, we noticed our users had hit the milestone of 100,000 annotations – our tool enables you to highlight anything on the web, add notes and then with a single click, store the document and the notes.  These highlights and notes can be made directly on PDF and webpages thanks to a browser extension; and unlike the old days, these notes are electronic so you can search your annotations from any online device when you want to refer back to them.

We asked some of our users about their annotations, and how they’re using them. They tell us they find it a quick and efficient way to mark-up the key parts of an article to quickly refer back to later, without trawling through the whole text. Annotations can be shared and we know some labs who are using this tool to discuss the literature and pool resources. Others are making the most of shared projects to work with their students because they can easily access annotated research they’ve discussed.

One user confessed to us that until recently they preferred printouts, pens and highlighters but converted to our online tool thanks to the ability to search their notes.

Whatever the reason, we hope you have enjoyed the first year of F1000Workspace. We have put together a little graphic to celebrate. Watch this space for future developments, including our mobile app, which means you’ll be able to read notations and use the single-click reference addition from your device.