Abstract: A document referencing system and method for operation are disclosed. The system encompasses an application for use on a standalone computing device housing a device library, which may be used in concert with a system library. The application may also collect references from external sources upon request, and may add these references to the system or device libraries. The device library is periodically updated by the application through connection to the system library. The application also provides a novel interface for searching for and identifying references housed within either the device or system libraries. The application also comprises software for detecting citations to external references within a document, and for reformatting the document to contain links to those external references as they exist in either the device or system libraries.