hi macropod,

thank you for your help! i found the sources.xml file and as it was only 4KB it had obviously been wiped/corrupted. thank goodness i had done a time-machine back up on Sunday--i replaced the sources.xml file and my references returned! hooray! and what a relief! How can the sources.xml file be corrupted? what a nightmare!

anyway, added to the fact that ms word is crashing on me 4 times day, i've decided to switch to LibreOffice and zotero.