Managing efficiently references for research papers or general works is of paramount importance for scholars and students across the spectrum. The common tasks of such a user range from information retrieval of a publication to easy tagging and searching the user's own library. Several libre and proprietary software packages exist. The package Papis consists of an extendable Python library, a flexible command-line interface and a simple (but powerful) data model. This in turn, empowers the user to curate her library metadata in a future-proof and privacy-respecting manner. Papis users are encouraged and empowered by a clear API to write scripts and libraries to extend the core functionality. All major text editors have an interface to Papis and a web-application for remote access to the user's libraries is also in place. Additionally, during the last 7 years we have built a vibrant community of academic and industry researchers that have become happy users and avid contributors.