Sorry for bothering you Taco. It was my mistake, I'd misread your very clear instructions. Instead of \setuppublications[database={ora}] I should've used \setupbibtex[database={ora}] The following test file generates a .aux file: %output=pdf %% testbib.tex \usemodule[bib] \setupbibtex[database={ora}] \starttext If you have never coded Java before you may want to read through {\em Learning Java}\cite[Niemeyer:2000:LJ] \completepublications \stoptext %%EOF PS. If anyone is trying to replicate, my test case, the database ora.bib at http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/ora.html has a couple of entries with illegal characters. If you just scan through the database and remove all @Book{ .. } entries that have the keyword \verb inside them, you'll generate a valid .bbl file, after running bibtex.