diff --git a/pubs/bibstruct.py b/pubs/bibstruct.py
index bc6f6b9..a9dc7c7 100644
--- a/pubs/bibstruct.py
+++ b/pubs/bibstruct.py
@@ -40,7 +40,6 @@ def get_entry(bibdata):
         return e
 
 def extract_citekey(bibdata):
-    verify_bibdata(bibdata)
     citekey, entry = get_entry(bibdata)
     return citekey
 
diff --git a/pubs/databroker.py b/pubs/databroker.py
index b206c26..c98f1f9 100644
--- a/pubs/databroker.py
+++ b/pubs/databroker.py
@@ -56,8 +56,11 @@ class DataBroker(object):
     def verify(self, bibdata_raw):
         """Will return None if bibdata_raw can't be decoded"""
         try:
+            if bibdata_raw.startswith(u'\ufeff'):
+                # remove BOM, because bibtexparser does not support it.
+                bibdata_raw = bibdata_raw[1:]
             return self.endecoder.decode_bibdata(bibdata_raw)
-        except ValueError:
+        except ValueError as e:
             return None
 
     # docbroker
@@ -90,4 +93,3 @@ class DataBroker(object):
     def rename_note(self, old_citekey, new_citekey):
         notepath = 'notesdir://{}.txt'.format(old_citekey)
         return self.notebroker.rename_doc(notepath, new_citekey)
-
diff --git a/tests/bibexamples/bibutils.bib b/tests/bibexamples/bibutils.bib
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..23488af
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/bibexamples/bibutils.bib
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+@TechReport{Page99,
+author="Page, Lawrence
+and Brin, Sergey
+and Motwani, Rajeev
+and Winograd, Terry",
+title="The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web.",
+year="1999",
+month="November",
+publisher="Stanford InfoLab",
+number="1999-66",
+abstract="The importance of a Web page is an inherently subjective matter, which depends on the readers interests, knowledge and attitudes. But there is still much that can be said objectively about the relative importance of Web pages. This paper describes PageRank, a mathod for rating Web pages objectively and mechanically, effectively measuring the human interest and attention devoted to them. We compare PageRank to an idealized random Web surfer. We show how to efficiently compute PageRank for large numbers of pages. And, we show how to apply PageRank to search and to user navigation.",
+note="Previous number = SIDL-WP-1999-0120",
+url="http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/422/"
+}
+
diff --git a/tests/bibexamples/notes.txt b/tests/bibexamples/notes.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..21779a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/bibexamples/notes.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
++ `xml2bib.bib`: was created with: `bib2xml data/pagerank.bib | xml2bib >> bibexamples/bibutils.bib` (bibutils 5.6)  
++ `leadingspace.bib`: has a leading space in the citekey
diff --git a/tests/test_usecase.py b/tests/test_usecase.py
index abcb1a1..ae14278 100644
--- a/tests/test_usecase.py
+++ b/tests/test_usecase.py
@@ -155,6 +155,14 @@ class TestAdd(DataCommandTestCase):
         self.assertEqual(set(self.fs['os'].listdir(meta_dir)), {'Page99.yaml'})
         self.assertEqual(set(self.fs['os'].listdir(doc_dir)), {'Page99.pdf'})
 
+    def test_add_bibutils(self):
+        cmds = ['pubs init',
+                'pubs add /bibexamples/bibutils.bib',
+                ]
+        self.execute_cmds(cmds)
+        bib_dir = self.fs['os'].path.join(self.default_pubs_dir, 'bib')
+        self.assertEqual(set(self.fs['os'].listdir(bib_dir)), {'Page99.bib'})
+
     def test_add2(self):
         cmds = ['pubs init -p /not_default',
                 'pubs add /data/pagerank.bib -d /data/pagerank.pdf',