Use of AMSRefs allows for the retention of rich markup that makes references easier to reuse in other publishing environments, such as on the Web, in other book or journal formats, or with citation services.
The purpose of AMSRefs is to provide a simpler, more flexible way to use many of the bibliography and citation features that users of LaTeX and BibTeX have come to expect.
AMSRefs has been designed to encourage the preservation of structured markup of the bibliography throughout the entire lifetime of a document, from rough draft to final archival version.
Thus an AMSRefs-format database is a valid LaTeX document that can be printed directly.
Also, an author can send an article with embedded references to a publisher without any loss of internal structural information about the entries.