I hacked the component and it now works when entering references manually from admin backend. I can't check wether it works or not when importing a file.
If you allow users to enter references in frontend, same hack should apply in components/com_jombib/jombib.php for update and save functions (line 266, 702 and 763 I suppose)

3 lines to correct in administrator/components/com_jombib/admin.jombib.php

215 $updates[]=$key."='".mysql_real_escape_string($data)."'";
becomes
215 $updates[]=$key."='".$data."'";

642 $paper[$fieldsgiven]=ereg_replace('[{}]','',mysql_real_escape_string($valuesgiven));
becomes
642 $paper[$fieldsgiven]=ereg_replace('[{}]','',$valuesgiven);

704 $author[$afield]=ereg_replace('[{}]','',mysql_real_escape_string($avalues));
becomes
704 $author[$afield]=ereg_replace('[{}]','',$avalues);

Hope this helps