Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Zotero?

Has anybody used Zotero? Does it work? Is it useful?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I've used it. But, I switched back to endnote. Still have zotero installed on my browser, and I use it to import citations from the web which I then export as RIS files in order to import them into my endnote library.

So, used it, somewhat useful.

Anonymous said...

I used what looks like an older version last year/two years ago. It helped. It doesn't do everything you want it to, but it's better than nothing (and takes virtually no extra time).

Simon Spero said...

It's pretty handy, especially as a fairly broad coverage rule based metadata extraction and NER tool.

I don't use it as a bibliography manager per se. I use bibtex files, with bibdesk (Mac only).

You might want to take a look at the new Zotero 2.0 beta.

BrianH said...

It is good. And free, so give it a spin. It combines the traditional bibliography tools of Endnote with modern web 2.0 functionality like tagging, which helps organize your material. Many universities now offer training, but the program is simple and trial and error works fine. You can import any previous databases from Endnote and other programs and you can export them back if you don't like it.

You can grab information from traditional academic databases and library catalogs, and almost all web sources, like Amazon, which is very handy.

Plus it syncs across computers (version 1.5 and above), which was always a major pain with traditional programs that reside on one machine. So, no worries if you work with different computers at home and school.

Anonymous said...

@anonymous:

Why'd you switch back to EndNote? What does Zotero not do that you want it to?

Maia said...

I think it's pretty good, but I've actually switched to Archivd. It seems to have better metadata extraction, but the reason I really like it is because it's much easier to share with people I'm researching with and comment on things they've bookmarked.