billso.com

I’m testing a web-based research tool called Zotero. I hope this free service can replace bibliographic database products like EndNote and Citation. I’ve recommended that software to IS 6100 and professional paper students. However, both products cost over US$100 for the student versions.

Zotero is free. It’s an add-on that can be installed in the Firefox web browser. The database is saved in that computer. I’m looking for a way to overcome this limitation. Zotero will not work well or at all with Internet Explorer, Opera or Safari.

Like other software packages, Zotero can capture citation information from web pages. This is a very helpful feature, especially for users who are dealing with long reference lists. Users can import listings directly from EBSCO and ABI.

It’s also possible to add photos from Flickr and materials from the Internet Archive. Zotero keeps adding support for more sites, and web site developers can add some support on their own. Yesterday, I added Zotero support to this blog. Zotero users can click the icon in the address bar to add a billso.com article to their Zotero library.

Zotero also plays nice with Microsoft Office and its leading freeware competitor, OpenOffice. The OpenOffice software can be downloaded from its web site.

One feature I want to try is file management. Zotero can import PDFs and other documents into its search database. I usually save web pages and articles as PDFs for long-term storage.

Of course, a big reason to use any bibliography manager is auto-formatting. Any decent bibliography package, including Zotero, let users build a reference list. The software then creates a list with the user’s choice of formatting, such as APA style.

Please note that I will not require my IS 6100 and IS 7010 students to use Zotero or Firefox, of course.