DiRT (Digital Research Tools) has a new home! Please visit Bamboo DiRT to explore this excellent collection of research tools.
Web site: http://www.zotero.org/
Date of review/ name of reviewer: 4/17/08 [Lisa Spiro]
Additional reviewers: Erin Dorris Cassidy
Produced by: Center for History and New Media at George Mason University
Cost: Free
Description: "Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself."
Advantages:
- Automatically download bibliographic information, web page snapshots, and (sometimes) associated PDF files from hundreds of supported sites, including JSTOR, the New York Times, Google Scholar, and Flickr
- Easily create bibliographies in a variety of formats
- Integration with word processing programs means that you can add citations as you write
- Organize research collections as if you are creating an iTunes playlist--drop citations in multiple "folders"
- Tag your resources
- Powerful search tools
- Analyze and visualize your collections; for instance, create a timeline or sort your publications according to publication place
- Large and growing user community
- Excellent support
- Upcoming features include the ability to sync collections with the Zotero server (enabling you to access your collections from multiple computers), share resources with groups, and get recommendations
Disadvantages:
- Can be a bit sluggish with large collections
Tips:
- If you are taking notes in Zotero, number them so that they sort well.
- If you're not sure what to do when you're in Zotero, try right clicking in the application--by doing so, you can create reports, bibliographies, new collections, and more
- The Zotero web site has some helpful online tutorials. In 10 minutes or so, you can learn the basics of zotero.
More information:
Developer Resources:
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