I normally use Endnote 9 + Word 2004 (Mac). Not that Endnote is bad software, but I am interested in alternatives. And since much research on the computer today passes through the browser, it might make sense to have the reference manager built in to the browser. Trying out Zotero therefore seems like a good idea.
So, here begins my test of Zotero. I will use it for my daily work for a couple of weeks – one of which will be spent on the beaches of Tisvildeleje rather than in front of the computer, so don’t expect too quick results of this informal test.
In today’s installment, the first test is simply to get things going.
Installing Zotero 1.0.7 on my Firefox 3 was easy. Exporting my not so big (281 posts) Endnote database to Zotero was also straightforward. Then I installed the Word plugin and tried to insert notes with references. It works.
One problem was that when I exported via Endnote’s Refman filter, only the author’s initials showed up. Could have been fixed by me on the Endnote side, but I tried exporting via the BibTex filter instead. Seems to work.
Things like making new citation styles through the Citation Style Language used by Zotero for citation formatting (only a small standard set is automatically installed) will have to wait.
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Gustav, I’m also an Endnote user pondering whether (and how) I should move into Zotero. It’s clear that an increasing percentage of my research is coming from online readings, searches, websites, etc. Maybe you could give us a follow up post telling us how its working out for you. I, for one, would be interested.
By the way, I’ve gotten a lot of visits from people coming from your site – thanks for listing my blog. Will you be attending HSS in the US this fall by any chance?
Michael
Michael, thanks for commenting. I will follow up as I get more experienced with Zotero.
No, I’m not going to HSS this year. Would like to go, though.
Glad to hear you are trying out Zotero!
There are a whole bunch more styles at http://www.zotero.org/styles
In the beta version of Zotero you can also use any of Endnote’s export filters.
Trevor, thanks for the information. I was able to install an Endnote style.
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Will you be posting a follow-up any time soon? I’m curious, as some of the idiosyncrasies of Zotero have been getting on my nerves, and I’m wondering whether to adopt Reference Manager or EndNote instead.
David, Here are the latest updates:
http://www.gustavholmberg.com/magnitude/2009/01/28/using-zotero-pt-4/
http://www.gustavholmberg.com/magnitude/2008/12/10/using-zotero-pt-3/
Basically, what’s happened is that I’ve gone back to Zotero 1.0. Works OK for me together with Word 2004 on Mac. What kind of idiosyncrasies do you mean?
Gustav,
Sorry – I just now happened across this and realized that I hadn’t replied.
I’m writing a PhD thesis in LaTeX, so I’m using BibTeX for my references. I had thought just to export to BibTeX format, and to leave the contents in Zotero, but Zotero omits some of the information provided by, for example, JStor. While it’s true that the elements provided by JStor are not presented in the bibliography, they are useful fields to have, to my mind. jstor_articletype, jstor_issuetitle, and jstor_formatteddate are just the three which leap out, from the very first entry in my BibTeX file.
I would probably keep using Zotero, if it didn’t lose things along the way, and if I had some means of assigning the BibTeX item name to the entries, but … well, having to spend hours renaming things, and looking through JStor and other sources trying to figure out if I’d lost anything … isn’t my idea of a good, productive day.