Have you all tried Zotero?

I work at the Center for History and New Media and we have developed this great tool for working with references. You can automatically capture citation information from all sorts of websites and manage the information in it's i-tunes like interface. You can then drag and drop formated references into any text fields. Very cool. Check out some of the screencasts here. http://www.zotero.org/documentation/screencast_tutorials

Its free, open source and it takes all of 30 seconds to install. Give it a try!

I have used Zotero and it is a great product particularly for capturing references for website. The word add in works well to. Unfortunately though, I still end up exporting to Endnote as it is easier to carry the endnote file between home and work. Once Zotero has a backup and restore feature, I see myself giving up endnote.

I have done a brief review of Zotero on my blog - http://undirectedramblings.blogspot.com/2007/05/evernote-evermore.html

I'm trying out Zotero, but at this point it seems a little early in its development. It looks like a nice organizer, but I'm interested to see how to export information.

There are several ways to export information.

You can simply drag and drop selected items into any text field. (Everything from Word docs to blog posts to email, anywhere there is text.) You can also right click on any selected item or items and chose "Generate biblography from selected items". You will then be able to chose from a list of options. You can save the biblography as HTML, send it directly to a printer, save it as a rich text file, or copy it to your clipboard. You can also export your items or collections to a wide array of other bibliographic management tools. Simply right click on any item or items, chose "Export selected items" and chose the format your other tool uses.

Have started using zotero and really liking it. It's pretty intuitive and has a good interface. Haven't pressed the referencing feature into service yet, but find that in the meantime it's great for pulling together disparate sources into one place.

I find Zotero very useful, but still feel one should have, in addition, something like Endnotes as well. Especially as one accumulates papers after many years in grad school, it's good to have a well-organized repository for citations, etc.

I love Zotero. My next big anticipation is online backups and online access.

It's less clunky and awkward than RefWorks. However, I still advocate managing your bibliography yourself. If something happens to your computer, everything that you've saved in Zotero is gone.

Mfix31

This was taken from the Zotero website:

How do I back up my Zotero library?

The best way to back up your Zotero library is to close Firefox and then copy the Zotero folder, stored in a subdirectory of your Firefox profile directory, to an external drive. The Zotero folder holds your database and all the related files (images, PDFs, webpages, etc.) and can usually be found in these locations:

On a Mac:
/Users//Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles//zotero

On Windows 2000/XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\\zotero

On Windows Vista:
C:\users\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\\zotero

By backing up this directory you will back up your entire Zotero library. If something drastic happens (hard drive melts, computer is stolen, etc.), you can simply place your archived backup Zotero folder into your new Firefox profile with Firefox closed. When you open Firefox, your Zotero library will be there waiting for you (after you reinstall Zotero, if necessary). As with all important data, it is a good idea to back up your Zotero data frequently.

Save your library often and to a zip drive or a cd.

I think that world of Zotero!

Yep, I use Zotero too, but not as my main citation database, since I'm used to the "cite while you write" features of EndNote, and I think EndNote and similar programs have better functionality for that. I use Zotero mainly as a way to copy, store, and easily retreive information I find on the web, since it saves a local copy of the webpage. This is great both because these are then searchable and editable, but also because then you don't have to worry if the web page changes. I wish the interface were a little better, especially when you search for something.

I don't find Zotero very useful for jotting down and viewing my own notes, though, and for that I really like EverNote, especially the new version (which has a web version too, and can be synchronized across multiple computers and devices).

I love Zotero, though I find that using it with Microsoft Word becomes iffy the longer a paper gets, and eventually slows and crashed Word. This needs to be fixed.

I use Zotero with MS Word all of the time, and haven't found a slowing problem. Granted the highest page count I have had since using Zotero is around 25 pages. So that may be the issue.

Just started using it. A professor of mine recommended it, he said he's been using it for all of his research.

I'm using it and it's fantastic. Best bibliography manager out there.

Is there an easy way to transfer all of the bibliographic information from my LibraryThing collection to Zotero? That is, can this be done in bulk rather than one item at a time?

I have used Zotoro for about a year and a half and just today I plugged it over on LinkedIn. It is not as flexible as note cards but it is much easier to take notes with. Keep up the good work.

I don't think that there is a way to add all of your books easily. I am afraid you will have to add them one at a time. Also, adding books from LT may be more of a hassle, than adding them from Amazon or worldcat. I found that I have to edit each entry quite a bit. For me, it wasn't worth the effort.

I've never tried this, so I don't know if it works, but one thing you might try doing a MARC-export from LibraryThing, and then import that to Zotero.

http://www.librarything.com/more/export-marc

You may have to check through your records after to make sure that it worked, but I believe Zotero marks each import attempt with an import folder, so it should be pretty easy to find them once they're in Zotero, in order to check them.

Thanks, rsterling! This was exactly the solution I was hoping for. It took me less than a minute to MARC-export over 300 titles from LibraryThing and add them to Zotero. Very smooth and seamless.

No problem!

The only issue to remember with the LT exports is that you can't export only a part of your books; you have to export the whole lot at once. So it's great for a one-time export, but wouldn't be ideal for ongoing "syncing" of one's library across LT and Zotero, because it would create duplicates. (You could probably edit the MARC file, though.)

Thanks, rsterling. It wouldn't work for me, but I am glad to know that it is possible.

Attempting to export my LT library to Zotero with mixed results. In principle, any of the MARC or JSON outputs should work.

JSON did not; the Zotero import fails, claiming the file is not properly formatted.

MARC with fuzzy record insertion failed; but the basic MARC export did import, apparently successfully.