I needed to make a quick, properly-formatted bibliography and I'm not lucky enough to get one of our corporate
Endnote seats. So I turned to
Zotero, a project that I've been following but not really using (same with
cb2bib). I entered the refs, used the Word 2007 add-in, cited, created the biblio, and feeling proud I called a colleague to
show off share this handy tool. Her response was, "Oh, I don't need that, I use
Mendeley." Men-what? And so I embark on a new round of research in an attempt to stay up-to-date with a software and data landscape that changes daily.
Looks like both products offer (or are about to offer) a stand-alone desktop tool (e.g, no need for a browser). Mandeley appears to be free, but not Free (proprietary and developed by a company). Zotero appears to be primarily developed by George Mason University. Both offer extensive import/export from the relevant data data types (Bibtex, etc.) but we do some funny things with attributes so I'll have to check our mileage. There seems to be some religious battles regarding usability - and I've struggled with a few citation managers here, so this makes sense. Other than that I need a beer, pizza, and some time without work or kids to compare these two. Until below are some other quick notes. More to follow...
MendeleyMendeley is a free
reference manager and
academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research.
Features from their website:
General- Cross-platform - Mendeley Desktop has full support for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
- Secure backup - Any documents synced in the desktop client will be backed up on the web.
- Mobile devices - Read papers anywhere with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
- Install on multiple computers - Install Mendeley on multiple computers and access your entire library.
Organize- Full text search - Mendeley Desktop creates a fully searchable database of your papers.
- Automatic metadata extraction - We automatically extract metadata from the papers you import.
- Highlight and annotate - Organise your own notes and highlights and share them with others.
- Flexible organization - Groups, tags, and filters let you organise your way.
Community Research collaboration - Use research groups to collaborate with your peers and colleagues.
Trends and statistics - Get real-time readership statistics and view trends in your research area.
Track your own publications - Find out how many people are reading and downloading your own research.
Related research - Get personalized suggestions on interesting papers to read.
Integration- Microsoft Word / Open Office - Our plugins let you easily insert bibliographies into your documents.
- BibTeX / Endnote / RIS - Mendeley Desktop can import and export all these formats and more.
- Zotero / CiteULike - Mendeley Desktop can sync with your Zotero or CiteULike libraries.
- Mendeley API - Our API allows 3rd parties to build applications using Mendeley's data.
ZoteroZotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you
collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the
web browser itself.
Features from their website:
Collect Everything - Record your online research with one click.- Capture Research Data - Collect information on books, journal articles, and other resources with a single click in your location bar
- Archive the Web - Archive entire web pages in your library
- Store Anything - Store related PDFs, files, images, and links in your library
Organize Any Way - It has never been easier to organize research.- Intuitive Interface - Zotero's iTunes-like interface allows you to quickly organize your research sources
- Drag and Drop - Drag and drop items into collections and tag them with terms relevant to your needs
- Take Notes - Easily take notes right alongside your items
Cite Anywhere - You're never more than one click from a bibliography.- Drag and Drop Bibliography - Drag and drop bibliographies anywhere: into an email, a blog post, or any word processor
- Word and OpenOffice Integration - Plugins for Word and OpenOffice make it easy to drop in references on the fly
- Cite in Style - Zotero comes preloaded with all major styles, and thousands of additional journal-specific styles are freely available
Access Everywhere - Your information is wherever you need it to be.- Work Locally, Sync Globally - Get the best of both worlds: Work locally with your research materials and automatically sync your data between multiple computers
- Browse from Mobile Devices - Even without Zotero, you can access your collection from any web browser. You can even view your collection on mobile devices like the iPhone.
- Publish Your Process - Share your research with the world and make your library and collections public
Collaborate with Anyone - Opt in to automatic collaboration.- Share Group Libraries - Create group libraries to collaborate with other Zotero users
- Publish Dynamic Bibliographies - Publish shared libraries for your organization, class, or research group
- Uncover New Connections - Discover other researchers working in your field
Relevant Linkshttp://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/using-mendeley-for-research-management/25627http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/6174/mendeley/http://spinuzzi.blogspot.com/2010/03/sxswi-discussion-mendeley.htmlhttp://astuscience.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-most-successful-post-paper-versus-mendeley-zotero-and-stuff/http://earlycj5.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/zotero-vs-mendeley-initial-thoughts/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_softwarehttp://groups.google.com/group/zotero-evangelists/browse_thread/thread/2fc26735b1142acd?pli=1http://www.slideshare.net/giustinid/ref-works-mendeley-zotero
