Last year, I looked for software to manage bibliographies. I used Endnote for a year, and now I’m using Zotero.
Endnote, from Thompson ResearchSoft, is one of the leaders in reference management software. It works fairly well, and is compatible with many online databases. It’s “Cite While You Write” feature makes creating footnotes easier, even if it does require some editing. It’s fairly expensive, though; I bought it only because it was available at a very reduced price. For the time that it saved, it was worth every penny of the reduced price. Endnote does have some problems. It seems to be designed more for the sciences than the humanities, and it is absolutely worthless for taking notes.
Zotero, however, has supplanted Endnote in my affections. Zotero is free software from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It’s an extension for Firefox, so it works within the browser and is easy to install. The software recognizes bibliographic data on websites and can add it your reference list with one click. Each entry can have notes, links, tags, and other data associated with it. Microsoft Word and Open Office Writer both have plugins that allow you to cite works from Zotero. Future versions will allow you to save your references online so that you can access them from any computer. In my estimation, Zotero beats any other reference management software. And it’s completely free.
Because all my sources for my thesis are in Endnote, I’m going to continue to use it until I finish the thesis. (I could export from Endnote to Zotero, but I’d rather not.) For all my other work, Zotero is my tool of choice. At the end of this semester, I’d be more than willing to sell you a copy of Endnote.
Do these handle formatting according to different paper format regimes (Turabian/APA, etc)?
Yes. Endnote handles just about every citation style, including derivative styles for particular journals. You can also edit styles and create your own. In my experience, the quality of Endnote’s citation templates is lacking. In particular, I had to modify its Turabian and Chicago styles.
Zotero also includes different citation styles, such as APA, MLA, and Chicago. The quality of its citation engine is much better than that of Endnote’s, and it’s based on a recognized standard. Zotero’s styles do have some annoyances, such as not giving an abbreviated citation for a second reference and including the URL by default even for sources which could be cited without it. Zotero does permit you to modify citation templaces; I just haven’t experimented yet. More citation styles are planned for Zotero.
Huh. Interesting.I doubt you’ll be able to sell off Endnote after writing this… After all, Zotero is free, open-source, and better by your own admission.Judging from the sparse but intriguing documentation in Zotero’s development section, it seems to be using a lot of the latest in browser plugin development and should remain a leading citation manager for the next few years at least.
I probably can’t count you among the potential buyers then. :-)
Yeah, sorry! :)
I must say, that is pretty nifty. I wish I had been able to use it before.
I have used Zotero for the past few years, and the last year quite heavily with my dissertation. I have found some good points and some not-so-good points with Zotero. Zotero does not allow you to backup large amounts of references from within Zotero. Even when I checked out the forums, there were people having problems with this. I managed to find a way of backing up what I needed, but it was more of a headache than it should have been. I have also had trouble with my Firefox browser via a virus. That combined with the trouble backing up things has made me look at moving away from Zotero for something more “stable.” I recently purchased Endnote, so I can have a stand-alone product. I will probably look at Zotero again in the future, but for the moment, it is not where I need it to be for my research.
This is what I’ve done to make sure that my Zotero library is backed up: In the settings, I moved the library into the directory where I store all my research files. If I ever need a backup of the library, I can just ZIP the directory and put the archive somewhere safe. (Actually, now that I’m on a Mac, Time Machine backs it up automatically every hour.)
If you wanted to back up a specific set of references in Zotero, could you just highlight them all and export them as an RDF file?
If the next version of Zotero syncs to the cloud, that will definitely take care of any backup worries.
I hope that’s helpful. And I hope your dissertation is coming along well.
That is a good idea and helpful. I was doing something like that for a time too. I found that merging a backup like that with other research that I had done was difficult. I hope that makes sense.
Right. I still want to see what happens with the cloud. So as I said, I am still watching Zotero, but I feel like I need something that I think is a little more robust for this project.
Thanks.