At Northeastern we are still supporting Refworks and EndNote as well, but we have also begun teaching and supporting Zotero (up to a point, as we are learning it ourselves). Same reasons as Alex gave below – it’s free, and it harvests info effectively from a wide variety of sources better than the other tools. We aren’t necessarily pushing it when we teach – yet, anyway – but if people ask, we are mentioning it as a good option.

 

We’re also finding that more of our users these days are wanting to share reference libraries among multiple co-authors, sometimes at different institutions, and Zotero seems to be far better for that, partly since all co-authors may not have access to Refworks or EndNote through their institutions, and partly because it is easy to make a group library that everyone can easily add to and access (much easier than passing an EndNote library file back and forth!). So we are definitely recommending Zotero in those scenarios.

 

-Rebecca

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rebecca L. Bailey, Research & Instruction Librarian

Art + Design Collection Manager

Northeastern University, 270 SL

360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115

phone: 617.373.2344 | fax: 617.373.8681

email: [log in to unmask]

 

 

 

Although at Boulder we still support Refworks and Endnote, we are moving more and more to Zotero and Mendeley, both of which are free. Our library is currently considering cancelling our refworks subscription.

 

Personally I feel that Zotero is the best choice for arts & humanities disciplines. Zotero can support by far the most types of sources (including: scores, recordings, images, archival materials, websites etc). It’s open source nature means that it is constantly improving and doesn’t lock users in. Zotero I also find is the best for harvesting citation information from databases, catalogs, and the web. Mendeley is in my opinion best used if you rely almost entirely on PDF’s. I teach Zotero regularly, especially to our grad students.

 

And that’s my elevator pitch for Zotero. I’m happy to answer any Zotero questions!

 

-Alex

 

 

Alexander Watkins

Assistant Professor / Art & Architecture Librarian

University of Colorado Boulder

[log in to unmask]

303-492-3966

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~