Comments on: Bibliographic turf

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:16:13 +0000

@j-damn:

If you work at an academic institution, you may be able to find enough people who believe in the ideals of free/open source to change policy.

In any case, very few places restrict installation of firefox & not the installation of other software. You may be able to push for a review of firefox & state the business need. If it is just a matter of not having administrative privs, you might get away with portable firefox.

By: j-damn

j-damn — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:18:28 +0000

I love Zotero, but my company won’t let anyone install Firefox.

By: Erika Sevetson

Erika Sevetson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:08:48 +0000

Chiming in quite late to this, but I wanted to point out to Lynn that Zotero is FAR easier to use than RefWorks. For an undergrad (or a master’s student working on a term paper), it’s as simple as a few clicks. I showed it in a seminar a few weeks ago–only going as far as saving references from PubMed, a web site, and our library catalog, then creating a stand-alone bibliography–and the students actually gasped in appreciation. With RefWorks, it’s easy, but not THAT easy.

By: nirak.net - Musings of an LIS Student » More thoughts on Zotero and proselytizing

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 04:44:36 +0000

[...] The Strange Dynamics of Technology Adoption and Promotion in Academia and Steve Lawson gave some good reasons for not promoting Zotero- including investment (monetary and human) in RefWorks, ease of use of RefWorks (since it’s [...]

By: Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:20:34 +0000

Bruce, I almost canned that comment from kalvin as spam. But it would be pretty odd spam.

Ph34R teh death 34R!

By: Bruce D'Arcus

Bruce D'Arcus — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:37:23 +0000

john: sure thing; makes sense.

kalvin: a really productive contribution to the discussion; avoid any of the substance of the issues, and instead dismiss it all with a specious turn-of-phrase. Can you really not do better than that?

BTW, the phrase is “deaf ear”.

By: Lynn Jones

Lynn Jones — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:36:39 +0000

I’d like to chime in on the conversation, and let me out myself as an academic librarian right off the bat.

A couple of issues bother me in this discussion. First, it’s a little naive to assume that libraries are typically the part of the university that purchases bib software. Certainly not true in the case of Berkeley… it was a campus-level decision.

But more important is the mistaken belief that a single tool will serve all the various populations on a campus equally well. I work directly with undergrads and grad students, and it would be the rare undergraduate who would need all the features of Zotero, even those working on theses. Yes, some could, but for most students it would just be a case of too many features, too steep a learning curve. For many, even Refworks is more than they need.

As someone who teaches research, I consider it my job to point individuals to the best bib software for their personal needs. In some cases Zotero is great, probably a better option than Endnote, but not for everyone.

Lynn

By: kalvin

kalvin — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:35:24 +0000

Steve, A word to the wise, People tend to turn a death ear to religious zealots

By: John Bickar

John Bickar — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:31:38 +0000

This is timely, as I'm installing EndNote on my laptop at this very moment and I'm planning on learning how to use it today. I'm a moderate Zotero evangelist, as it works well for me, and (all other things being equal) open>=closed. So why learn EndNote? Because students use it, and they should be free to use what they want. As a staff member, I feel like I should be prepared to help them with the tool(s) that they choose. I think anything that you're used to using is "eas(y) to manage and support." P.S. We have a Zotero QuickStart on our website, and they have great tutorials on zotero.org.

By: Bruce D'Arcus

Bruce D'Arcus — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:41:57 +0000

Um, for anyone that reads through my previous comment, apologies for the sloppy reference to multiple “real points”! Been a long day …