Zotero
Encyclopedia
Zotero is free
, open source
reference management software
to manage bibliographic data and related research materials (such as PDFs). Notable features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citations, footnotes and bibliographies, as well as integration with the word processors Microsoft Word
, LibreOffice
, OpenOffice.org Writer
and NeoOffice
. It is produced by the Center for History and New Media
of George Mason University
(GMU).
to GPLv3
. Development of Zotero 2.0.x continued until October 2010, when Zotero 2.0.9 was released.
1.0 support, Firefox 4 compatibility (the minimum is Firefox 3.6), and Zotero Commons, through which materials can be uploaded to the Internet Archive
.
, Zotero Standalone is available for Windows, GNU/Linux and MacOS X. Connectors are available to integrate Zotero Standalone into the web browsers Safari and Chrome.
, Google Scholar
, Google Books, Amazon.com
, Wikipedia
, and publisher's websites, Zotero shows an icon when a book, article, or other resource is being viewed. By clicking this icon, the full reference information can be saved to the Zotero library. Zotero can also save a copy of the webpage, or, in the case of scientific articles, a copy of the full text PDF. Users can then add notes, tags, attachments, and their own metadata
. Selections of the local reference library data can later be exported as formatted bibliographies. Furthermore, all entries including bibliographic information and user-created rich-text memos of the selected articles can be summarized into an HTML report.
, and maintains the Zotero Style Repository, the main repository of CSL styles. Users can generate citations and bibliographies through the word processor plugins, or directly in Zotero.
verb meaning "to master".
, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services
, as well as user donations.
sued the Commonwealth of Virginia
and George Mason University
, based on the claim that Zotero's developers had, in violation of the EndNote EULA
, reverse-engineered EndNote
and provided Zotero with the ability to convert EndNote
's proprietary .ens styles into Citation Style Language
styles. George Mason University responded that they would not renew their site license for EndNote and that "anything created by users of Zotero belongs to those users, and that it should be as easy as possible for Zotero users to move to and from the software as they wish, without friction". The journal Nature
editorialized that "the virtues of interoperability and easy data-sharing among researchers are worth restating. Imagine if Microsoft Word
or Excel
files could be opened and saved only in these proprietary formats, for example. It would be impossible for OpenOffice
and other such software to read and save these files using open standards — as they can legally do."
The case was dismissed on June 4, 2009 due to a lack of jurisdiction. Although the Virginia Supreme Court
granted an appeal to Thomson Reuters in this case on December 18, 2009, the appeal was withdrawn on January 11, 2011.
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
reference management software
Reference management software
Reference management software, citation management software or personal bibliographic management software is software for scholars and authors to use for recording and utilising bibliographic citations . Once a citation has been recorded, it can be used time and again in generating bibliographies,...
to manage bibliographic data and related research materials (such as PDFs). Notable features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citations, footnotes and bibliographies, as well as integration with the word processors Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, LibreOffice
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite developed by The Document Foundation as a fork of OpenOffice.org. It is largely compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms...
, OpenOffice.org Writer
OpenOffice.org Writer
OpenOffice.org Writer is the word processor component of the OpenOffice.org software package. Writer is a word processor similar to Microsoft Word and Corel's WordPerfect, with some of their features....
and NeoOffice
NeoOffice
NeoOffice is an office suite for Mac OS X. It is a fork of the free/open source OpenOffice.org that implements nearly all of the features of the corresponding OpenOffice.org version, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, and graphics program...
. It is produced by the Center for History and New Media
Center for History and New Media
The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University was established by Roy Rosenzweig in 1994 to research and use digital media and information technology in historical research, education, digital tools and resources, digital preservation, and outreach.- Digital preservation...
of George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
(GMU).
Zotero 1.0
The first release of Zotero, 1.0.0b2.r1, was made available in October 2006 as an add-on for the Firefox web browser. Development of Zotero 1.0.x continued until May 2009, when Zotero 1.0.10 was released.Zotero 2.0
Zotero 2.0, released in February 2010, added online features like metadata and file syncing and group libraries, and included a license change from the Educational Community LicenseEducational Community License
The Educational Community License is a free and open source license based on the Apache license and created with the specific needs of the academic community in mind....
to GPLv3
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
. Development of Zotero 2.0.x continued until October 2010, when Zotero 2.0.9 was released.
Zotero 2.1
Zotero 2.1, released in March 2011, adds CSLCitation style language
The Citation Style Language is an open XML-based language to describe the formatting of citations and bibliographies. Reference management programs using CSL include Zotero, Mendeley and Papers.-History:...
1.0 support, Firefox 4 compatibility (the minimum is Firefox 3.6), and Zotero Commons, through which materials can be uploaded to the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
.
Zotero Standalone
Zotero Standalone, first released in January 2011 and available as beta software, allows Zotero to be run as an independent program outside Firefox. Using XULRunnerXULRunner
XULRunner is a runtime environment developed by the Mozilla Foundation to provide a common back-end for XUL-based applications. It replaced the Gecko Runtime Environment, a stalled project with a similar purpose....
, Zotero Standalone is available for Windows, GNU/Linux and MacOS X. Connectors are available to integrate Zotero Standalone into the web browsers Safari and Chrome.
Features
On many websites such as library catalogs, PubMedPubMed
PubMed is a free database accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez information retrieval system...
, Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest...
, Google Books, Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, and publisher's websites, Zotero shows an icon when a book, article, or other resource is being viewed. By clicking this icon, the full reference information can be saved to the Zotero library. Zotero can also save a copy of the webpage, or, in the case of scientific articles, a copy of the full text PDF. Users can then add notes, tags, attachments, and their own metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
. Selections of the local reference library data can later be exported as formatted bibliographies. Furthermore, all entries including bibliographic information and user-created rich-text memos of the selected articles can be summarized into an HTML report.
Citation Formatting
Zotero was the first to adopt the Citation Style LanguageCitation style language
The Citation Style Language is an open XML-based language to describe the formatting of citations and bibliographies. Reference management programs using CSL include Zotero, Mendeley and Papers.-History:...
, and maintains the Zotero Style Repository, the main repository of CSL styles. Users can generate citations and bibliographies through the word processor plugins, or directly in Zotero.
Etymology
The name 'Zotero' is loosely derived from an AlbanianAlbanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
verb meaning "to master".
Financial Support
Development of Zotero has been financed by sponsoring by the Andrew W. Mellon FoundationAndrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City and Princeton, New Jersey in the United States, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, endowed with wealth accumulated by the late Andrew W. Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969...
, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic non-profit organization in the United States. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., then-President and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors.-Overview:...
, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Institute of Museum and Library Services
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is an independent agency of the United States federal government established in 1996. It is the main source of federal support for libraries and museums within the United States, having the mission to "create strong libraries and museums that connect...
, as well as user donations.
EndNote lawsuit
In 2008, Thomson ReutersThomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a provider of information for the world's businesses and professionals and is created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters Group on 17 April 2008. Thomson Reuters is headquartered at 3 Times Square, New York City, USA...
sued the Commonwealth of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
, based on the claim that Zotero's developers had, in violation of the EndNote EULA
Software license agreement
A software license agreement is a contract between the "licensor" and purchaser of the right to use software. The license may define ways under which the copy can be used, in addition to the automatic rights of the buyer including the first sale doctrine and .Many form contracts are only contained...
, reverse-engineered EndNote
EndNote
EndNote is a commercial reference management software package, used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays and articles. It is produced by Thomson Reuters.- Features :...
and provided Zotero with the ability to convert EndNote
EndNote
EndNote is a commercial reference management software package, used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays and articles. It is produced by Thomson Reuters.- Features :...
's proprietary .ens styles into Citation Style Language
Citation style language
The Citation Style Language is an open XML-based language to describe the formatting of citations and bibliographies. Reference management programs using CSL include Zotero, Mendeley and Papers.-History:...
styles. George Mason University responded that they would not renew their site license for EndNote and that "anything created by users of Zotero belongs to those users, and that it should be as easy as possible for Zotero users to move to and from the software as they wish, without friction". The journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
editorialized that "the virtues of interoperability and easy data-sharing among researchers are worth restating. Imagine if Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
or Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
files could be opened and saved only in these proprietary formats, for example. It would be impossible for OpenOffice
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
and other such software to read and save these files using open standards — as they can legally do."
The case was dismissed on June 4, 2009 due to a lack of jurisdiction. Although the Virginia Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Virginia
The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears appeals from the trial-level city and county Circuit Courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative law cases that go through the Court of Appeals of Virginia. It is one of...
granted an appeal to Thomson Reuters in this case on December 18, 2009, the appeal was withdrawn on January 11, 2011.
See also
- Comparison of reference management softwareComparison of reference management software- General :In the "notes" section, there is a difference between:* web-based, referring to applications that may be installed on a web server...
- Citation Style LanguageCitation style languageThe Citation Style Language is an open XML-based language to describe the formatting of citations and bibliographies. Reference management programs using CSL include Zotero, Mendeley and Papers.-History:...
- CiteProcCiteProcCiteProc is the generic name for programs that produce formatted bibliographies and citations based on the metadata of the cited objects and the formatting instructions provided by Citation Style Language styles...
- LibXLibXLibX is a free, open source scholars' extension for the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers that lets people use services offered by their library. Users can search their library catalog and databases through a search bar or through a context menu...
- ScrapBookScrapBookScrapBook is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser which adds enhanced scrapbooking, page saving, bookmarking, and notetaking functionality. The extension was initially developed at , which is a member of the Chair of Human Resource Development in the Department of Human System Science...
– Another Firefox extension having similar capture features but no bibliographic functions - unAPIUnAPIAccording to its website, unAPI is:a tiny HTTP API any web application may use to co-publish discretely identified objects in both HTML pages and disparate bare object formats...
Further reading
- Puckett, Jason. Zotero: A Guide for Librarians, Researchers and Educators ACRL ISBN 978-0-8389-8589-2