Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you
gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web
pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of
your research in a variety of ways. An extension to the popular
open-source web browser Firefox, Zotero includes the best parts of
older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store
author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as
formatted references—and the best parts of modern software and web
applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to
interact, tag, and search in advanced ways. Zotero integrates tightly
with online resources; it can sense when users are viewing a book,
article, or other object on the web, and—on many major research and
library sites—find and automatically save the full reference
information for the item in the correct fields. Since it lives in the
web browser, it can effortlessly transmit information to, and receive
information from, other web services and applications; since it runs on
one’s personal computer, it can also communicate with software running
there (such as Microsoft Word). And it can be used offline as well
(e.g., on a plane, in an archive without WiFi).
The 1.0 release
of Zotero already provides advanced functionality for gathering,
organizing, and scanning one’s research, as well as significant
import/export capabilities (including integration with Word and an API
for communication with any program or service on the web). In 2007,
Zotero users will gain the ability to share and collaborate on their
collections with other users through an exchange server, and receive
recommendations and feeds of new resources that might be of interest to
them. In short, over the next year Zotero will expand from an already
helpful browser extension into a full-fledged tool for digital research
and collaboration.
