A superb, free, bibliography manager now got even more useful for biblical scholars, though I still have a small gripe, Zotero does not yet know how to handle book reviews :( the main styles for this are covered by this Duke University Library page and you can see how much fiddling would be needed to change a Zotero reference like this from one style to another!
Labels: biblical.studies.online, bibliography, zotero
¶ 6:00 AM
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So how about a session at CARG devoted to recommending citations styles for e-texts, which could then go to the proper quarters to be included in the next edition (ten years is a very long time in scholarship in the 21st century ;-) of the SBL Handbook of Style.
Labels: biblical.studies, biblical.studies.online, bibliography, digital
¶ 9:25 AM
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In "Documents and Settings" under "Application Data" and hidden under "Mozilla" in the "Firefox/Profiles" directory is one for "Zotero" just COPY that to a CD or memory stick and you are safe(r).
Labels: bibliography, study-skills, zotero, zothelp
¶ 9:34 PM
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For those who use Mac OSX, the zotero folder is located, by default, inside your Firefox profile folder, which (be default) can be found at ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/ . If you're using Spotlight for backup, as long as this directory tree is not excluded, your backup will include the Zotero db. See further: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/1260/
By 
Tom Elliott, at
June 6, 2008 2:12 AM
Hi, Tim. Good reminder...
FYI, there is a way to sync Zotero across two computers using FolderShare. It's a bit awkward, but it's another way of keeping the data backed up.
For directions: http://bibleandtech.blogspot.com/2008/03/vertov-for-zotero-update-zotero-and.html
By mgvh, at
June 6, 2008 2:32 AM
Thanks Tom, my colleagues who use Mac OSX don't yet use Zotero so the information will be helpful for any Mac users reading.
Mark, yes synching is a good way to back up by the back door. My main backup synchs my Data folder and my Thunderbird profile I'll have to add Zotero to the mix - if only Windows and all programmers let ME choose what goes into my profile in "Documents and Settings" I could just back that up like MS wants, the trouble is it is 45GB with half my data still on the external drive only...
By Tim, at
June 6, 2008 5:47 AM
What happened to the video?
By Elizabeth, at
June 6, 2008 6:29 AM
The video looks OK to me, what did happen to it?
By Tim, at
June 6, 2008 6:57 AM
Great clip! In a recent update it became much easier to find your profile. If you open the advanced pane of your Zotero preferences pane you can click the "show data directory" button which will jump you directly to the Zotero directory on whatever platform you are using.
By 
trevor, at
June 7, 2008 3:40 AM
Thanks, Trevor, nice feature :) while we wait for the "Backup/Restore Zotero" button ;-)
Sorry I took a while replying, I wanted to try it first... Now I'll need to find a time to update the video :(
By Tim, at
June 16, 2008 4:55 PM
Zotero has begun to work on supporting the SBL Manual of Style as one of the many stylesheets it can output. At present it is "dev", but on a short test seems to be working pretty well...
Labels: bibliography, sbl, zotero
¶ 11:31 AM
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Here are two quick and dirty screencasts to demonstrate:
Labels: bibliography, references, teaching, technology, zotero
¶ 4:26 PM
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i use endnote (it comes with the school i attend). do you have any thoughts on the comparison between the two?
By Tim Ricchuiti, at
January 22, 2008 5:32 PM
Endnote is brilliant too, ten years ago it was superb, in between it began to slow my computer a lot. The later versions (people tell me) do not have as dire an effect :) However, Zotero is free, lightweight fast and does what I want... If I was writing a thesis again and my institution provided Endnote I'd go with that to get the support.
Where I am we can't afford to provide Endnote, and Zotero is superb. If Endnote has features I need that Zotero does not I do not yet know what they are ;)
By Tim, at
January 22, 2008 5:38 PM
I've tried the Mac OS X integration (with MS Word v.X) and it works quite nicely. The only thing I'd like is some more control over variant styles within a citation (but maybe that's hidden in a preference box somewhere) and a bigger selection of output styles.
Also, do you know anything about "Scholar's Aid". Seems to bill itself as a cheap (or free for the Lite version) alternative to some of the flasher systems. Only for Windows though, and I'm not sure about integration with Word/Open Office.
By Stephen G, at
January 22, 2008 10:50 PM
Clearly very, very cool!! I don't have time to play with Zotero at the moment, so can't compare. Two things I wondered about it:
1. how many different referencing styles does it have available and can you produce your own if it doesn't have one you want (because you are writing for some obscure religious journal)?
2. what happens when you add further references to the same book? Does it manage ibid and short forms of the citation in your footnotes or od you have to do that manually?
If it does both these things, it is probably a very good substitute for Endnote. If not, it is still very impressive for free software.
By Judy Redman, at
January 22, 2008 11:27 PM
American Political Science Association
American Psychological Association
American Sociological Association (Author-Date)
Chicago Manual of Style (Author-Date format)
Chicago Manual of Style (Full Note with Bibliography)
Chicago Manual of Style (Note with Bibliography)
Chicago Manual of Style (Note without Bibliography)
Harvard Reference format 1 (Author-Date)
IEEE
Modern Humanities Research Association (Note with Bibliography)
Modern Humanities Research Association (Note without Bibliography)
Modern Language Association
National Library of Medicine
Nature Journal
Though you can't (unless a computer geek) roll your own there is a big user-base and some institutional support, so they seem to add more all the time.
Zoterro handles ibid. and short forms as this example formatted in Chicago (Full note with Bibliography) shows:
1. Robert Alter, The World of Biblical Literature (New York: BasicBooks, 1992).
2. Robert. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
3. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton University Press, 2003), 12.
4. Alter, The World of Biblical Literature, 41.
5. Ibid., 12.
6. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative.
By Tim, at
January 23, 2008 6:59 AM
Stephen,
Sorry I have not tried Scholar's Aid, I used to love Endnote, then it "went MS" got feature bloat, and tried to do everything. While poaching my eggs for breakfast (at lunchtime) it slowed what I was actually trying to do to a crawl. So I dumped it and went manual for several years. Now I'm getting hooked on Zotero. I do hope it does not catch MS ;)
By Tim, at
January 23, 2008 7:03 AM
Tim, I'm one of the few people I know who hasn't had any serious dramas with EndNote (though I've only used the older versions 5, 6 & 7 on the Mac). I do know there have been more tales of grief with the later versions though.
The few trivial problems I've had have been the odd error in a citation style, the lack of a style (e.g. McIntosh (for Australian theological publicaitons) or an SBL variant), or a missing type of reference (e.g. book review in old EndNote). Most of which I've worked around.
On thing I loved about EndNote was the ability to connect to the various OPACs around the world with little or no hassle. No need to deal with different OPAC interfaces. Great for chasing down references when publication details vary by country. Zotero can do similar things, but it feels a little more clunky and I personally don't like working in web browsers (which includes webmail and similar - and why I use Ecto to blog with).
By Stephen G, at
January 23, 2008 10:48 AM
It sounds as though there are some things that Zotero can't do that Endnote can. It has literally hundreds of styles available for even reasonably obscure publications (although not Le Museon) and you can usually modify an existing style that is similar if you can't find "your" style. Having said that, there are still some things that need hand-editing in Endnote when you are writing for some of the older theological journals that haven't changed their styles since the mid 1930s!! And the Endnote SBL style isn't quite right.
A word of caution about WorldCat citations - they come from library catalogues and are not always 100% correct because they are put in by human beings. :-) You should always check that the citation you have downloaded is exactly the same as the book you are using. And as Stephen says, beware of the fact that there are British and US editions of some books published in the same year which are sufficiently different to cause problems if you reference the wrong edition.
