Zotero: An Evaluation
This had been my first time utilizing a reference manager such as Zotero; as a result, I went into this assignment with very little knowledge of what to expect. Zotero is marketed as one’s “personal research assistant” to keep organized, to cite, and to collaborate; they state that they are an “open source and developed by an independent, nonprofit organization that has no financial interest in…private information” (Zotero, n.d.). I will be utilizing the Standard Functions of Reference Managers for evaluation criteria.
I decided to download the software onto my laptop and start with familiarizing myself with the user interface. I also added the connector onto my browser. After playing around with it for a while and adding a couple articles and information from a book, generating citations, a bibliography, and uploading articles, I realized that there are palpable strengths to this software. One of the most salient and obvious strengths is how Zotero function as a central location for organizing simultaneous projects in folders, storing articles, citations, annotations, and publications. Had I ever used this software previously, for example, in my first graduate program, it would have saved me literally hours on managing and reviewing citations alone.
In regards to citations, this software is stellar. One can either input information manually into the fields, or use an identifier, such as the DOI or the ISBN, to autofill the fields. Following the management of citations, having a bibliography automatically generated from a collection with one click of a mouse and being able to input it directly into a Word document, is also extremely helpful. Furthermore, having the Zotero add-on in Word and Google Docs to aid in adding and editing citations maximizes efficiency. I can only imagine how much this has helped scholars and students alike with deadlines and staying organized in general.
I also appreciated the fact that one can upload actual articles to Zotero and access it offline. If one is working online, it is easy to access the article on the web in addition to using this software on different devices. If a scholar or student is, for example, traveling and may not have access to steady internet, I can see this feature being super helpful in being able to work consistently. However, they do state on their website, that “for full functionality, you’ll want to install Zotero on each synced computer” (Why Zotero?, n.d.).
As I continued to familiarize myself more with the software, I was able to see that there is also the ability to collaborate with peers and colleagues on the online version. With this ‘Group’ feature, one can share sources and see what other scholars are doing—like Group Libraries. I realized later that I had actually used Zotero in this kind of collaborative aspect in learning and researching about diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and initiatives in academic and public librarianship.
Even though there are significant benefits in using this software, there were some challenges. For one, using both the website and the downloaded version did not come intuitively to me—at least initially, it was a bit complicated. I had to watch tutorials and read some of the forum posts in order to better understand the benefits that this offers to scholars, researchers, and students. These challenges, however, are quite minor. In retrospect, I would have appreciated a more comprehensive tutorial on how to get started using Zotero on Zotero’s website rather than brief explanations of features or a Quick Start Guide. Overall, the benefits far outweigh the minor inconvenience of having to learn how to use navigate this software and now that I have engaged with it, I will definitely be using it.
References
Quick start guide [zotero documentation]. Zotero. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide.
Why Zotero? Zotero. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://www.zotero.org/why.
YouTube. (2021). How To Use Zotero (A Complete Beginner's Guide). Retrieved November 28, 2021, from How To Use Zotero (A Complete Beginner's Guide).
Zotero. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://www.zotero.org/.