Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide | College@Home
I'm not sure that I'm ready to put Twitter at the top of my tool list, but this blogger has some interesting suggestions for libraries.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
WikipediaVision (beta)
WikipediaVision (beta)
I was scanning through old issues of CR&L News and came across this FastFacts recommendation by Gary Pattillo. It's a mashup that shows (almost) real-time edits to Wikipedia.
I was scanning through old issues of CR&L News and came across this FastFacts recommendation by Gary Pattillo. It's a mashup that shows (almost) real-time edits to Wikipedia.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Citation Management - Still not satisfied
There isn't a clear winner in my investigation of free citation management tools.
Since Zotero does a good job of capturing EBSCOhost citations, I'll probably use it when I need to create bibliographies for public consumption. If only it was web-based and easily shareable...
For my own purposes, I may squirrel citations of interest in Connotea...
Since Zotero does a good job of capturing EBSCOhost citations, I'll probably use it when I need to create bibliographies for public consumption. If only it was web-based and easily shareable...
For my own purposes, I may squirrel citations of interest in Connotea...
A few thoughts on citation management - Part 3 - CiteULike
CiteULike is another web-based academic citation management system. My first impression is that the interface isn't quite as friendly as Connotea.
It has several notable strengths. First, it is the most shareable tool. You can share your tags and collections and search those of other public collections. You can also see how many other people have linked to the same resources in one of their collections. A second strength is that it actually gives you a lengthy list of ejournal sources from which it can capture citation information. It gives you options for importing and exporting citations.
A few weaknesses. A biggie for me is that it doesn't capture citations for EBSCOhost databases. Since most of my access to full-text articles is through EBSCOhost databases, this is major issue for me. You can manually add information for websites and other sources, but you only have a single template for all types of materials. (Zotero has templates customized by type of material). Web pages can be especially awkward. CiteULike is really geared to work with academic papers and articles. I'd also cite usability as an issue. After exploring this service, I still think it's harder to use than Connotea and Zotero.
It has several notable strengths. First, it is the most shareable tool. You can share your tags and collections and search those of other public collections. You can also see how many other people have linked to the same resources in one of their collections. A second strength is that it actually gives you a lengthy list of ejournal sources from which it can capture citation information. It gives you options for importing and exporting citations.
A few weaknesses. A biggie for me is that it doesn't capture citations for EBSCOhost databases. Since most of my access to full-text articles is through EBSCOhost databases, this is major issue for me. You can manually add information for websites and other sources, but you only have a single template for all types of materials. (Zotero has templates customized by type of material). Web pages can be especially awkward. CiteULike is really geared to work with academic papers and articles. I'd also cite usability as an issue. After exploring this service, I still think it's harder to use than Connotea and Zotero.
A few thoughts on citation management - Part 2 - Zotero
Zotero is a Firefox plugin for citation management.
It's main strength is its ability to extract citation information. I was able to extract it for EBSCOhost articles and web pages that had RDF information. It can't capture citation information most web pages or PDF files, but you can manually "Create a New Item from Current Page." When you create an item, it has fill-in templates for a variety of resource types: book, blog, article, email, etc. Tagging is also possible, but it isn't as obvious as Connotea. For tagging, you need to remember to open the Zotero bar at the bottom of the screen and click on the Tag tab on the right side. You can also create multiple collections. Zotero also has OpenURL support.
Zotero has a few weaknesses. For starters, it works only with Firefox. Also, it stores files locally. Moving it between machines is complicated. You can: 1. run Zotero through the Portable Firefox application, 2. run Zotero from a network drive, 3. use a folder synchronization service, or 4. backup Zotero to a portable drive and overlay onto the Zotero files on another machine. Yikes!
It's main strength is its ability to extract citation information. I was able to extract it for EBSCOhost articles and web pages that had RDF information. It can't capture citation information most web pages or PDF files, but you can manually "Create a New Item from Current Page." When you create an item, it has fill-in templates for a variety of resource types: book, blog, article, email, etc. Tagging is also possible, but it isn't as obvious as Connotea. For tagging, you need to remember to open the Zotero bar at the bottom of the screen and click on the Tag tab on the right side. You can also create multiple collections. Zotero also has OpenURL support.
Zotero has a few weaknesses. For starters, it works only with Firefox. Also, it stores files locally. Moving it between machines is complicated. You can: 1. run Zotero through the Portable Firefox application, 2. run Zotero from a network drive, 3. use a folder synchronization service, or 4. backup Zotero to a portable drive and overlay onto the Zotero files on another machine. Yikes!
A few thoughts on citation management - Part 1 - Connotea
I've been experimenting with free citation management tools for use with a sabbatical project. All of them have strengths and weaknesses.
Connotea is a web-based service targeted at academics. Strengths include anywhere access, browser button for capture, ability to create multiple collections, private and public citations, and tagging. You can also import citations from other reference management programs if they are in
RIS format. An advanced feature is the ability to configure for OpenURL linking via your local library.
My main complaint about Connotea is that I haven't had much luck with it actually extracting citation information. The help files say that it works for some sites, but I haven't encountered any. I really don't want to transfer the citation information by hand.
Connotea is a web-based service targeted at academics. Strengths include anywhere access, browser button for capture, ability to create multiple collections, private and public citations, and tagging. You can also import citations from other reference management programs if they are in
RIS format. An advanced feature is the ability to configure for OpenURL linking via your local library.
My main complaint about Connotea is that I haven't had much luck with it actually extracting citation information. The help files say that it works for some sites, but I haven't encountered any. I really don't want to transfer the citation information by hand.
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