Zotero 1.5 Beta Released. The sharing features are here, and also getting meta data from existing pdfs

February 28th, 2009 by jose

This is an exciting release.

In a single stroke, Zotero may have added the most important feature of online apps such as citeUlike (collaboration) and the best feature of Mendeley (metadata extraction). I have no idea how well these work, as I have just moved to zotero recently and don’t want to risk trying the beta this soon, but if they work well, this is a quantum leap.

Here’s a  list of the new features:

  • Automatic synchronization of collections across multiple computers. For example, sync your PC at work with your Mac laptop and your Linux desktop at home.
  • Free automatic backup of your library data at Zotero.org.
  • Automatic synchronization of your attachment files to a server of your choice (e.g. iDisk, Jungle Disk, or university-provided web storage).
  • Recover recently deleted items with Zotero’s trash can.
  • Rich-text notes
  • New style manager allowing you to add and delete CSLs and legacy style formats
  • Automatic detection of PDF metadata (author, title, etc.)
  • Automatic detection and support for proxy servers
    New Website Features
  • Browse through your library online.
  • New user profiles tied to Zotero accounts.
  • Preliminary support for following other Zotero users: In the future this will generate a twitter-like feed of users public research activity.
  • WYSIWYG CV creator, with the ability to dynamically generate all or part of your CV from Zotero collections.
  • Search for friends, colleagues, and other users by institutional affiliation, username, email address, or field of interest.

I’ve been using endNote for about 6 years now, so I have experience a hard case of vendor lock-in (I have plenty of text with references in the endNote format. This is giving me a really bad feeling about endNote makers, and the money I have invested in a clearly inferior product doesn’t make me happy either. Suing Zotero was the last drop. I finally moved to Zotero out of principle. What I find funny is that zotero uses less memory with the same database size, even building on top of Firefox. And Word integration is as good, if not better, than endNote’s.

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8 Responses to “Zotero 1.5 Beta Released. The sharing features are here, and also getting meta data from existing pdfs”

  1. VincentNo Gravatar Says:

    What they need now, is a bookmarklet so that I can add references to my collection when not at home (where I cannot install zotero).

  2. Earlycj5's Weblog Says:

    Zotero adds features I’ve been looking for in newest beta via Academic Productivity…

    I’ve been trying out Mendeley for PDF management and to a lesser extent bibliography management for the past couple of weeks to see how I like it. I’m looking for something for our lab group to use as a centralized bibliography tool. This…

  3. Designing for faceted search | Educationload.com Says:

    [...] Zotero 1.5 Beta Released. The sharing features are here, and also getting meta data from existing pd… (academicproductivity.com) [...]

  4. EmmaNo Gravatar Says:

    Vincent – can you use firefox/zotero on a USB stick if you’re not at home?

  5. Web Designing QuotesNo Gravatar Says:

    Zotero adds features I’ve been looking for in newest beta via Academic Productivity.

  6. GideonNo Gravatar Says:

    I have tried Mendeley. I think it is not bad, but their bookmarklet is not that intuitive and responsive. The sharing and grouping is pretty good though.

    Anyway, I have recently tried this new reference management called WizFolio, and it is surprisingly good. Their bookmarking is very simple and efficient, and their collaboration for citation is good. I think you guys should go give it a try. Think it is a RMS worth a try.

  7. Academic Productivity » CiteULike + BibDesk: Sync your references and live smarter Says:

    [...] It should be no surprise that many of us love Zotero, especially since they added support for reference sharing and synchronization. [...]

  8. New & Improved Zotero – Available in 2.0 Flavor! « Advocate’s Studio Says:

    [...] Zotero 1.5 Beta Released. The sharing features are here, and also getting meta data from existing pd… (academicproductivity.com) [...]

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