Archive for the 'News' Category

We’re excited to announce that registration is now open for Zotero Trainer Workshops this fall:

• October 11-12, 2012: Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
  
• November 1-2, 2012: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
  
• November 8-9, 2012: Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (just
  outside of Boston)
  
• November 15-16, 2012: University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
  
• A midwest workshop is planned, date and location TBA
  

During these intensive (and fun!) two day events, participants acquire an in-depth understanding of Zotero’s capabilities, how to extend those capabilities, and how Zotero can best meet their users’ needs. Participants also learn and share best-practices for teaching and supporting Zotero at their institution and approaches for developing institution-specific documentation.

The workshops are targeted at librarians and anyone else who supports or wants to support Zotero at their institution or department. While basic familiarity with Zotero is recommended, there are no technical prerequisites for participating.

The cost to attend the workshops is $350. Due to the hands-on nature of the events, enrollment is limited. Sign up while there is still space!

The workshops will be conducted by Sebastian Karcher, one of Zotero’s most active community developers, who has a wealth of experience using, supporting, and developing Zotero. Contact him with any questions about the workshop at karcher [at] u.northwestern.edu

Following a string of critical reports about its software development practices in the United States, Zotero Director Sean Takats recently visited the project’s North American facilities. He traveled to several key sites of Zotero production last week.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Senior Developer Simon Kornblith led Takats on a tour of his laboratory, home of Zotero’s standalone client development. “Although my scientific research dabbles in the creation of unspeakable monstrosities, my work on Zotero is purely humanitarian,” Kornblith asserted with a maniacal laugh. In Brooklyn, New York, Takats verified that Lead Developer Dan Stillman never labors for more than 168 hours per week. “I’m required to answer 3,000 forum posts per shift,” Stillman explained, admitting that the repetitive process can be physically and mentally draining. “Sometimes I think about resting.” The facilities tour concluded in Fairfax, Virginia, where Faolan Cheslack-Postava leads Zotero’s web application development. Referring to notes scribbled on the back of his hand, Cheslack-Postava stated, “It’s a common misconception that every formatted citation or API request involves thousands of tiny fingers operating behind the scenes.” After nervously glancing at Takats, he continued, “No one can substantiate beyond a reasonable doubt that Zotero has employed a single minor since 2006.” In promotional materials the Zotero project claims that citations are generated by gigantic but friendly Japanese robots.

At each site, Takats donned an adorable yellow plastic cap and raincoat to pose for photographers.

Last month Trevor Owens retracted “The Anguish and the Elation of Dan Cohen,” a soapbox rant about poor Zotero working conditions that he had periodically shouted at passersby in the bowels of Washington D.C.’s Union Station. It was nothing but a pack of damn lies, say sources. Former Zotero Director Cohen, who abandoned the project in 2010 vowing to “focus on the synergy between cash and fun,” had no comment.

Today we’re delighted to announce that Zotero 3.0 has officially arrived. Zotero 3.0 marks a major departure from previous versions, most notably with the new ability to run outside the Firefox browser. Available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, this standalone version of Zotero contains all the great functionality of the old Firefox-based Zotero but now enables users to integrate Zotero into browsers other than Firefox like Google Chrome and Apple Safari. To all you Firefox lovers out there, no need to worry! Zotero continues to work within Firefox, and even if you choose to run the standalone version, it will talk to Firefox, too.

The standalone version of Zotero isn’t the only major news: Zotero 3.0 is loaded with other new features. Duplicate detection, heavily requested over the last few years, has finally made an appearance. We hope you’ll agree it has been worth the wait: an elegant interface allows users to find and merge duplicate items. Also arriving with Zotero 3.0 is slick new word processor integration. A streamlined dialog box allows users to add references to documents quickly and efficiently (and it’s pretty, too). References in word processing documents are also now easily shareable with other Zotero users without using groups and even with people using other compatible software.

We’ll highlight this new functionality and more over the next few weeks, but for now we would just like to offer a big thanks to our dedicated user and developer community, whose feedback and contributions were essential in getting this huge release ready for primetime!

Eleven months ago, we announced Zotero Everywhere, a grant-funded initiative to extend Zotero far beyond the Firefox browser. Last week we took the wraps of our new site design, which allows users to edit and reorganize their libraries via the web. Today we’re thrilled to announce the immediate availability of beta versions of Zotero Everywhere software. Because the idea of Zotero Everywhere was to be, well, everywhere, there are several different components to this beta release that can be used independently or in conjunction with each other.

Zotero 3.0b1 for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Since 2006, Zotero has run as a pane (or more recently, as a tab) within the Firefox browser. Many users, however, have expressed their preference to run Zotero as an entire separate desktop application. As of today, researchers can now download and install a version of Zotero that runs fully independently of the Firefox browser. The user interface remains familiar enough so that long-time Zotero users won’t get lost, but this application also includes important new functionality, including automatic duplicate detection and resolution; an entirely new and streamlined integration with Microsoft Word and OpenOffice; and a refined quick search interface.

Zotero 3.0b1 for Firefox. The “classic” version of Zotero isn’t going away, and so we’re also bringing the same new functionality to the version of Zotero that runs inside the Firefox — except, of course, the ability to run outside the browser!

Zotero Connector Betas. Today Zotero’s ability to grab bibliographic items with a single click now comes to browsers other than Firefox. If Zotero 3.0 is installed, Chrome and Safari users can now add items to their Zotero libraries with a single click. If Zotero isn’t installed on the user’s machine, the Zotero Connector can even add items directly to the user’s Zotero library hosted on our server (Please note that this entirely new direct-to-server functionality requires some rewriting of Zotero translators, a process currently underway. Amazon, arXiv, JSTOR, and the New York Times are among those already upgraded).

Remember that Zotero 3.0b1 and the Connectors are beta software! If you’re in the middle of a project or not comfortable running beta software, use Zotero 2.1, the latest stable release of Zotero, instead.