Archive for the 'News' Category

Things may have seemed quiet here on the Zotero front over the past few months, but the development timeline tells a very different story: we recently recorded our 10,000th commit to the code repository, and the pace of development associated with the Zotero Everywhere initiative has only accelerated since then. Over the next two weeks, we’re unveiling the initial fruits of this labor, including:

An entirely redesigned website including full read and write functionality. Based on our own public API, this site brings full interactivity with your library to any browser. A few design quirks remain, but we wanted to put all the new functionality into your hands now while we continue to iron out these issues in the background.

A beta release of the standalone version of Zotero. This new version of Zotero for Mac, Windows, and Linux no longer runs in a browser pane and does not require Firefox.

New browser connector betas. Zotero’s ability to grab bibliographic items with a single click now comes to browsers other than Firefox. The initial beta includes connectors for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. If Zotero isn’t installed on the user’s machine, the connectors can add items directly to the user’s Zotero library hosted on our servers.

New word processor integration. A slick and streamlined new interface for adding and editing citations will be available in Word and OpenOffice.

Much of this software will still remain in beta for a few more weeks, but we’re far beyond the initial alpha stage and well on our way to a production release. We hope you’ll agree it has been worth the wait!

A new third-party plugin called Zotpress is now available. It runs on WordPress, the open source platform widely used for personal, professional and course websites and blogs. Zotpress was created by community member Katie Seaborn, and it allows you to pull and organize items from your or another Zotero library into your WordPress site. The plugin harnesses the power of Zotero’s server API by grabbing library data dynamically and presenting it outside Zotero.

So why would you use it? Zotpress is great for scholars or job hunters who want to easily organize their CVs or resumes on their personal websites. Teachers can use it as well to present bibliographies to students. Or, if you just want to share some stuff you’ve been reading or studying, you can use Zotpress for that, too. In short, Zotpress is useful because it expands on Zotero’s mission by offering a new and easy interface to share your data freely with the world.

Zotpress has already been downloaded over a thousand times, but please note that it is still under active development, which means you may run into some glitches that will soon be resolved. To download Zotpress or for more information, visit the WordPress plugin directory.

This week marks a significant transition for Zotero as we introduce Freemium Edition. It’s an important step that we hope you will see as an investment in Zotero, one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality research management software to scholars around the world and on any platform.

If you are a “home delivery” Zotero subscriber, you will continue to have full access to your references on your computer, and they will continue to arrive on your doorstep, as 3×5 cards, at your regularly scheduled delivery intervals: Hourly, Tuesdays, Solar Eclipses, or Arbor Day Only. If you are not a home delivery subscriber, you will have free access to up to twenty references. If you exceed that limit, you will be asked to become a Freemium subscriber. If your birthday falls in September or you are left-handed, you will be asked to pay twice.

Zotero is offering three Freemium Edition packages that allow you to choose from a variety of devices:

• $15 per month ($180 per year) will grant you access to zotero.org from up to five mobile devices, though the devices must only be used while physically in motion.
• $20 per month ($240 per year) will give you access to three mobile or stationary devices, and you’ll be able to use them while seated comfortably and on Thursdays.
• $35 per month ($420 per year) will let you access zotero.org from anywhere, including even the ratty old PC in your parents’ basement.

Non-subscribers will still be able to access up to twenty of their references each month. “We think with careful planning and succinct argumentation, cheapskate scholars will still be able to prepare a short journal article once or twice per year,” assured lead developer Dan Stillman.

Zotero breaks new ground with its innovative lunar billing cycle, which will charge users every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes. Zotero Outreach Coordinator Debbie Maron explained, “Plato said that the forms resonate with the divine movement of the heavens, so scholarship should be billed similarly.”

The new pricing model is intended to address longstanding concerns about Zotero’s commercial viability. “We found that no matter how much we promoted Zotero’s award-winning features and dynamic developer community, potential adopters couldn’t wrap their heads around free software,” remarked Zotero co-director Dan Cohen. As he used a hundred dollar bill to light a cigar, Cohen added, “Time to get paid!”

In order to cement its advantage in providing the latest and best cutting-edge technology, Zotero will now also lead the pack in the most important category: cost. “How do I judge the quality of my Bentley or this caviar and foie gras hoagie?” asked co-director Sean Takats, peering through his monocle. “By the outrageous price, of course, and now we can finally do the same for Zotero.”

Faolan Cheslack-Postava could not be reached for comment, probably because he’s on his yacht.

We are excited to announce the release of Zotero 2.1, now available for download at zotero.org. This version offers several cool new features, including:

• New citation formatting engine: Zotero 2.1 supports Citation Style Language 1.0 styles, dramatically extending Zotero’s capability to generate bibliographic output
• New user-configurable Locate button supports Pubget, CrossRef, and OpenURL lookups; other search engines can be easily added
• Improved Word and OpenOffice plugins for Windows, OS X, and Linux
• Zotero can now run as a browser tab
• Compatibility with Firefox 4.0

For a complete list of other added features and bug fixes, please see our changelog.