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Adhering to detailed bibliographic rules is a hefty task that Zotero makes easy by automating the creation of bibliographies and citations. What if, however, you are a multilingual scholar, working with materials in more than one language? There are special challenges here that will soon be met, thanks to the efforts of Zotero community developers who are nearing the final testing phase for Multilingual Zotero, a groundbreaking tool that can automatically capture, organize and correctly format items enriched with translated and transliterated multilingual data.

How It Works
Multilingual Zotero currently exists as an experimental variant of Zotero 2.1 and works in the Firefox browser. It retains Zotero’s original look and feel, but offers additional multilingual functionality, allowing you to translate, transliterate, and sort your citation data within the Zotero application. There is little difference from mainstream Zotero in the big ways.

The following screencast by Frank Bennett shows the tool in action, from data retrieval to building a bibliography.

Data Capture
A defining feature of Multilingual Zotero is that it can automatically capture citation data in more than one language, if the Web resources in question have multilingual metadata attached to them.

Data in two+ languages: By clicking the translator icon in your URL, Multilingual Zotero can automatically pull multilingual data associated with a citation. In this example from the CiNii Web site, Zotero retrieves English and Japanese titles, as well as English name translations from an article.

If all the multilingual data you need for a citation record is not automatically imported, you can always add more languages and data manually into Zotero. Fields such as Title, Author, and Publication are not only editable but can have multiple language metadata attached to a single element.

Manual Addition of Multiple Languages

Adding data manually: This screenshot from Avram Lyon shows an item for a Tatar book, originally published when that language used an Arabic script. The item is supplemented with a transliteration into the modern Tatar Cyrillic, as well as translations into Russian and English. Lyon states: “In history and philology, this stuff is par for the course, and there never was a way to do it right. Until now.”

Duplicates Detection
While the main attraction in Multilingual Zotero is its multilingual features, the same client also provides a duplicates detection and management system, that can be used to identify and merge duplicate items in your library. When items are added to Zotero they are flagged with a yellow highlight that can be removed only by visiting a special “Duplicates view” interface. The end result is the preservation of both document links and collection items.

Source: Stephan De Spiegeleire, Tim Sweijs & Tong Zhao, Contours of Conflict in the 21st Century – A Cross-Language Analysis of Arabic, Chinese, English and Russian Perspectives on the Future Nature of Conflict (The Hague: The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, 2011). Data view provided with permission.

A Community Creation
What makes Multilingual Zotero extraordinary (in addition to all the other stuff) is that it was created by community members. Frank Bennett, Associate Professor at Nagoya University in Japan, prepared the first version of Multilingual Zotero as a contest submission last Fall. Bennett was then joined by Avram Lyon and a range of other contributors from around the globe who signaled their interest in and support for the project through various channels.

Multilingual Zotero is a testament to how powerful the combination of community contributions and open-source development can be. As Avram Lyon says, this extension was created “by scholars, for scholars.”

Frank Bennett’s Multilingual Zotero page (a work in progress) is currently the best source information on the release. In the spirit of “crowdsourcing”, apart from documenting the features of the release, it offers ideas about how scholars can band together and contribute to the curation of multilingual metadata.

Notes

1) Multilingual Zotero is currently undergoing major changes and so is aimed at developers only at this time. If you are not comfortable with test-phase software, we recommend that you stick with the current stable Zotero download (v. 2.0.9) for Firefox. Multilingual functionality developed for Multilingual Zotero will be bundled into an official version of the Zotero download in the future.

2) If you are a developer, Frank Bennett’s Multilingual Zotero site is currently the best place for directions on how to safely use Multilingual Zotero by installing it in a separate Firefox profile. The site also contains links to the download and MS Word plugin. (Note that screenshots in the site documentation will not match up with what you see in your user interface for the current version for download, as the client code is being continually updated to stay abreast of the Zotero development trunk.)

3) If you develop a Web site that uses the Resource Description Framework (RDF) or another metadata or cataloguing format for storing multilingual data, please add your name and institution to this form. Knowing the kind of sites that are out there, particularly ones that use RDF, will be useful for the multilingual developers.

4) If you want more information on how to make your web site Multilingual Zotero-ready, please direct questions to the Zotero developer list.

In an effort to organize and formalize outreach, Zotero is compiling a master list of contact information of those individuals who currently teach Zotero (or are interested in evangelizing) at various institutions around the globe.

Also being created is a search and browse tool (with geospatial functionality) so you can find out:

• which institutions are supporting Zotero
• which institutions have workshops and demos, and what is the technical level of these workshops (beginner, intro to CSL/translator workshops, etc)
• lists of libraries vs other institutions using Zotero and their locales
• which places are offering guides and videos, and so on
• who is implementing remote support mechanisms

There will be new Zotero listservs, key Zotero Groups as well as cool new additions to the software cropping up in the coming weeks, and you can keep up to date on any big changes via the Zotero Evangelist group, as well as this blog and the Zotero Twitter. (NOTE: You can monitor Twitter updates by “following” us from your personal Twitter or by using a feed aggregator.  Twitter is a great way to get updates, however you choose to use it.)

IMPROVEMENTS IN OUTREACH

Zotero is also looking at formalizing and improving Zotero outreach, documentation (on the Z site and beyond) and education. This would include determining locations where community evangelists can collate or post links to scripts, videos, libguides etc. so folks don’t need to search around for templates or reinvent the wheel (rather, people can just tweak the wheel per their institution’s requirements) and hopefully this will make the process of teaching Zotero a little bit easier on everyone.

Any personal contact info (email, name etc) will not be publicized or circulated without consent via the form.

Having this list is *crucial* because updates to Zotero docs and outreach cannot happen without community support and input, and these efforts are about improving the Zotero experience for teachers and the many Zotero communities around the world. (We’ll be crafting and sending out a form soon to garner opinions for improvements, and live chat /webinar/screensharing possibilities are being explored too.)

If you are a Zotero teacher for your institution, please complete our online registration form.

ZOTERO EVANGELISTS group

It will be a little while until these grand plans get underway but feedback and opinions regarding changes can be posted in the Zotero Evangelist Googlegroup for the time being. Joining also puts you on a listserv so you can exchange emails with other group members.

If you know of other evangelists who have not yet joined, please forward this request to them as well.

Thanks again, and I’ll be in touch again shortly!

Debbie
Zotero blog: http://www.zotero.org/blog/
Zotero Twitter: http://twitter.com/zotero

For those of you who’ve been craving alternative methods for accessing a Zotero library as well as more news on Zotero Everywhere, we are pleased to announce that the time has finally arrived. A breakdown of new Zotero Everywhere alpha releases follows:

Zotero Standalone: For the Desktop

We are proud to announce the alpha release of Zotero Standalone, a new version of Zotero that runs as its own application on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. In layman’s terms: This is a test version of a desktop client, which means you don’t need to have the Zotero Firefox extension open to view your library.  Very little has changed from the Firefox client to Standalone in terms of how you interact with your items; the client looks the same, as if it’s been popped out of the browser window. You still annotate, tag and highlight items in your Standalone client. You create notes, just as you did before. Similarly, citations and bibliographic data associated with your items can be written within Standalone and ported to MS Word or any text editing application, yet you don’t need to separately download the MS Word plugin because it’s already bundled in the Standalone package. The Zotero Standalone download is available here.

Zotero Standalone Alpha : The Zotero Standalone Alpha application looks the same as the Firefox version and shares most of its functionalities. Here, we filtered our Scaffolds subcollection to only show items tagged with the author name “Wagoner Johnson.”

Data Sharing
Zotero Standalone shares a data directory with Zotero for Firefox by default, so any items saved via the Firefox extension are saved in Standalone, and vice versa. You’ll see any changes you make in one client reflected in the other client’s library the next time you open it. (Currently, you cannot have both open at once.)

An example of Firefox-Standalone shared data: Any item saved in Zotero for Firefox (v.2.1b)…

…automatically appears in your Standalone library the next time you open it, and vice versa.

No longer just for Firefox
Zotero Standalone Alpha works not only with Firefox but also with the Chrome and Safari browsers via browser-specific plugins, now available in alpha versions for download on the same page. Note that these plugins are currently in development and are being debugged, so you won’t see the full range of their functionality immediately.

Notes and Caveats
I know the words “test” and “alpha” appear copiously throughout this post, but that’s because it’s important to remember that Zotero Standalone and the associated browser plugins are under active development and, like all test phase software, there are still kinks being worked out. All Zotero test-phase software must be used responsibly at this stage because, if you’re a current Zotero user, we don’t want anything happening to the data living in your stable Zotero library (v.2.0.9). If you aren’t comfortable running early-stage software or are in the middle of an important project, we strongly recommend that you use the latest stable version of Zotero 2.0 for Firefox, available for download from Zotero’s home page.

If your appetite to test out Standalone is sufficiently whetted and you just can’t turn back now, please continue reading.

1)    Create a new Firefox profile to run Standalone: Zotero Standalone Alpha is currently database-compatible with Zotero 2.1 Beta for Firefox, but not with Zotero 2.0.9 for Firefox. As mentioned before, Zotero for Firefox and Standalone can share a data directory. It is not possible, however, for the stable Firefox version (2.0.9) to interact with a data directory from a later version (in this case Standalone, which operates as 2.1). Therefore, we advise setting up a separate Firefox profile to experiment with Standalone. Here’s a link that explains how to create multiple Firefox profiles.

2)    Standalone runs only on certain platforms and in certain configurations for the time being (eg. only Zotero 2.1 Beta for Firefox can be synced with Standalone, Standalone only runs on Mac OS X 10.6 and higher, and so on.) See the Zotero Standalone page for more info.

3)     Certain functionality is not present yet in alpha versions. Some buttons that you see in Firefox (eg., “Save item from Current Page”) are not present in Standalone at the time of this writing. Similarly, the Safari connector may not be able to sense some sites with Zotero translators.  These are issues and functionality being hashed out by developers, and we will keep you updated as things progress.

4)    Keep up with Zotero documentation, Standalone changelog, Twitter, and the forums. When you’re working with software under active development, it’s a good idea to keep up with bug reports, questions other community members are asking, what developers are saying, and so on. Also, posting to the forums is a great way to be a part of the development discourse.

Thank you for all the feedback you have already provided regarding this new release. It’s community involvement and contributions that help make Zotero great. We look forward to bringing you more Zotero Everywhere news very soon.

Greetings, Zotero user community!  My name is Debbie Maron, and I’m the new Community Lead. My job is to serve as the principal point of contact for Zotero outreach, including technical support, advocacy, and strategic partnerships.

I’ll tell you a bit about me before diving into what I hope to accomplish here at Zotero. I graduated from Rutgers with an English degree in 2006 and immediately launched into “what the heck do I do now?” mode. Thinking it may be a good idea to beef up my web skills, I earned a Masters degree within an emerging, interdisciplinary field called Digital Culture and Technology (a sister field of Digital Humanities) from King’s College London. I then attended the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois and most recently worked at the Dumbarton Oaks archive in Washington, DC. In terms of hobbies, I enjoy listening to music, watching foreign films, and photography. Other miscellaneous and relatively nerdier pastimes include researching royal family trees and rattling off facts about Amish life.

I am delighted and honored to be joining the Zotero team. I rely heavily on Zotero for my own research, but am also interested in how other folks (specifically you guys) use the Internet and learn web-based tools; that is, my focus is to enhance the Zotero user experience. Even though Zotero already does a lot, the possibilities are endless in terms of what it could do for people in every field. I have my own ideas about where Zotero can go, but the best suggestions come from you, the users. From data mining plug-ins or touch-ups to the interface to video tutorials, please don’t hesitate to let me know what you’d like to see!

Thank you for reading. I’m excited to work with you in continuing to make Zotero an awesome, collaborative, research-enhancing tool.