Zotero recently marked the sixth-month anniversary of its initial beta release. Our exponential growth of new users continues; last month we registered over 129,000 unique IP addresses. By all accounts Zotero is doing remarkably well, for which we’d like to thank our loyal user community.
As Zotero continues to mature into an increasingly powerful research tool, we thought it would be valuable to lay out the long view for our users. Zotero is here to stay. We are committed to providing a sustainable open source alternative to other research tools for years to come.
Because Zotero was conceived by scholars for other scholars, teachers, students, and anyone else doing research on the web, we understand how important it is for users to have full control over their content. From the start we have endeavored to build an open, safe environment in which users can store and access their data. With Zotero, your information is your own. Because we support every major metadata standard for bibliographic records (and are collaborating with other individuals and groups to develop even more), users are free to import and export content into and out of Zotero without worrying about being locked into a proprietary system.
As new upgrades to Zotero become available over the next year, you can rest assured that the Zotero team will continue to promote the easy exchange of information across disparate platforms, formats, and standards.
After all, it’s your research, and you should be free to do what you like with it.