Zoter(r)o(r)?

The next thing on the list is Zotero. It sounds great and I was very keen on installing and trying it until I found out that it actually makes my Firefox browser even slower than it already is. Now, I should explain that I have a rather small netbook which is a very trusty companion - but there is only so much it can do. Firefox is incredibly slow already and adding Zotero didn't help. Now, instead of trying it myself I'm going to have a look at what my colleagues have to say and write an evaluation based on this 'literature review'.

Overall, reviews point out various positive aspects of Zotero, Rachel (Polar adventurer) states that '[i]t soon became apparent that the most useful feature of Zotero to me was its ability to synce files. [...] Zotero will syncronize my collections/Library on any PCs I use". I believe that this is certainly one of its most important assets as it means that you can work on several PCs without loosing your precious Zotero information. Apparently, it is even visually appealing (according to Adventures of a Librarian).


However, there are some critical voices. Quite a few users reported problems with finding the Zotero bookmark in their brower once it was installed. Once these initial problems were overcome, users were very happy with it (e.g. Dominique on News from Nowhere). Although, Balfour's 23 Things, for example, found serious limitations to downloadable records at Web of Science. Another issue is certainly that Zotero only works with Firefox and no other browers, posing serious limitations on internet explorer and chrome users (Balfour's 23 Things, Library Wanderer). In addition, the 'intuitive interface' does not seem to be very intuitive after all (according to Insert whitty title here) and several sources mentioned that there was not enough time to explore it in detail during the 23 Things rush through web 2.0 (e.g. News from Nowhere, Thing blogging). In all, Zotero definitely seems worth a try under the following conditions:
- You have a reasonably fast computer
- You use the Firefox brower
- You have a bit of patience
- You have a lot of time to get used to it
- And you actually need a bibliographic tool like this.