Author: Graham Lavender

Software review: Zotero compared with EndNote

Graham Lavender 6 Comments

For those of you who don’t know, Zotero is an extension for the Firefox browser that acts as a citation manager. First introduced two years ago, it has quickly gained popularity as a cost-free alternative to commercial citation managers such as EndNote and RefWorks.

One of the main strengths of Zotero is the ease with which it allows you to save the citations you come across while browsing the web. When there are citations on the page you’re visiting, whether it be part of an OPAC, Google Scholar, or even Amazon, an icon will appear in Firefox’s address bar. Click that icon and Zotero will automatically save all the citation information available (or give you the option of which citations to save, if there are multiple citations on the page) into your Zotero database. From there, you can manipulate and organize your citations in a number of ways – add notes and tags, create “collections” for different projects, edit citations, and more.

Once it’s time to put your citations into action, the plug-in for Microsoft Word allows you to drop them straight into your paper, both in the body of your text and in the bibliography (in the style of your choice, naturally).

At McGill, the most popular citation manager is EndNote, since McGill students are able to download it for free. EndNote offers many of the same features as Zotero, so I decided to test them out side by side. I created two mock essays that both used the same citations. I both collected the citations and inserted the inline references and bibliographies using Zotero for one and EndNote for the other. Clearly, this test only scratches the surface of the features available in these programs, but I believe it is a realistic scenario in terms of how they might typically be used. Here are the results of my informal comparison:

I set both programs to use APA style, and although they both performed well, neither produced perfect formatting in the bibliography. Both programs occasionally included information that is considered superfluous according to APA style, and both occasionally omitted necessary information. In terms of creating citations and bibliographies, both programs were easy to use (through the Word plug-ins) and produced reasonably accurate documents.

In terms of compiling the citations within the programs themselves, Zotero was easier to use. When using EndNote, it was easy to import citations from databases and from Google Scholar, more difficult from the McGill catalogue, and impossible from Amazon; when using Zotero, it was simple to import citations from all these locations. I also appreciated the simplicity of Zotero’s integration with Firefox, which minimizes the number of programs running at once.

Overall, my recommendations are as follows:

  • Zotero is strong enough that anyone looking to start using citation management software would be well advised to choose Zotero, unless there is a compelling reason to use EndNote, or a compelling reason not to use Firefox.
  • The two programs are similar enough that anyone already comfortable using EndNote should not switch, unless they are paying to use EndNote, in which case they should certainly consider Zotero as a free alternative.
  • Since it’s free and easy to use, anyone who’s curious should go ahead and give Zotero a try; however, be aware that when Zotero and EndNote are both installed, the automatic export feature in Google Scholar and some databases will always export to Zotero, so be sure to disable Zotero when using EndNote.

Edit: I almost forgot to point out that Zotero has been in the news lately – Thomson Reuters, producers of EndNote, is suing George Mason University, producers of Zotero, because Zotero allows users to convert EndNote’s proprietary files into an open source format. For more information and commentary, see Jason Puckett and Caveat Lector.

Welcome to library school

Graham Lavender 4 Comments

It’s the beginning of September, which means that a new cohort of students is starting library school. I’d like to welcome you all, especially the McGill first years who I plan to peer pressure into reading my blog. But seriously, the LIS field is an exciting place to be if you take advantage of the opportunities available outside of school. Here’s my advice for having an enjoyable and fruitful experience.

Start with blogs – you’ve already found mine, but if you go through my blogroll, and then the blogroll of each of those blogs, soon you’ll be able to keep up to date on all areas of the biblioblogosphere. Of course, following more than a few blogs will be unmanageable without a feed reader, so anyone not using one should start right away (and if you need helping setting a reader up, feel free to email me or leave me a comment on this post).

Don’t be afraid to approach the second year students when you need help, advice, or just someone to hang out with after class. When I started library school, I was too shy to spend much time talking to the second years, but by the end of the school year, I’d discovered that they were actually more than happy to help. Don’t let this happen to you – make friends with the old-timers early, when you’ll have the most questions and feel the most overwhelmed. Start by adding me as a friend on Facebook, and be sure to join the SIS Facebook group too. Another great way to meet second years is to join a student group – at McGill we have the McGill Library and Information Studies Students Association (MLISSA), and student chapters of the CLA and SLA, in addition to a number of smaller student groups.

You’re embarking on a journey full of possibilities. Enjoy!

Things I learned last week

Graham Lavender 3 Comments

I’m pleased to announce that I survived my first IFLA – now all I need to do is convince someone to send me to Milan next summer!

But until then, I feel I should reflect on what I’ve learned from the experience:

  • A lot of the people who seem intimidating are actually quite friendly and interested to hear what the incoming generation of librarians has to say. I had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries, where the head librarians from over 50 countries sat around a table and each had a tiny little flag at their seat, which is exactly what I imagine the UN must be like. Afterwards, some of them stayed behind to have a glass of wine with the students (there were seven of us, one from each library school in Canada), and it was all very casual and friendly.
  • Creative business cards are a great idea. My cards were a hit! They were especially helpful on the rare occasion that there was a lull in a conversation because I could tell people that I’ve recently taken an interest in photography, and yes, those really are my pictures on the backs of the cards. It was also good to have something to exchange with the people I want to keep in touch with.
  • Lectures are interesting, but meeting people is even more valuable. At first I found it frustrating that I didn’t have time to attend all the sessions I would have liked to have seen, but looking back, it was really the one-on-one conversations I had that made the conference such an educational experience.
  • Librarians of all ages love to dance! When I saw the size of the dance floor at the “cocktail reception and fun night,” I thought no one would step foot on it, but as soon as the band struck their first chord, the floor was packed.

Excited for IFLA

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I still haven’t picked out all the sessions I’ll be attending (except for Amy‘s), but I’ve made up some business cards (on moo.com), and I’m really looking forward to the IFLA conference in Quebec City. I just wanted to make a quick post to ask whether there’s anyone who’ll be attending and wants to meet up. I’ll be there the whole week, so let me know!

New library community site: LibGig

Graham Lavender 1 Comment

Today I came across a new site that has the potential to become an important resource for library-folk:

Sections include job postings, info about ALA-accredited schools, and social networking tools for information professionals. From the site:

LibGig is a new professional networking website dedicated to bringing together everyone who accesses, organizes, creates, manages, produces or distributes information for a living.

Our goal is to establish a common, human link within the enormous and multi-faceted information industry through dialogue, interaction and sharing of interesting stories, as well as dynamic and exclusive content that encourages feedback and debate.

How I found my summer job

Graham Lavender 2 Comments

I thought I’d say a few words about how I landed my summer job. Working in Ottawa for the summer is a popular choice for Canadian students, especially for those of us who attend school in the eastern part of the country (since, as we all know, Canada’s really big). The federal government encourages students by helping to arrange for us to find three- to four-month full-time positions with federal organizations, often not just related to our fields but actually quite tremendous opportunities, that employers would likely never offer us on the free market. This is how I ended up working for the federal government this summer.

My interview (which was mercifully over the phone, since Montreal is close but not THAT close to Ottawa) was not actually for the position I ended up with. My name had been selected from the FSWEP pool as a candidate for a reference position at the Industry Canada library in downtown Ottawa. When I accepted their offer of an interview, I was fully aware of two major problems, but I was happy enough to have been offered an interview that I didn’t worry too much. The first problem was that the job required me to be bilingual, and the second was that my French is quite weak. When the interview finally took place, they asked me five questions, to which I gave four rather good responses and one embarrassingly bad one; indeed, the interviewers seemed quite impressed with all of my answers except the one in French (though they were certainly nice enough about it).

Now, I’ve hunted for summer jobs enough times to know that my first interview of the season is not usually my best, so I chalked it up as a practice run and expected not to hear from Industry Canada again. To my surprise, a few weeks later I received a call from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, which is a very small part of Industry Canada, and they wanted to know whether I would accept a position at the CIPO Resource Centre in Gatineau, immediately across the bridge from downtown Ottawa. Apparently IC had liked me enough that they’d passed my name on to CIPO, where they were looking for a summer student for a non-bilingual position.

Anyway, it’s been a great experience so far – and it’s hard to believe the summer is almost halfway through!

ILSS Book Club: Library 2.0 and Beyond

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I spent the weekend at my parents’ house in Toronto to see my brother, who’s visiting from Vancouver. The train ride from Ottawa takes about four and a half hours, which was plenty of time to make my way through the short but sweet Library 2.0 and Beyond: Innovative Technologies and Tomorrow’s User, edited by Nancy Courtney.

This collection of articles revolves around the ideas of (surprise, surprise) Library 2.0. For those who don’t know and can’t wait to open the book for a more detailed explanation, Library 2.0 is essentially the application of Web 2.0 tools (and more importantly, Web 2.0 concepts) in libraries as a way to become more responsive to the needs of the user community. For those unfamiliar with Web 2.0, I’ll direct you to Wikipedia, but here’s a hint: leave a comment on this blog post, and you’re participating in it!

One major strength of the book is that each article tackles a certain tool by first explaining how it is typically used on the web and then providing specific details of how it could be used in a library setting. As such, it will satisfy readers with a general interest in the future directions of libraries as well as librarians looking for advice they can put to use immediately.

Highlights for me include Looking Toward Catalog 2.0 by Michael Casey, which discusses improving library catalogue interfaces by taking advice from Google and Amazon.com; The Wonderful World of Wikis: Applications for Libraries by Chad F. Boeninger, which covers the use of wikis for internal communication, institutional collaboration, and research guides, as well as suggesting best practices for library wikis; and Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging by Ellyssa Kroski, which weighs the pros and cons of user-based categorization and offers examples of libraries that have already made use of tagging.

So if you’re interested in where libraries are headed (or at least where they will hopefully be headed soon), I recommend Library 2.0 and Beyond – even if you’re not trying to pass the time on a boring train ride.

The ILSS takes on the Marginal (or perhaps vice versa)

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I just wanted to let everyone know that the Spring 2008 issue of the Marginal is now available online. In its own words, the Marginal is “an e-zine published by The McGill Library and Information Studies Student Association (MLISSA),” and it features the reflections, poems, and other writings of students at SIS. Before you ask, yes, the ILSS is featured, but sadly, the material won’t be new to my faithful readers. At any rate, it’s definitely worth taking a look, and for extra credit, check out the history of the Marginal.

Alive and well in Ottawa

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I realize I haven’t posted in what, by blogging standards, is a very long time, but don’t fret. I’ve just been setting myself up in Ottawa, where I have a summer job working for the Canadian Intellectual Property Office Resource Centre. To be honest, I’d never put much thought into working in a government library before being offered this job, but I recognized it as a terrific opportunity. I found the position (or to be more accurate, it found me) through the Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP), which is an absolute must for Canadian students and students studying in Canada looking for a summer job.

I will post more about the job soon, but for now I will show you how pretty Ottawa is in May (click for more Ottawa photos in my Flickr stream):
Victoria Day weekend on the canal 2