Librarian X

So without my planning on it, this has been a podcast-intensive week.

At work, I posted the first episode of the GSU Library Insider podcast for students, about EndNote and Zotero (since it’s the end of the school year and students are furiously writing papers).  (Episodes, RSS Feed)

On my own time, I’m pleased to debut the Adventures in Library Instruction podcast, co-produced with my friends Anna Van Scoyoc of New Jersey PL and Rachel Borchardt of American U.  This will be a monthly thing, and we’re hoping to get other people involved in future episodes.  (Episodes, RSS Feed)

Update: I was also on T is for Training! I promise to stop podcasting now.

 

 Adventures in Library Instruction episode 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 GSU Library Insider podcast episode 1 (EndNote and Zotero): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

George Mason U has released a brief official statement about the Reuters/Zotero lawsuit.  I take particular note of this part: “the creators of the Zotero project strive to serve the scholarly community and to respond to its needs in an age of digital research … it should be as easy as possible for Zotero users to move to and from the software as they wish, without friction” (emphasis mine).

This seems pretty fundamental to me — researchers, and users in general, want and need technological tools that interoperate with one another smoothly.  It’s something I emphasize in my Zotero workshops, that it’s easy to use alongside EndNote in various ways, or in collaboration with EndNote users.  In broader terms, that’s also why I’m such a fan of RSS as an example of portable content that can be easily used outside of its original context.

Anyway.  In better news: Blackboard Announces Free Tool to Interconnect Its Software With Moodle, an Open-Source Competitor.  Blackboard seems to be taking the opposite approach from Reuters by allowing instructors to embed Moodle content within the Blackboard interface.  See, this is how you keep academic customers happy: make your tool play nicely with the other stuff they use, so they have a motivation to remain your customers.

As a long-time user (and admittedly not a fan) of Blackboard, I was impressed and surprised by this move.  Props to Blackboard.

Graham over at The Inspired Library School Student has posted a good review of EndNote versus Zotero.  I like Graham’s approach: he took a typical user task, writing a sample essay and using both programs to build identical bibliographies.  Among his conclusions:

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.

Personally, I disagree  — though I’ve been using and teaching EndNote for several years, I found Zotero so much easier to use that I switched.  Its ability to grab citations from non-database/OPAC sources like the New York Times and Amazon, and its consistent saving interface across multiple sources, makes it worth the switch to me.  And of course you can always grab citations using Zotero and export to EndNote if you must.

Reuters Says George Mason University Is Handing Out Its Proprietary Software

“Thomson Reuters demands $10 million and an injunction to stop George Mason University from distributing its new Web browser application, Zotero software, an open-source format that allows users to convert Reuters’ EndNote Software.”

I wouldn’t call that technically accurate  — Zotero allows users to convert EndNote styles to use with Zotero.  Is that much different from OpenOffice’s ability to read and convert Word .doc format?

They’re also claiming that GMU reverse-engineered EndNote to create Zotero, which seems silly to me, given how differently the two programs operate.