Zotero vs. Mendeley

Zotero, Mendeley & Endnote are the top three tools ...RefWorks is 4th Are you interested in contributing to HLWIKI International – hlwiki.ca? contact: dean.giustini@ubc.ca To browse other articles on a range of HSL topics, see the A-Z index. Last Update 18 May 2013 Introduction See these files of information: ColWiz EndNote Web Mendeley RefWorks Zotero RefWorks, Mendeley & Zotero — A Three-Way Comparison Scholarship 2.0 General comments Zotero seems to have gained the early traction in academic libraries because it was easy to use "user-friendly" and intuitive; introductory videos helped users to learn the basics quickly However, in science especially, Mendeley has started to take hold Pros and cons of Zotero Zotero is completely open source; documentation at Zotero.org can be used for teaching; provides community to support software Zotero is recommended by institutions such as MIT, Stanford and Yale; best reference management tool at CiteFest Because it is open and extensible, it is a resource for students; provides a way to contribute to open-source communities Zotero project was developed by scholars with a commitment to openness; Zotero makes no claim of ownership or control over software UMich’s School of Information got funding to launch an information literacy game, Bibliobouts, built around Zotero Licensed platforms (RefWorks, EndNote) provide users with similar services but license ends as students graduate Zotero is committed to data portability / interoperability through open standards; vendors have vested interest in locking users into proprietary formats & licenses Zotero makes it easy to migrate data to and from other tools Some citation errors are said to occur during importing without recommended solutions Currently only for use as a Firefox extension; online version is supposedly coming Doesn't work in Internet Explorer or Google Chrome Doesn't handle large collections very well; program may stall when attempting a large sync As with any citation manager, you must check records to ensure accurate importing No way to find duplicate records; must be deleted manually - a time-consuming problem Cannot import items from written references lists; desired citations must be individually retrieved Pros and cons of Mendeley Store collections and their citations in a web/cloud so you can access them anytime (but remember the last and first thing you do when opening up Mendeley is to synchronize with the web) Importing is excellent; Mendeley grabs citation information from pdfs via Desktop client and citation information from webpages via browser bookmarklet Online pdf viewer and other cool annotation features make managing papers simpler; citations can be exported to EndNote and Zotero You cannot create your own bibliographic style in Mendeley Cite while you write (requires MSWord plugin); you need both Mendeley web and Mendeley desktop to be able to cite while you write The sharing and collaboration features on Mendeley seem to be better than Zotero there are notable differences in development philosophies Zotero is ‘open source’ (developers share code, so many people can contribute) whereas Mendeley contains some proprietary code Mendeley is still in beta so developers are constantly improving it Zotero and Mendeley are freely-available for Windows, Mac and Linux and work with MSWord Mendeley is a standalone application but not open source; getting references into it is not as direct as with Zotero import references from PubMed and related databases attach pdfs to record share collections with individuals or create public collections options for the above (so that you take care of copyright issues) interface is good and user-friendly create tags of choice in beta and used online or via desktop! extracts citations and bibliographic data: Mendeley Desktop extracts bibliographic data, keywords, and cited references from PDFs and turns them into searchable full-text database; when you import several citations, you need to individually select the citation for authorization might be good for nomads like residents – use from anywhere; felt I had to disable security features on my computer to get it to work idea of adding popularity layer over top - by keeping track of articles downloaded is intriguing not compatible with OvidSP and EBSCO CINAHL; e.g., cannot directly export into Mendeley from some library-curated databases it is not possible to create a second level of collection (or sub-collection) on Mendeley web Workshops Managing your scholarship: Mendeley, RefWorks or Zotero? Christina Hwang & Dale Storie. Teaching citation management: Which tool is right for you? See also Answering health and medical reference questions CAPHIS | Top 100 Health Websites You Can Trust Consumer health information Multilingual resources for patients Patient education Top 100 Canadian Health Websites Top Ten (10) Canadian Health Websites 2010 Top Social Media Websites in Medicine - 2012 WikiPatient Disclaimer Disclaimer: The HLWIKI International Advisory makes consumer health information (CHI) available to all -- however, it is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as advice or as a substitute for consulting a doctor. While we strive to keep all content current and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability or suitability of information, products, services, or related graphics contained here or on any of the websites listed. 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