Zotero, Endnote, PDF and other things

… summary of my post buried in BB …

Here is a bit of “cut and paste” from a post I made on this topic in a class. I think it would be a fun to run a survey of how students store and read digital material in our courses. Some time ago, I decided I would never again print out my digital material. I travel a fair amount and it became impossible to lug around my hard copy binders … So, I went “big” and made a commitment to all digital / all the time … here is how I am attempting to manage my digital data:

• Several years ago purchased the full version of Adobe Acrobat (with academic discount comes to around $150-ish, I think) which allowed me to highlight and annotate. There is also a wonderful piece of software I bought last year called Bluebeam PDF which does about the same thing as Adobe Acrobat and the education pricing is around $75 – see http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/store/education_store.asp . Bluebeam works GREAT for annotating PDFs on touchscreen laptops … more on that below. I know there are a bunch of freeware PDF annotation options, but most I found to be junk.
• Last year, after following the lead of a classmate, I purchased a touch screen laptop (an HP Tablet PC) for around $900 which allows me to hold the laptop like a book and use my finger or provided “pen” to highlight or write annotations on the PDF. It took a bit of getting used to, but I consider it a Kindle on steroids.I also have a scanner and any (of the few) handwritten notes I take, I scan in the note and toss the paper. Now, this is a HIGHLY expensive alternative to printing out and maintaining the paper, but I have my entire library of school PDFs and notes with me at any time. If I weren’t in a PhD program reading hundreds of PDF pages a week, I would never have gone to this trouble and expense.
• Regarding citations, a couple years ago, I began using the Zotero Firefox plug in – see http://www.zotero.org/ … think of it as the freeware version to EndNote, but arguably …. better. Like EndNote, it is INVALUABLE for snagging and storing citations when you are in an online database. It also works great in Google Scholar and Worldcat. I am also able to link the source document on my hard drive to the Zotero library citation. It also allows all sorts of data management options (adding tags, folders, notes) and it has a plug in for MS Word and OpenOffice, so it does the same sort of “cite while you write” as Endnote. When you want to insert the citation in text, you click on a button in Word which pulls up the Zotero library. It inserts the in-text citation and adds the work to your reference section. Pretty much exactly as Endnote does, but the interfaces seems a bit “leaner”. Also, you can export all or just one or more folders of your library of citation as a backup or to upload (as an RIS file) into Endnote. Therefore, I end up maintaining two copies of my entire citation library … the main library is driven out of Zotero and I then periodically upload a current version into Endnote. Why? Because Dr. Morrison LOVES Endnote and I’m still trying to figure out why or if it is better than Zotero. I can’t make a case unless I know both 🙂
• I also downloaded the free version of Endnote from ODU. I’m not really a huge fan, but I’m guessing on big projects, Endnote may be a better “cite while you write” option than Zotero. Also, I don’t believe Endnote “cite while you write” is supported in OpenOffice while Zotero is … go open source!
• Regarding file storage … when I download an article in PDF, I keep the file name short and sweet … just the last name of the first author and the date of the article. Then, when I want to find an article, I just to into my Zotero library where I can search for stuff in a million different ways (by tags, the Zotero label it is under, or whatever). If I wasn’t lazy at the time I downloaded the PDF and I remembered to create a link to the file, then I click on the link from within Zotero …. otherwise, I simply go to my Vista “search” window and search by author last name and date. Works like a charm … no need for funky file folders on my hard drive, etc … Zotero does all the organizing.

Probably WAY more about my file storage (and me) than anyone every would or should know, but I must admit, I have devoted quite a bit of energy coming up with this solution that is working well for me … if it helps a couple of people come to terms with all the digital crap on their computers, it is worth it.