Scribe Zotero question

[Mies Martin]

I have beed using Scibe for quite awhile and every so often I wonder
whether or not to make the transistion to Zotero. Thus far there have
two central reasons why I have not done this, which now have become
less critical. The first was Zotero's inability to transfer to
different computers. I frequently access Sribe from my desktop at
home, my laptop when I'm on the road, or at work when I'm at the
library. Anywhere I want to I can use it. The other day I found out
I could possiblity to the same with thing with Zotero. I have yet to
tested this but I'm confident that it will work with a bit of
practice. The second reason, or so I thought, was Zotero's inability
to export citations and notes. I could never figure out how to do
this until the other day. It does not work perfectly. What it does
is it exports content as a web page, which then you have to save as a
text file. Again not perfect, but it works.

So I'm stuck now. With these two reasons effectively removed I'm left
the my original decission. Obviously I'm more comfortable with Scribe
because that's what I'm familar with. But sometimes that is not a
reson to remain pat. The thing is I'm not as interested in capturing
web bib inoformation, although that is nice and Zotero is quite slick
at it. For me what has been and continues to be essentail is the
ability to add and maintain citations and notes. The abilty to export
that contenet into word processing programs. Neither Scribe or Zotero
work as I would like them too and I do not foresee either one
achieving my ideal anytime soon.

Nevertheless, whereas Scribe is nolonger going to be enhanced with new
tools and functionalities, Zotero is a work in process with added
tools and functionalities being added all the time. So I'm wondering
how many of you find yourself in the same boat? Have you or are you
planning to make the transistion from Scribe to Zotero?

Mies Martin

[MTBradley]

I think Zotero works much better for bibliographic management and as a
citation tool. I think Scribe is far superior as a research tool. The
timeline and outline tools are very helpful to me as is the ability to
build bibliographic information around the "author" records. The
ability to link between records is also far superior in Scribe in my
opinion.

For some time now the Zotero forum has been claiming it will enhance
the application so that it includes similar features but they have yet
to materialize and there is no word of when they will appear. Also, as
my Zotero database grows it becomes increasingly sluggish. Perhaps it
will improve with integration into the upcoming version of Firefox.
But at this point I am questioning whether I might not try to cut my
losses and begin the work of exporting my Zotero library out into
BibTex (and selectively into Scribe).

-Matthew

[Elena Razlogova]

Well, there are two reasons for research enhancements being delayed in
Zotero:

1) right now networking features are more of a priority for developers;

2) most of the changes promised cannot be implemented until Firefox 3
comes out.

Speed is also an issue that FF 3 should improve.

Elena