A Bibliographic Playlist: Online Reference, Recommender, & Collaborative Academic Tools

Lorena O’English

http://pbj.ctlt.wsu.edu/oenglishoenglish@wsu.edu

Yahoo/MSN/AIM IM: wsulorena

The Problem…

Keeping track of websites, articles, gray literature, and books for scholarly research can be difficult and require complex systems or multiple systems

Reference manager software = $-$$$

Research is often collaborative – but most reference management solutions are not (or at least not very…)

A Potential Solution…

“Social Bookmarking” sites allow you to share links to webpages with others (either specific people or the general public) i.e. http://del.icio.us

Many social bookmarking sites only work with open websites, but now there are free academic bookmarking sites that allow access to scholarly articles (even those from subscription databases)

Increasingly these sites serve multiple functions: reference managers (including citation styles), discovery/ search engines, delivery/fufillment services, recommendation/suggestion engines, and collaborative spaces

.

Obligatory Technical/Vocabulary Slides

The OpenURL Standard Link Resolvers and

Link Resolver(provides access to an appropriate copy for WSU users, if available)

Digital Object identifiers (DOIs)

A way to identify something (generally an article, but could also be journals, books, data, etc.) along with associated info (metadata)

Provided by participating publishers through DOI Registration Agencies (i.e. www.crossref.org) for “persistent identification of scholarly content.”

Can find in both electronic and print versions of articles Generally takes to a publisher page, that may or may not provide

fulltext links for WSU affiliates…it depends…

Tagging as Metadata

Metadata: assigned data about data “Tagging” resources with descriptive indexing terms "...bottom-up classifications which lack rigour..." (The Observer) - No

promises of consistency...internally or externally... A way to self-organize information (articles, website, blog posts,

bookmarks, etc.) Can be social and searchable

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Del.icio.us

The Tools Endnote Web (www.myendnoteweb.com)

Zotero (www.zotero.org)

Connotea (www.connotea.org)

And CiteULike

And RefWorks, EndNote, ProCite…

EndNote Web

Good for current EndNote users

Web version provided free to all WSU affiliates via the WSU Libraries subscription to Web of Science

Librarian Jane Scales teaches EndNote Web classes via WSU’s HRS training office

http://wiki.wsu.edu/wsuwiki/Endnote_Web

Available as a Firefox 2.0 extension Based on your computer, but can be loaded on a flash drive for

portability and record transfer.

Can use with all open webpages, and many/most WSU Libraries article databases via OpenURL/ Find it@WSU.

Allows tags, notes, and screenshots to be associated with articles & other resources

Can import and export citations to EndNote, RIS and other reference manager formats using multiple citation styles; includes Microsoft Word plug-in for attaching citations (in correct style) to documents

Can attach (and search) associated PDFs

From the Center for History and New Media, at George Mason University.

Forthcoming: Web-based, collaborative and recommender capabilities…

Adding at the Article level

Opens application

Shows stored image of page…sometimes

Links to article via Find it @WSU

Subject headings/descriptors are automatic tags; tags can be added or deleted. Tags can be searched individually or in combination.

Adding at the Results level

Web-based and easily accessible

Can use with all open webpages, Griffin, and many WSU Libraries article databases via DOIs and OpenURL(or at the worst, copied or manual entry with no article full text)

Can import and export to EndNote, RIS, and other reference manager formats; resources can be archived

Can attach PDF files for specific articles

Can keep references private, limit to specified group, or make public

Collaborative – can share comments on resources (public, private, or group)

Recommender/suggestion engine - discovery beyond search via tagging, related articles, and related users (but you can search it as well )

Provided for free via scholarly journal Nature

Connotea Zotero Pro

Bookmarklet-based Private, public or collaborative Discovery Web-based Archivable/formats Sponsored by Nature Group

Con Works best with DOI Often requires some manual

entry Used mostly in the sciences Doesn’t work with all library

databases/publishers

Pro Browser-based OpenURL standard makes

most library resources accessible

Integrated with MS Word for adding references via plugin

Archivable/formats Rapidly developing (GMU

home, and grant $$$)

Con Requires Firefox 2.0 Sits on a computer drive (for

now) Just you (for now) Doesn’t work with all library

databases/publishers

Wikipedia: Comparison of Reference Manager Software

Takeaways

HRS Classes starting in the spring

Tailored workshops for graduate student groups, etc. available on request (oenglish@wsu.edu)

Want to try it on your own?

IMPORTANT: These resources are NOT formally supported by the WSU Libraries!