Scan Books into Zotero from Your iPhone or iPad

I've been a long-time fan of Zotero as a free, bibliographic and note-taking tool. It takes just a click to add books, web sites, pdfs and more from the web. (It especially works well with Amazon books.) It allows for note-taking and tagging and attaching other resources. (E.g., I link reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature to a book.) My books can be tagged and organized in my library, and the library is synced in the cloud, so I have access to it from anywhere.

They recently announced an iPhone / iPad app for scanning barcodes on books to get them directly into Zotero. Directions for installing and using the app are HERE. It requires iOS12.

If you don't have an iPhone or iPad, you can go to this web page, enter the ISBN, and save it to your library once you have created your account. Other than using that web page in a browser, there is no good Android option yet.

New ZoteroBib free online bibliography creator

I have been a fan of Zotero in the past, and I encourage all my students to use it if they don't already use bibliography software which allows for note-taking, linking, sharing, and collaboration. It is free and open-source and is available as a standalone for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and there are also 'connectors' which make it even easier to use from Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. What's more, it has word processor plugins (Microsoft Word, LibreOffice) that make for quick citation and footnote and bibliography generation in thousands of possible citation formats, including SBL.

Today Zotero announced ZoteroBib, a spinoff that makes for quick bibliography generation.

ZoteroBib is a free service that helps you build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software. It’s brought to you by the team behind Zotero, the powerful open-source research tool recommended by thousands of universities worldwide, so you can trust it to help you seamlessly add sources and produce perfect bibliographies.

I gave it a try and retrieved a variety of resources using author/title search, ISBN, and URLs. Works great. The bibliography is editable, and can be copied out in a variety of formats and options.

I still recommend using the full Zotero, but if you need something quick and easy, check out ZoteroBib.

Getting ready for SBL / AAR meeting: Zotero

I'm getting ready for the Society of Biblical Literature / American Academy of Religion meeting in Chicago later this month. Besides getting the SBL / AAR app I described in the previous post, here's another suggestion that will help.

One of the fun aspects of such meetings is going around the exhibitor's hall and checking out all the new books. I won't be buying very many books, but there a lot of books I want to remember and check out later. Further, I'd love to have the books saved as some kind of online link so that I can easily obtain the bibliographic info and add notes to them. What's the best way to do this? Zotero is the obvious solution for the online database. I've written frequently about Zotero. It is wonderful. If you are not using it, why? Now the only question is how to get the books into Zotero.

I am now using Scanner for Zotero. You can get it for free, but I got it from the Android market and paid the $2 to help out the developer. Once installed, you link it to your Zotero account. Open the app, scan the barcode on the book, and it's saved. When you go online, the book with all the bibliographic info will be there. You can add notes, link to online reviews, attach other resources, etc. Note that Zotero is now available not only in Firefox but also Chrome, Safari, and as a standalone (for Win, Mac, and Linux.)

Further, with Zotero, when working with any word processing tool, you can quickly pull in the bibliographic data you need with drag/drop. If you use MS Word, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or NeoOffice, use the plug-in to automate the whole process of entering footnotes and generating bibliographies with a variety of standard citation styles. You can even install the Society of Biblical Literature stylesheet.

Do note that there is another Android scanner for Zotero called Zandy. ($4) I have not tried this, but it appears to try to offer more ways of working with the Zotero entries. It may be a better choice than Scanner for Zotero, so if you've tried it, please share your experience in the comments. If you have an iPhone/Pad/Pod, there is a similar scanning app called BibUp available for free through iTunes.

The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 list

Jane Hart annually releases her "The Top 100 Tools for Learning" list, and the 2012 one has just been posted.

This year’s Top 100 Tools for Learning list (the 6th Annual Survey) has been compiled from the votes of 582 learning professionals worldwide – 55% working in education, 45% working in non-educational organizations.

The top tool for the 4th year running is Twitter, with both YouTube (2nd) and Google Docs (aka Google Drive)  (3rd) retaining their places for the 3rd year in succession.

Next in line in the top 10 are Google Search, WordPress, Dropbox, Skype, PowerPoint, Facebook, and Wikipedia. You can view the list either as this Slideshare (with commentary on each) or as a textual list.

Top Tools for Learning 2012 from Jane Hart

In both formats, she indicates whether its primary use is for personal/professional, educational, or enterprise contexts.

I did participate in the voting, but a couple of my favorites didn't make the list. Some comments:

• Dropbox (#6) is fine, but I much prefer SugarSync. (Disclaimer: Those links should get both you and me a little extra space. Thanks!) You get 5GB free instead of just 2GB. More helpfully, SugarSync allows you to point to existing folders on your system with which you can sync on another system. Dropbox requires you to create a special folder to drop things in. Personally, I use SugarSync to keep my notes and user-modified files in BibleWorks, Logos, and Lightroom synced. Both programs also have mobile apps so that I can access files from my smartphone. Don't forget Microsoft's SkyDrive (#98 on the list) which offers 7GB free and allows you to edit Microsoft docs online. In addition to syncing, remember that these services also provide backup for your data.
• If you want a different look than PowerPoint (#8), try Prezi (#14).
• I still use Skype (#7), but Google+ Hangouts (#17) has some distinct advantages, especially for allowing multiple video feeds.
• I really like Diigo (#18) as a social bookmarking tool, and I've tried to get my students to collaborate on using it for creating bibliographies for a class or topic, but it apparently requires some discipline to use it regularly.
• Ok, I'm on Pinterest (#36), but I still don't really get it... I also wonder about LinkedIn (#23). Are most people on it simply because they are afraid they're missing something if they are not on it? I set up an account long ago, but I don't pay it much attention.
• One tool I'm checking out that isn't on the list is Netvibes. I have loved using my iGoogle homepage, but with it being vaporized in a year, I'm looking for an alternative. Netvibes is one possibility. (Any one using this and having a good experience with it?)
• The really significant omission on the list is Zotero. I have come to use this nearly daily as a way to organize books, articles, PDFs, and web pages I come across. It's such an outstanding bibliographic tool. I did buy the Scanner for Zotero app for my Droid X, so I'm prepared for Society of Biblical Literature meeting this year. (I had mentioned this after last year's SBL as a better way of making note of the books I saw there.) Zotero also allows for collaboration with the sharing of libraries, so it's one way I share my bibliographies with my students and allow them to add to it. (There are Zotero mobile apps for other platforms too.)

So, check out Jane Hart's C4LPT blog, and if you are looking for some tech tool to accomplish a task, her site is a great place to look. Especially check out her "Best of Breed" categorized list.

Zotero (Everywhere) and a good idea for the next AAR-SBL

Took the redeye home from San Francisco to Washington Dulles and trying to catch up on a bunch of things...

Moscone Convention Center - Entrance to Exhibit Hall

One of the best parts of the annual AAR-SBL meeting is to wander through the Exhibit Hall. It's great to see the new works that are being featured. You are bound to bump into someone you know. Plenty of little freebies to collect. I, of course, always check in on all the Bible software vendors.

I managed to restrain myself and come away with only a couple books, but there were a lot of books I wanted to remember for future reference. Instead of trying to write down author / title / publisher information, I thought it would be easier to use my Droid X and scan the barcode. At the time, what I ended up doing was using the Amazon Mobile app which allows me to scan the barcode and look it up at Amazon. One thing this accomplished is that I could quickly see the Amazon price and compare what sort of convention discount the publishers were actually offering on the book (and some certainly were and some were not). Second, and actually more important for me, I could add the book to my Amazon wishlist. (I had set my 'Academic Books' to be my default wishlist, so they all went straight there.) Now, when I got home, I pulled up my wishlist, clicked up the books, and was then one more click away from having them saved in my Zotero collection with full bibliographic information intact.

You can click to enlarge the graphic to see my somewhat eclectic / esoteric list. You will also see that I dumped everything in a SBL2011 collection, but from there, I used drag/drop to add them to any of the other collections you can see in the left pane. It's a beautiful thing.

I've been a big fan of Zotero, and it has become my default means of collecting all my bibliographic data, adding notes and tags to the resources, links to Amazon or Review of Books in Religion, etc. In the past, Zotero has required you to use it within Firefox, but they announced in August the beta releases of standalone versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Click for the download links. I've used the Windows one, and it has been stable.) There are now also connectors so that Chrome and Safari users can use Zotero in those browsers. You really have no reason not to use Zotero now.

I should have thought to check ahead of time, however, to see if there were any mobile Zotero apps, and indeed there are. Check them out here. In particular, I would have liked to use Scanner for Zotero (Android) which would allow me to scan directly to Zotero. BibUp functions similarly for iPhone.
UPDATE: Avram Lyon, author of Zandy, indicates in the comments that his Android app now also handles ISBN barcode scanning.
(If anyone has used either of these, I'd appreciate hearing your comments.)

Zotero Everywhere!

I've been a big fan of Zotero, and yesterday (2010.09.22) they announced a new initiative called Zotero Everywhere. Be sure to check the whole announcement, but here's the key part.

Zotero Everywhere is aimed at dramatically increasing the accessibility of Zotero to the widest possible range of users today and in the future. Zotero Everywhere will have two main components: a standalone desktop version of Zotero with full integration into a variety of web browsers and a radically expanded application programming interface (API) to provide web and mobile access to Zotero libraries.

What does this mean and why is it important? Until now, Zotero has been limited to users of Firefox, and it largely works within the Firefox browser. (Remember, though, that Zotero has a plugin that allows easy integration with Microsoft Word or Open Office for easy generation of footnotes and bibliographies.) Now, they are promising integration with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. There will also be the standalone version available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.


I know that I use Zotero for creating my bibliographies as I work online, but I also use it to annotate entries, link to reviews of a book, link to my own resources, etc. It truly is a great research tool.


Zotero Everywhere is not yet available, and the announcement doesn't indicate when it will be, but this is good news.  
[HT: Dan Cohen]

Looking ahead in 2010: Biblical Studies and Tech Tools

I started this post about a month ago and never got around to finishing it. A main focus of my prognostications was the potential of mobile devices like netbooks, ebook readers, and the (then still rumored) Apple tablet device. With the announcement of the iPad (I was thinking it would be called an iTablet), I can now appear to have been somewhat prophetic... Now updated, here's what I am thinking is on the horizon in technology as it relates to biblical studies.

Going Mobile

I am convinced that we are moving to an available-everywhere Internet and that we are going to be using mobile devices to access it. Smartphones have become the device of choice for many, and their advantage is that they are small and can handle the primary tasks of texting, web surfing, email, and, oh, yeah, making phone calls. Many can also serve as MP3 players, game- and video-playing devices, GPS, etc., and, with the abundance of apps now available, as your biblical studies resource too. Their disadvantage is that they are small. It's not just that web-surfing is limited on such devices because of screen size, but they are physically too small. I hate misdialing numbers or text because the keys are so small. With my oldER person's eyes, I have to beef up the font size, and that just means so much less viewable text on the screen. Compared to my current phone's 1 inch square display, most newer phones do have quite nice displays and larger viewing areas. (E.g., Apple iPhone or Google Nexus One or Droid. For now, I have what I need with my old phone and my old but still trustworthy Dell Axim x51v.) So they are great as portable devices, but not for getting serious work accomplished. Will something like the forthcoming Dell Mini5 be better? (Maybe, but I'm not sure I want to put that thing up to my ear when I use it as a phone.) So, is it necessary to choose between the convenience of portability and the need for greater functionality that a laptop offers? And where do ebook readers and netbooks fit in? I believe there is a place something like the now-announced Apple iPad, but the iPad isn't it. Personally, I'd be more inclined to get a good netbook which can do more than the iPad and cost less. If we are heading toward ebook readers, then I think they are going to need to be able to do more in terms of being good tools for students to highlight and take notes (like this) or for being interactive devices with live updates (like this or this or this). Of course there is all sorts of new technology coming down the line...

So what do I want? I want a phone that can provide access to all my biblical stuff in a pinch (like I can now do with my Dell Axim). It would also be nice to have all those other nice goodies like web access, email, MP3, GPS, ... I can probably do that (for a price! and for data fees!) if I ever upgrade my phone and when my Axim dies. I'm the sort that will be looking for a phone using either Android or Windows Mobile 7. I applaud companies like Olive Tree and Laridian for the work they do on developing Bible resources for the various mobile platforms. Logos is also to be commended for their iPhone app. (And how about something for Android next?) To do more substantial work, however, I think I will still use a real computer with at least the minimum functionality offered by a netbook.

With all that said, I still suspect that Apple's iPad (in its 2nd generation) will generate the cool buzz to make more people look at this form factor. Since it seems to be not much of a deal to move apps from the iPhone/iTouch to the iPad, it will have a lot of momentum going forward.

Both Sides of the Cloud

I'm doing more and more of my personal and seminary work in the cloud. I'm using Live Mesh to keep my home and sem computers synced, in particular, the notes I'm writing in BibleWorks8. I'm using drop.io to back up files, make them accessible from any computer, and share them with students. I'm integrating blogs, nings, Google Docs, wikis, and diigo into my courses as ways of sharing and developing resources. I'm also really liking using Google Wave for doing collaborative work that uses threaded discussions. I use Xmarks to keep my browser bookmarks synced across various machines and have access from any machine. (Weave Sync is another option for Firefox.) I use Zotero to do my bibliographic work, and it also automatically keeps things synced across my computers and is accessible from any machine.

What are the themes here?

• Collaboration: I'm using social networking tools and sites that allow for multiple authors to do collaborative work. 
• Resource Availability: I'm still not comfortable having my stuff exist solely on the web. (Google Wave is this way for now, but it is still in beta, and it appears that one will be able to download waves in the future.) What I do really like is the kind of syncing to multiple computers AND online access from any computer allowed by tools like Live Mesh, Xmarks, GoogleDocs, and Zotero. 

In relation to biblical studies, Laridian has one good idea with its way of automatically syncing the desktop version of the program and its notes with the USB drive version you can use in any machine. I also like that the Logos iPhone app (which I've only used it on my daughter's iTouch) allows you to access most of the library you have on your computer.

[BTW, for a list of utility software (most of which is free), I recommend THESE to my students.]

Working on the Web and at My Desk

For doing serious original language work, I don't think Accordance, BibleWorks, or Logos can be surpassed. I am impressed, however, with some of the free Bible software that is available (e.g., LaParola or e-Sword) and with some of the online Bible resources sites (e.g., NET Bible, Great Treasures, Biblos, or Bible Web App). Most of these are labors of love and service which generate little or no income. On behalf of all of us who use them, you have our thanks! There are, at least, the kind of resources I can recommend to interested lay persons who don't necessarily want to invest in or are able to make full use of the big commercial programs. (BTW, for a somewhat complete listing of such resources, check HERE.)
As far as the future goes of Accordance, BibleWorks, and Logos, I have no inside information. Looking back and watching how they have progressed, however, it appears that they all have been rather faithful to their roots even as they add features and tools. I hope they all continue to thrive, because not only do they do somewhat different things, but I think the competition is good as a way of encouraging innovations and improvements. One such area is the creation of biblical texts that are syntactically analyzed. Another area where all of them are working is integration with online resources.

Okay, so I haven't really gone out on a limb to make any wild predictions here. I've done better at describing the current state of things and identified some trends. If you want some provocative future predictions, check this timeline. Be sure to check the prediction for 2020. Imagine having, say, an entire biblical library implanted in your brain, always available just for the thinking of it. Are you thinking of it? Are you thinking it is something we really want in our future?

Zotero 2

Zotero 2 (a stable beta, at least) has been released, and you will want to check out some of the highlights noted on Dan Cohen's blog. To highlight just a few things:

• The syncing of collections works great and is done automatically on the Zotero server. This means that you any additions or changes you make on one computer will be reflected on another one you use. It also means that you can access your library data from any computer by logging in to Zotero and checking your library on that web site.
• You can create your own free account and then complete a profile to make yourself visible to other Zotero users. As of today, 156 users list themselves as working in the "Religion" discipline. You can search for other labels. E.g., I find 16 users associated with "seminary." This works a bit like Academia.edu as a way of finding others with similar interests, but Academia.edu has done more for organizing by schools and/or disciplines.
• Perhaps more interesting is the Group colloboration to create library collections. There aren't too many at this time, but as an example, I started a "Parables of Jesus" group. You can view the bibliography of books I've started to organize here. You can also join the group (if you are logged in to Zotero), and then the resources will show up in the Zotero frame in your own collections. I have set this group up so that others can add resources to it. This looks to be a very promising way to build collections that appears to be more group-friendly than some of the other library management tools.
  

In any case, check out the updates and let us know what other ways you are using Zotero.
From the comments: check out additional info at nerdlets.

BibleWorks8 Bibliographies Including Zotero, NotaBene, etc

I had previously reported that Logos had made it easy to export its resources into the Zotero bibliographic tool. I am now pleased to report that BibleWorks provides the same capability. As announced on the BW Forum, details can be found in chapter 62 of the Help file. There it states:

BibleWorks includes a number of common bibliography program import files that you can use in Zotero or other common bibliography programs. Included are bibliography import files in the following file formats:

• RIS (Bibliography_RIS.ris)

• Refer-BiblX (Bibliography_Refer_BiblX.txt)

• Zotero RDF (Bibliography_Zotero_RDF.rdf)

• BibTeX (Bibliography_BibTeX.bib)

I've been recommending Zotero for some time, so this is an incredibly easy way to integrate the two. It took less than a minute to import the nearly 300 references. Using Zotero's syncing feature, I will be able quickly to get all these references on my other computer as well. Also note the other bibliographical formats provided. Use the RIS file for importing in to Ibidem in Nota Bene.

Logos and Zotero

Here's some good news! Phil Gons has just posted a notice on the Logos blog about exporting all the bibliographic info from your Logos/Libronix library into Zotero. I've been recommending Zotero for some time, so this is an incredibly easy way to integrate the two. Follow the directions on Phil's post. It took me less than 3 minutes to export my 736 unlocked resources in Logos and then import them into my Zotero collection. See the graphic above.
Thanks for pointing out this most excellent way to do this!

Another Zotero Update

This is great news as reported by Dan Cohen: your Zotero data can now be synchronized across the net. That is, you can work on multiple computers and keep your Zotero data and notes in sync. They've also added rich text editing. Do note that this is a preview version with potential of loss of data. (So far so good for me.)
BUT... Thomson Reuters, makers of the commercial EndNote program, have filed suit against George Mason University claiming that Zotero has reverse engineered the coding for the bibliographic formatting. (The Zotero project is based at the University’s Center for History and New Media.) Here is the George Mason University official response. I'm cheering for Zotero and their open source approach on this one.

Zotero - Major Feature Updates

More reasons to like Zotero even more as your bibliography management tool as reported on Dan Cohen's blog... As he notes, you can now check out your Zotero library on any web browser including those on iPhone or iPod Touch.
In addition, the Zotero 1.5 SyncPreview 2 now offers a way to sync your library across the web, retrieve metadata from PDFs and more.

Firefox, Kindle, Zotero, iPhone, Accordance, etc.

Technically on vacation, but a few quick things to check:

Firefox 3:
Here is a good list of useful Firefox 3 add-ons.
Do note, however, that one of my favorite add-ons, Tab Mix Plus, is not yet Firefox 3 ready. You can install the beta which is working perfectly well for me HERE.

Kindle, Zotero, iPhone
Scott F. Johnson has an interesting post (with links to prior discussion) regarding the use of Kindle as a scholarly tool (or not). Basically he would like to see Zotero on Kindle or an iPhone, but he is not overly optimistic about the possibilities.

Logos' RefTagger Updated
Logos notes that there RefTagger has been updated to allow for some style choices. Here is Mark 6:34.

Video, Graphics, Online Publishing
Readers of this blog will have noted that I am also interested in the ways that biblical studies can be presented using graphics, photo, video, etc. If you are interested in such stuff, add Robin Good's MasterNewMedia to your reader. Sometimes it gets more into advertising and marketing stuff, but there are regularly nice reviews of other multimedia type of resources you can use.

Accordance
I've been meaning to respond to some of the recent posts on the Accordance blog. In particular, I've wanted to follow up on a couple posts dealing with the word meaning "desire" in Genesis 3:16. (Part 1 and Part 2) It's a good case study of how to use Bible software even when you are not fluent in the original languages.

Zotero Sync Preview Available!

Dan Cohen has announced on his blog the release of Zotero 1.5 with Sync Preview. This is really welcome news. What it means is that you can now use the Zotero servers to keep your Zotero bibliographies synchronized with multiple computers. Here is the Zotero announcement which highlights the following:

We are excited to announce the launch of Zotero 1.5 Sync Preview, which introduces a powerful slate of new features, including:

• Automatic synchronization of collections among multiple computers. For example, sync your PC at work with your Mac laptop and your Linux desktop at home.
  
• Free automatic backup of your library data on Zotero’s servers.
  
• Support for thousands of existing Endnote® export styles. While the CSL styles utilized by Zotero are a much more robust and powerful long-term solution for styling references, we are happy to offer users the ability to use Endnote styles where there are currently no available CSLs.
  
• A new style manager allowing you to add and delete CSLs and legacy style formats.
  
• Preliminary support for local sharing of collections through ZeroConf on OS X. Other platforms and full support to come with the final release of Zotero 1.5.
  

Some things to note:

• You must be using Firefox 3. Part of the reason for the Zotero delay was waiting for Firefox 3.
  
• This is an initial preview version with some known issues. Be sure to follow the directions on the Zotero page for backing up your Zotero data before installing this version. (Note:
  they basically want you to create a new Firefox profile for testing purposes. If you know what you are doing and are willing to take a little risk, you can simply backup your Zotero data. If you should run into a problem, you would need to restore the sqlite file and the folders & data in the storage subdirectory.)
• Note that are still a few limitations and known issues, most notably, annotations, highlights, snapshots, and file links are not synced. To keep annotations and such synced, they recommend that you continue to use a file synchronization tool.
• You do have to set up a Zotero account. It's free.
• What basically happens is that with Zotero running, click on the little 'gear' icon and select Preferences. You will see a new Sync tab, and here you enter your Zotero user/password.
• You will repeat the process on a second computer. Note that syncing occurs automatically, but if you want to force a sync, look for the little green 'sync' button on the top right of the Zotero bar.
  

I have given it a spin, and I can report that it works great!

Zotero, Making Digital Count, Collaboration, Future of Education

As Tim notes on SansBlogue, Zotero is good to go for SBL styles.

Follow the links on this post for discussion on the nature of digital scholarship and whether and how it should 'count' in an academic setting. It's a good followup to couple of earlier posts on this blog here and here.

A good survey of online collaboration tools with brief descriptions is here.

Making sense of new technologies has a couple of good items:

• My previous post on mindmapping got some info here, but scroll down a ways and be sure to check out the Michael Wesch video on Media Literacy. (Direct video link here.) It's over an hour, but it is pretty interesting. In particular, about half way through, he shows what the online components of his courses are. (Here is the start page.) Here is the link to his course wiki using Wetpaint. This gave me some good ideas of how I might incorporate wikis in my own courses.
• Also on this page is this notice:
  

  BC Campus and Common Wealth of Learning are offering a free download of their book Education for a digital world (the book can also be purchased). The book covers significant topics, including: impact of instructional technology, implementing technology, preparing online courses, e-learning in action, and engagement and communication.

Annotating, bibliography, and citation

Picking up some loose ends, especially responding to some recent posts by Danny Zacharias at Deinde.

Annotating: In this post, Zacharias recommends using A.nnotate as an online collaboration tool. I checked it out. Looks good, but the free version does limit you to the number of docs and editors. Services like this are competing with GoogleDocs and the new Adobe Acrobat online and such. Τhe primary virtues of A.nnotate compared to the rest are that it can import PDF files (something even the Adobe site can't do!) and that it can handle Greek/Hebrew Unicode. I have used co-ment, and it too can deal with Greek/Hebrew, and I also like that it can be set to provide a feed for changed texts. A.nnotate can also make notes on web pages, but it basically is taking a snapshot of the page and then leaving notes. For web page annotation, I've used diigo. It's pretty quick and versatile. For more web annotation tools check HERE and HERE. Check HERE for info on using Google Reader for web page annotation.

Bibliography Tools: On this post, Zacharias recommends Biblioscape as an alternative bibliography and research manager for those who don't have NotaBene with it powerful Ibidem and Orbis programs. Biblioscape does look good, includes a number of nice extra features, works well with MSWord, etc.... but it costs $200. I think Zotero is accomplishing all I need for free.

Citation: On this post, Zacharias laments the lack of professional disregard for electronic texts, and the outdated and insufficient way we have for citing such texts. Yes! It's a post worth reading, and I support his suggestions for new footnoting and bibliography formats, especially for electronic editions. The question of appropriately citing texts regularly arises on the BibleWorks forum. Logos has its built-in footnote system which works great when copy/pasting text, but it still needs some additional tweaking to locate specific points in the electronic text. Zacharias is correct here, I think, in arguing that citation systems simply need to allow someone to find the referenced text and that there should be consistency in how texts are referenced.

Research and Note-taking Tools

A person on the BibleWorks forum asked what others were doing to take and organize notes as they did research. The person was hoping to do so within the BW7 editor. This would certainly work, but, as the person noted, it would take some forethought about directory structure in order to organize the notes efficiently. There is an effective "Find" feature in BW7 that would allow for later searching. One can also set up notes within Logos, of course, and you can work with those notes more easily by grabbing the free DomiNotez "note enhancer for Libronix."

It is great to have all your Bible-related notes in a single place, but neither of the note taking editors in BW7 or Logos (or any other Bible software program) are well suited for collecting research notes on books or articles. So what else is available? I have previously blogged about bibliographic tools (here and here), but we are interested more here in research and note-taking tools.

My two favorite tools are 1) the combination of Orbis (a free-form text-retrieval system) and Ibidem (the bibliographic database) with NotaBene and 2) Zotero.

Orbis is outstanding and is well structured in connecting notes to their origins and also quite versatile in composing free-standing notes. It basically is creating a textual database with sophisticated search functions. The drawbacks: it will cost you somewhere around $200-400, and it will take a commitment (but potentially a very worthwhile one)to learn how to use NotaBene.

Zotero continues to expand its capabilities, and it is free. Using the Vertov plugin, Zotero can even be used to annotate a wide range of media. I have also noted how to keep Zotero synced across any number of computers using FolderShare. Zotero works great for inserting end/footnotes and for generating bibliographies in MSWord and OpenOffice, and you can even download an addin that formats everything according to the SBL stylesheet. (Read about it here and my observation that it was having trouble adding page numbers. If you install the Zotero Development XPI, it works just fine. This is a one-click installation, so it is easy to do, but note that there are some language restrictions.) The drawbacks: you need to be using Firefox, and there is a little extra work to keep it synced across multiple computers.

So, Zotero is great as a bibliographic tool, but what about its use as a research and note taking tool? Take a look at the graphic below. (Click to expand.)

Books can easily be added through a site like Amazon with all their bibliographic information included. Web articles or pages are easy to add, and one can also add standalone notes. Once the items have been added to your library, you then have multiple ways of organizing and annotating them. You can create Collections to organize the items, and items can be dragged/dropped into multiple collections or subcollections. You can add a note to it or attach any other resource, either online or one located on your computer. You can also add tags which will prove to be useful later in searching. You can also link the item to related items in your library. When it comes to finding / retrieving the info you want, note that you can click on one of your collections and see just those items. You can search using the tags you have applied. You can also use the search box to search your items. Note that this search also includes the full text on the web pages you have in your library! If that isn't enough, there is also an advanced search that uses Boolean operators and searches on any field you choose. It is a pretty amazing tool...

Bottom line: If you are using NotaBene, Orbis and Ibidem are the way to go. Everyone else should really look at Zotero.

I have a couple of bonus options for you in my next post!

Zotero: SBL style beta now available

I have reported previously on what a great scholarly, bibliographic resource Zotero is. On his SansBlogue, Tim Bulkeley notes that there is a now a Word / Open Office addin for SBL style foot/endnotes and bibliographies. It is still under development, and so you have to install it manually from the Zotero styles page. I am having some troubles with it in MS Word 2007, namely, when trying to add page numbers. BTW, I am still really mixed in feeling about MS Word 2007 as compared to Word 2003. One thing that particularly irks me is the inability to create my own floating or dockable toolbars. In Word 2003, I set up a Zotero toolbar that I could dock at the bottom of the window for quick access. You can't have such toolbars in Word 2007, so you have to click on the Add-Ins tab and then click on the Zotero icon. You can add them to the "Quick Access" toolbar, but that could get full of a lot of stuff in a hurry. Ultimately I end up assigning the "insert citation" to a keystroke, so it is workable. (And how do you assign actions to a keystroke in Word 2007? Click that button in the top left, then look for the "Word Options" button hidden at the bottom, then "Customize," then keyboards shortcuts "Customize" button, then...) BTW, the SBL site has a handy, downloadable PDF "Student Supplement to the SBL Handbook of Style."

Vertov for Zotero update; Zotero and Logos syncing

In a previous post, I noted the availability of Vertov, a Firefox plugin for Zotero that works as a manager and annotator of digital media. While limited in its initial release to only a couple media file types, in its latest release, it is now able to handle "any QuickTime-compatible audio or video file in your browser (over 50 formats)." Very nice indeed!

And while I am mentioning Zotero again, I think I have finally found a good way to keep the Zotero data on my home and school computers synced. I did not like the 'portable Zotero' solution of running Firefox/Zotero off a USB drive, and the exporting/importing of Zotero data was too much bother. What I am doing now is using FolderShare to keep the Zotero data on both machines updated. (HERE is the info you need on the Zotero site, and it also includes info on using the Mac's iDisk to do the same thing.) Do note that for this to work properly, you can only have Firefox/Zotero active on one computer at a time, but both computers will need to be online at the same time. (Ideally, Firefox should not be running on either. I.e., let FolderShare do its thing, close FolderShare, and then start Firefox.)

And while I am mentioning FolderShare again, I can report that I am successfully using it to keep my Logos3 program synchronized between the two computers. Works great. (HERE is the info you need from the Logos Wiki to set things up properly.)

Zotero update; free software; MSWord2007 & Biblical Studies

Be sure to check out The Best Free Software listed on the PC Magazine site. Readers of this blog will recognize many of the programs cited, but there are quite a few other interesting ones.

Dan Cohen brought my attention to an award that Zotero (cf. my posts) has won a contest as the best citation manager, beating out many of the large commercial products. In addition, he points to a new plugin for Zotero called Vertov. The big idea here is that Zotero functions as a manager of all your digital media, including audio, video, etc. So, with the Vertov plugin, you can mark certain sections of a video and annotate it. Very nice. Supposedly it works with any QuickTime compatible media, but I'm having troubling getting it to work with anything other than MOV and AVI files for now. [UPDATE: 2008.03.19: The director of the Vertov project, Elena Razlogova, just emailed me to confirm that only MOV and AVI files work for now, but other QT-compatible file types will be added soon. Thanks!]

In the meantime, I finally took the plunge and installed MSOffice 2007. I have a mixed response so far. As someone who heavily customized Word and PowerPoint, I'm finding rather annoying digging around trying to find stuff. In relation to biblical studies:

• Using the Logos keyboard for typing polytonic Greek. (See this post.) What worked fine in Word2003 is not working well in Word2007. I'll see if Logos can help out. (The problem has to do with combined or composed characters, in particular, vowels with more than one diacritical.)
• Word2007 does come with a vastly improved annotation/referencing/notation system. I'll play around and see how well it works. I'm starting to get my dissertation converted from old NotaBene for DOS into MSWord DOC, so I will have plenty of opportunity to learn...
• Actually, I'm trying to figure out whether to use the MSWord2007 citation system or to go entirely with Zotero. Zotero now has a plugin (for MSWord or for OpenOffice) to make citations incredibly easy within the word processor. You can choose between 14 different citation styles (including MLA, Chicago, APA), footnotes or endnotes, and more.
  
• The edition of Office2007 I got comes with OneNote. I see that some people on the forums are really liking this as a tool for accumulating and organizing all kinds of research. I will see...