Saturday, October 29, 2011

Set up Zotero Account (or at least tried to)

So Zotero...not the easiest Web 2.0 I've encountered in Learning 2.0. As I was watching all of the tutorial videos explaining what Zotero is and how you use and manage it, I was so excited about getting started. I thought it sounded like such an amazingly useful tool that allowed you to do so much in addition to just citations. The tutorials made it all seem so easy. Maybe it is because it generally takes me quite awhile to accustom myself to new technologies, but trying to use Zotero and get articles in my library was anything but easy. But I persisted! With a little trial and error, I managed to get the citations for three articles I found on Information Technology and Librarianship in my Zotero library. I had an easier time of it using JSTOR. I first tried another database (Library Literature & Information Science FT) and found a few interesting articles there, but for the life of me could not get the citations into Zotero. Suffice to say, I'm going to need a lot more practice to figure out how to properly use all this application's features. I was just so relieved to get those three citations in!

Despite all of the frustration, I could see how this could definitely be a useful tool for scholars, as well as librarians. I wish I had heard of it before. It could have come in handy during my undergrad years. I honestly feel like I've been living under a rock because all of these Web 2.0 applications are so new and unfamiliar to me. However, I am certainly learning about them now and when I become a librarian, I will be in a better position to teach this and other tools to others so that they may benefit from them. If, for instance I end up as an academic librarian, I can certainly point many college students in the direction of this application with the hopes that it may help in their research and writing.

1 comment:

  1. I know what you mean about feeling like you lived under a rock in undergrad. Sometimes I feel a little resentful for not being introduce to all the web tools that exist when I was an undergrad. It really makes it seem as if instructors are just going through the motions with undergrad, and it's only in grad school that the real teaching begins. I understand this to a certain extent, in that it's in grad school where students noticeably put forth more effort, but I might have used Zotero as a senior!

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