Thing 5 - Referencing

Zotero or Mendeley

When I wrote my masters dissertation I typed out my bibliography reference by reference. I worked through the whole text too, slotting in the references, remembering where I’d referenced the same thing twice – the whole 15,000 words of it.

from quinnanya on flickr

I don’t say this in a “we had it tough back in my day, you lot, you don’t know you’re born” sort of way. I say it because I didn’t have any alternative (that I was aware of).  It was time consuming and error prone – who would chose that?
There are so many tools out there these days that there’s no reason for anyone -  student, academic, researcher, would-be librarian  – anyone to have to do that anymore.  
For those of us still in the throes of writing essays, or perhaps writing articles for professional journals, picking one piece of software and running with it makes life a lot easier. But looking beyond our own needs to consider the needs of the library users we support, being aware of a number of different tools is always an advantage (and a big selling point on a CV). Being able to explore the pros and cons of different ways of achieving the same goal helps others decide which is the tool for them.

Managing information in this way, and helping others to do so too demonstrates our worth in a new way, and is a very useful skill. We’re not just there to help people find information, we can help them manage it to more easily achieve their goal. (I’m mostly thinking of these tools in an academic or research environment, but please give me examples their use in public libraries, business  information centres – anywhere!)

There are 4 essential elements that you need in any reference management system. The ability to:

• import references from a number of different sources (eg websites, library catalogues, bibliographic databases etc)
• manage and/or edit the references once they’re in the system, and add manually any references that you cannot find online
• export references into the document that you’re writing, either as a single bibliography, or individually, often called “cite while you write” which generates a list of references.
• format the bibliography according the referencing style of your choice, and re-format if/when necessary

There are some other “bells and whistles” which might be nice. The ability to:

• share references with colleagues, supervisors, co-authors
• attach the text of the article to the reference (as a PDF attachment mostly), so you can manage the full-text documents as well as the references
• find full text of the articles in your list of references (particularly relevant in academic libraries)
• manage your full-text articles- perhaps by ensuring that file names are consistent,
• detect and delete duplicates - if an article is important, you may find it more than once - but you don’t want more than one entry in your list of references.

There are many commercial products out there – Endnote, Reference Manager, RefWorks and Papers  are just 4 examples. Those of us working in higher education may already have access to one or more of these. But there are also some tools which are available open source - free in the first instance, although with option to pay for more storage/services. These are accessible to anyone (so long as you’ve got the rights to download software onto your computer!)
There’s a comparison table in Wikipedia and Martin Fenner produced a useful comparison between 8 different tool.

Of the many possibles, we’re going to look at 2 free ones:

Zotero and Mendeley

NB - these tools will require you to download plugins etc to your desk top.

Thing A -  Zotero – www.zotero.org

Zotero is an open source product that started life as a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox but in its 3.0 version is now available as a standalone desktop tool which is compatible with Chrome and Safari, as well as a plugin for your Firefox browser.
A useful video which demonstrates Zotero is available and rather than re-invent the wheel, I suggest you watch this.
Zotero is free, but you can get extra storage space and more flexibility for a monthly subscription if you need it.
I think it’s a great - a simple to use product which allows easy importing of references from a lot of sources – just by a click of an icon that will appear in your URL bar. Check if the ones you use regularly are covered: http://www.zotero.org/translators
Zotero also encourages collaboration by providing a social networking element to their site - you can create groups ( private or public) where you can share your reference lists - a bit like delicious.
The standalone desktop tool will also let you organise the PDFs that you might have gathered up already - so you can start managing your references now even if you’ve had no system previously.
Zotero has a plugin for MS Word too - so you can “cite while you write”.
To ensure a back-up of your references (to save tears if your computer crashes!) you can synchronise your Zotero system to the Zotero website - I would recommend doing this on a regular basis to ensure least disaster if anything should go wrong.

Thing B – Mendeley – www.mendeley.com

Mendeley also requires a download, but this time it’s a desktop feature only, rather the forcing you to use one particular browser.  Like Zotero, there is a free version of Mendeley, but more features and increased storage are available if you chose to subscribe.
There’s some great introductory videos available, plus loads of supporting documentation.

One of the nicest features, is that if you’re starting off with a desktop or folder full of PDFs, there is a “watched folder” feature that you can point Mendeley towards, and it extracts metadata from the PDF files and populates your Mendeley library automatically. This is great if you/your library user has a great morass of files they want to organise retrospectively - and I’ve never seen a room of researchers go quiet so quickly as when you show them this feature, plus the one that renames the files in a tidy and consistent way (really very impressive!)

There’s also a PDF editor function within Mendeley, so you can “scribble” on the full-text articles (though you can get this functionality without by using PDF-XChange)
Mendeley has the added bonus that when you synch your desktop with the web version of Mendeley - a good thing to do since it acts as a back-up for all your references - the PDF (if you’ve attached it) will go into the cloud too, so you can access your full-text articles wherever you are.
The group/social networking function in Mendeley takes things a step further, by allowing you to set up a closed group where collabators can share the full-text articles, not just the references.

There is, of course, a “cite while you write” plug in to install for Word, and you can pick one of many many different referencing styles to make your bibliography beautiful.

Mendeley also has a very nice iPad or iPhone app which means you can always keep up with your reading and keep adding to your reference list.

Your Thing

For this week’s Thing, I’d like you to explore, and watch the videos for these two reference managers. If you have the rights to download software to your computer, then have a play with at least one of them.
Reflect on how these tools might help the people who use your library - why might they find them useful? Perhaps you’re working towards chartership, or are writing essays for a course you’re on - how could a reference management tool help you achieve some of your own goals?

If you’re already using one or several of these tools - perhaps for your own work, or perhaps purely in order to teach others how to use them, please share it. How are you using them? Do you have a preference? If you are running courses, who are they for? What format do these courses take? Does this service help to change perceptions of the library service?

Thing 4 - Presentations

 

Hello,

Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed your week off and are looking forward to completing the rest of the "12 Things".

This fortnight we will be getting creative and will be exploring tools that allow you to create and share presentations, documents and other files online. We will also be looking at ways to visually enhance presentations etc using video and photographic images. Whilst you are exploring this Thing, think about how these tools could be used to best effect in your work.

Task 1 - What is Slideshare?

Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net is a presentation hosting website that also allows you to share documents, PDFs etc.

Why might you, researchers or clinicians want to use Slideshare?

• To share presentations with anyone who might not get to see it otherwise, eg for people unable to attend a conference. Slideshare presentations can easily be embedded into your blog, website, Twitter or Facebook.
• To share and disseminate ideas or reach a wider audience. This could include engaging with the public and on a massive scale.
• To invite comments and fedback and so get new ideas to develop their work or make their presentations better.
• To make international contacts and network with people with similar work interests.
• To download presentations and re-use or re-mix them.

How do I get started?

First of all, you will need to create an account:

• Go to http://www.slideshare.net/signup then fill in the registration form.
• The next screen will probably be some general information about Slideshare - don't worry about this, carry on to the next step.
• Now upload your first presentation! Lots of file formats are supported, including Powerpoint formats, Keynote, Open Office and pdf. After skipping the advert for Pro, you should see this box:

• If you don't see this, click on the orange "upload" button at the top of the page and this will bring you here. As with most Web 2.0 applications there is a free version and a premium version, which has more features. Slideshare Pro, for example, allows you to share your presentations privately as well as publicly. If you click on the blue button, you will just get an invitation to upgrade to Slideshare Pro. Skip this, the free service provides all the features we need right now.
• Click on the orange button and upload a presentation or video. While the file is being uploaded and converted you can give it a name, description and tags:

Once the file has uploaded you can then share it on Twitter, Facebook or email, embed in your blog or simply insert the link wherever you wnat to share it.

Of course you can browse Slideshare to find interesting presentations by other people. try searching for "libraries" or "social media" or whatever else you're interested in!

Other things you can do with Slideshare:

• Favourite the presentations you like to save them to your Slideshare account (the favourite button is on the bar along the top of each presentation). Or, if the author has allowed this, download them to your computer.
• Import a presentation from Google Docs.
• You can add comments and tags to your own presentations.

Your Thing - Task 1 - Try searching for presentations on Slideshare and upload a presentation (it doesn't have to be long or partcularly spiffy) and either sharing the link or embedding it on your blog. Have a browse of the other presentations on Slideshare and share anything interesting!

NB. Remember to consider copyright rules if including images or screenshots in your presentation.

Task 2 - What is Prezi?

Prezi is a free web-based package so you can create your presentation online but can download it for use offline. In some ways it is like Powerpoint and, in any situation where you might consider using a Powerpoint, you can create a Prezi instead. What makes Prezi so good though is the extra capabilities it has, that can take your presentation beyond the boring 'slide with text, next slide with text, slide with text and a picture' format of most powerpoints.

Have a look at this Prezi from Ned Potter which gives a good video demo:
http://prezi.com/_sto8qf_0vcs/the-how-to-make-a-great-prezi-prezi/

With the standard version all slides are automatically made public so you need to take into account copyright rules if including images or screenshots in your presentation. This makes it more suited to some uses than others, eg. you need to be careful about copyrighted images.

As with Slideshare, Prezi presentations can be shared, downloaded and re-worked by others, you can post comments or upload audio files to accompany your presentation. You can also collaborate online with other authors to create a Prezi together, and you can download it and play it offline if you need to present on a computer with no internet access.

Why might you, researchers, or clinicians want to use Prezi?

Many of the reasons to do with sharing and disseminating presentations are similar to those for Slideshare. In addition Prezi provides an alternative format for presentations, and allows collaborative working.

How do I get started?

• Go to http://prezi.com and click 'sign up' on the top right. You'll need to create a free account to use the programme.
• When Prezi opens, there are three tabs at the top of the page - 'Your Prezis' will display all the presentations you have created. 'Learn' offers tutorials on using Prezi, at both a basic and more advanced level. 'Explore' allows you to view other presentations on all manner of subjects - a great way to get an idea of how Prezi can be used (and perhaps what not to do as well).
• To start your first presentation click on the 'New Prezi' button on the top left of the 'Your Prezi' tab. You'll be prompted to give the presentation a title, and a description, but these can be changed later, so don't worry too much.
• You'll then be offered a number of templates to choose from. I would advise not selecting any of these until you have mastered the basics of Prezi and know the effect you are trying to create so select the blank template.
• Now click on the canvas and type to get started. You can add pictures (try using Flickr with Creative Commons licensing) and you can link to You Tube videos. With the standard version all slides are automatically made public so you will need to remember to take into account copyright rules if including images or screenshots in your presentation.

The tools can take a little bit of getting used to, particularly sizing and the animation. And be aware that your first attempt is likely to be fairly poor. So practise a bit if you like it before trying to use Prezi for a presentation. The biggest tip is perhaps not to get too carried away with all the features you could use, particularly with the animation - don't underestimate the ability to create a rather seasick effect.

Your Thing - Task 2. Try searching for presentations in Prezi that might be of interest to a researcher or clinician in the fields of biomedicine or health (or a subject relevant to your role) to see what kind of presentations are out there. If you are feeling advanturous, try uploading/downloading a presentation, or creating one from scratch - the Prezi Manual has good instructions on getting started.

Task 3 - What is YouTube?

YouTube http://www.youtube.com is probably the best known and biggest video sharing website. Anyone can search and play videos on YouTube but to upload them you need to create a free account. You can then rate and comment on videos, store them in your favourites, crate playlists and subscribe to particular 'channels'.

Tip: YouTube Channels - every author on YouTube has their own 'channel' which is effectively their homepage with links to their videos, favourites and details of their activity. To view someone's 'channel' just click on their name below a video they have authored.

Many of the reasons why academics, researchers or clinicians might want to use YouTube are the same reasons we discussed when we were sharing presentations via Slideshare or Prezi. These include:

• For research purposes, to find videos of interest to their discipline.
• To share their work and obtain a larger audience, such as for public engagement or to invite comment from their peers, eg. posting videos of lectures.

Your Thing - Task 3. Have a browse on YouTube for videos that might be of interest to our user groups. There are some great library related YouTube videos which are also worth a look - here is one to get you started:

YouTube isn't the only video sharing site. Flickr and Google Video are other options you might like to try.

Task 4 - Flickr & Creative Commons

Using photos to pep up your presentations is another good way to make them come alive. Flickr http://www.flickr.com is undoubtedly the best known photo sharing website, containing over 5 billion images which you can view and download and can also be used for shaing videos. If you want to re-use images you find on Flickr you need to check the license as some images require you to request permission from the copyright owner or author of the photo. If you search using the Advanced Search you can restrict your search to items licensed under Creative Commons http://www.creativecommons.org.uk a licensing scheme designed for the sharing capabilities of social media, and can easily identify images that allow you to re-use or even re-work the images. Flickr includes a page that explains the different licences and in many cases you'll be able to re-use an image if you include an attribution to the author.

Flickr is not the only image sharing site available. You might also want to check out Picasa web albums (from Google) and Photobucket.

Your Thing - Task 4. Write a post on you blog about your experiences exploring Slideshare, Prezi, YouTube and Flickr. You might want to consider some of the following points:

• How easy are they to use?
• Do you think thay are a useful tool for the user groups we are considering?
• What might be the issues or concerns that people might have if making their presentations publicly available through these tools? Could plagiarism and the stealing of other people's work be an issue? Are there any copyright issues? (You might want to explore the support or help sections on the websites for more information about copyright).

Congratulations on completing Thing 4. We hope you enjoyed it. Thing 5 is all about Controlling the Web and will be posted on the 19th November.