Zotero is the wonderful cross-platform web-based program for gathering and organizing references. And it's free! Well, that's not quite true as the "cost" of using Zotero is that you need to be using Firefox as your web browser in order for it to work. In my case this means I need to consciously switch from Safari to Firefox whenever I want to gather more bibliographic references into Zotero from my library's research databases, or Amazon, or other sources. If you have a dedicated bibliographic software program (such as Bookends or Endnote), Zotero can easily export information in a format that these other software programs can read.
Zotero has been around for almost two years, but relatively recently two things reminded me of this very powerful tool. First, Zotero has recently been upgraded to version 2. To find out how it works, and about its added features, check out the Zotero website.
Second, more and more organizations are using Zotero. (Well, why not? It's great!) Recently the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Library posted 4 short screencasts about how to use Zotero. It's worth checking out, especially as an introduction to the product. (Note: the Zotero site itself also provides some screencasts, but it's interesting to see how other organizations and libraries are embracing the goodness of Zotero.)
Once in awhile I get questions about how to create a bibliography (for a paper) directly from Zotero. I keep forgetting how to do this myself (as I don't use this feature often), so I thought it would be useful to provide a direct link to Zotero's website explaining how to create bibliographies without exporting to another program:
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