Zotero http://www.zotero.org/ is an extension to FireFox which makes it easy to build up collections of references to material on the web. It can be used in conjunction with VUE (VisualUnderstandingEnvironment) to build a MindMap of the collection as well.

Produced by the Center for History and New Media (http://chnm.gmu.edu/), George Mason University (http://www.gmu.edu/).

* If a PDF file is put into ZoTero it will import the metadata, if there is any stored in Google Scholar. Sometimes there isn't any, and sometimes it finds data on the wrong file.
* As a default, all the information is stored in a database within the FireFox installation. It can be synchronised between computers, and shared with other workers.
* ZoTero integrates with some web sites which have a bibliographic button which makes it very easy to make a collection of references to books.
* ZoTero has an addon for MicrosoftWord which makes it easy to generate references from the database in ZoTero.
** It would be nice to have good integration with OneNote as well but it isn't there.

I had never seen it before, but it is such a good tool I expect to use it all the time while searching for information on the web.

-- JohnFletcher
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Donald, have you seen the pages I have started for ZoTero and VisualUnderstandingEnvironment (VUE)? I am very excited at what I can achieve with these tools, at also that VUE has the capability of handling ontology information and using it to build a mindmap from a web page. ZoTero seems to be used by a wide range of different communities. I would be interested to know what you think. -- JohnFletcher

''I have noticed it and have downloaded it (VUE), but have not yet taken a look at it. I believe it might prove to be one of the items I would include in what I term above as "The''''''Cloud", which includes all of the artifacts which make information Internet''''''Reachable or useful via Installed''''''Programs or devices. This mainly includes things such as the Internet''''''Browser and Html''''''Pages, Social''''''Devices such as FaceBook and the like, Google''''''Tools and Online''''''Search engines, etc.''

''I'll take a look at it this weekend and let you know what I think here, or on your HomePage. Thanks for drawing my attention to it. I believe I took notice of it because of some information you included on the page you mentioned above. Again, thanks.''

I should acknowledge that I found it in the U.K. magazine LINUX Format, LXF129. I am very interested to find tools which make practical use of the ideas of the SemanticWeb. -- John

''Since I use InternetExplorer and Windows, and since ZoTero is a plug-in for FireFox, I couldn't do justice in a short weekend to the capabilities the pair of programs present. I will continue looking at them in the next couple of weeks.'' -- drn
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Demo Video from YouTube
* http://www.youtube.com/v/hLi3ZhUQDhs&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1
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CategorySoftwareTool