Canadianization of Zotero

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The Canadianization of Zotero was a three month project, summer 2008, to extend the open-source citation management program, Zotero, with Canadian researchers in mind.

Zotero, produced by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, allows users to create, edit and export citation information directly from web pages. The Zotero team has created a series of mini-programs called ‘translators’ so that researchers can create complete citations from certain heavily trafficked academic sites such as JStor and PubMed with just a single mouse-click.

The sites and databases for which Zotero had this one-click option, tended to be American, university library catalogues, or focused on the sciences. With the input of more than a dozen Canadian historians from across the country, including some NiCHE members, Adam Crymble compiled a list of the websites used most often by Canadian history researchers. Using this list, he wrote Zotero translators for the websites. These translators have since been included in all standard releases of Zotero; anyone using the program can grab millions of citations, each with a single click. Gathering information about anything from journal articles to artifacts has been made easier.

The list of websites, databases and repositories that have become supported by this project are:

National Archives and Archival networks:

  • Archives Canada (archivescanada.ca)
  • BCAIN
  • Archives Network of Alberta
  • Saskatchewan AIN
  • Manitoba AIN
  • Archeion
  • Bibliotheque et Archives Nationales Quebec
  • PEI AIN

Databases and Repositories:

  • Artefacts Canada
  • Archives Canada-France
  • Canadiana.org
  • Champlain Society
  • Civilization.ca
  • Canadian Letters and Images Project
  • Glenbow Museum
  • AdvoCAT – Great Library Catalogue
  • CARL Harvester
  • Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Newspapers:

  • The Globe and Mail
  • The National Post
  • The Toronto Star
  • Le Devoir
  • The Hamilton Spectator
  • Winnipeg Free press
  • All newspapers hosted on Canada.com
  • All newspapers hosted on Cyberpresse.ca

University Libraries:

  • UBC Library
  • UQAM Library

* note: most Canadian university library systems were already supported by Zotero; now 90% of Canadian university libraries are supported.

There are now more Zotero translators dedicated to Canadian sites than any other country outside the US.
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Support for this project provided by NiCHE and the Center for History and New Media.

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