Why You Should Use Zotero To Track Your Reading

Why You Should Use Zotero To Track Your Reading Ive been using Zotero, a free, open-source application, to track my reading for several years now. Originally designed for scholars, Zotero has a number of features that make it ideal for readers who want to track a bit more about their books and reading habits than sites like Goodreads or Litsy allow. Of course, I have accounts on Litsy  and  Goodreads  and I still  use  Zotero. I just use them for really different things (its also possible that Im a little too  uptight  about tracking my reading).  If reading Emmas post that outlined 8 Reasons to Catalog Your Books got you itching to start tagging and cataloging, Id strongly suggest Zotero. Zotero is good for detail and organization beyond author and title. Its not as pretty as Litsy and its not as social as Goodreads (although Zotero has some collaborative features) but its unbeatable  at what it does: creating a personalized, extremely searchable database of books and reviews. Zotero has  four features that make it ideal for power readers. First, its incredibly easy to get books into your custom library. You can add them directly from you browser whenever youre on a page with a book or article (local library websites, Amazon, etc). Just click the little book-shaped icon to the right of your menu bar. Zotero will automatically import the title information into your Zotero library.It will even drop the books description into the abstract field. Although this info is added automatically, if you notice an error you can always over-write what Zotero found. This doesnt happen too often, but its nice that youre the one who is fully in control of the books information. Second, and possibly my favorite feature, you can link different books together using the related field. Power readers know the feeling youre reading a book and its the perfect read-alike for something else, or maybe it explicitly references another novel. This is the place to keep track of those connections so you dont forget them. I have yet to find a way in Goodreads or on Litsy to capture that in a way thats as easy and intuitive as Zoteros related tab. I also use this feature to save reviews and essays that mention a book and keep them linked  to the books entry. Third, shared libraries are  built in! If youre in a book club and want to set up a place just for you all to talk books, create a group library. These group libraries work just like private ones youll still be able to make notes, tag, and update book information. Ive used this to group books my book club is considering reading and books weve already read. We also made a folder  for books that we all really, really loved. This has made things so much easier than trying to remember from one month to the next what weve wanted to read. We just look at the list weve built in Zotero. Fourth,  really strong searching! I know that I struggle with keeping titles and authors in my head. One of my great frustrations with Goodreads and Litsy is that they are title/author-driven databases. Thats fine, but sometimes I want to search for something how I remember it. If you put enough time into tagging your entries and posting your reviews using  the notes field, you can search with just about any keyword. Theres also advanced searching that allows you to look just for books you added to your library on a certain date, only things in a specific series, etc. Its easy to get started with Zotero. Just  install either the stand-alone application or the Firefox browser extension. The more time you spend building your library, the more robust Zotero becomes. For a while, itll feel like youre doing a bunch of data entry to get the related-texts feature up and running. I promise, if you stick with it, youll have a really useful, really searchable database of your books. Lots of helpful how-to guides are  available online and the Zotero community forums contain many  helpful, generous users. Theyve also put up some  useful how-to videos over at Vimeo. (By the way, Im not in any way affiliated with Zotero. I just use and genuinely love the product.) Why You Should Use Zotero To Track Your Reading While we at the Riot take some time off to rest and catch up on our  reading, were re-running some of our  favorite posts from the last several months. Enjoy our highlight reel, and well be back with new stuff on Tuesday, January 3rd. This post originally ran September 19, 2016. Ive been using Zotero, a free, open-source application, to track my reading for several years now. Originally designed for scholars, Zotero has a number of features that make it ideal for readers who want to track a bit more about their books and reading habits than sites like Goodreads or Litsy allow. Of course, I have accounts on Litsy  and  Goodreads  and I still  use  Zotero. I just use them for really different things (its also possible that Im a little too  uptight  about tracking my reading).  If reading Emmas post that outlined 8 Reasons to Catalog Your Books got you itching to start tagging and cataloging, Id strongly suggest Zotero. Zotero is good for detail and organization beyond author and title. Its not as pretty as Litsy and its not as social as Goodreads (although Zotero has some collaborative features) but its unbeatable  at what it does: creating a personalized, extremely searchable database of books and reviews. Zotero has  four features that make it ideal for power readers. First, its incredibly easy to get books into your custom library. You can add them directly from you browser whenever youre on a page with a book or article (local library websites, Amazon, etc). Just click the little book-shaped icon to the right of your menu bar. Zotero will automatically import the title information into your Zotero library.It will even drop the books description into the abstract field. Although this info is added automatically, if you notice an error you can always over-write what Zotero found. This doesnt happen too often, but its nice that youre the one who is fully in control of the books information. Second, and possibly my favorite feature, you can link different books together using the related field. Power readers know the feeling youre reading a book and its the perfect read-alike for something else, or maybe it explicitly references another novel. This is the place to keep track of those connections so you dont forget them. I have yet to find a way in Goodreads or on Litsy to capture that in a way thats as easy and intuitive as Zoteros related tab. I also use this feature to save reviews and essays that mention a book and keep them linked  to the books entry. Third, shared libraries are  built in! If youre in a book club and want to set up a place just for you all to talk books, create a group library. These group libraries work just like private ones youll still be able to make notes, tag, and update book information. Ive used this to group books my book club is considering reading and books weve already read. We also made a folder  for books that we all really, really loved. This has made things so much easier than trying to remember from one month to the next what weve wanted to read. We just look at the list weve built in Zotero. Fourth,  really strong searching! I know that I struggle with keeping titles and authors in my head. One of my great frustrations with Goodreads and Litsy is that they are title/author-driven databases. Thats fine, but sometimes I want to search for something how I remember it. If you put enough time into tagging your entries and posting your reviews using  the notes field, you can search with just about any keyword. Theres also advanced searching that allows you to look just for books you added to your library on a certain date, only things in a specific series, etc. Its easy to get started with Zotero. Just  install either the stand-alone application or the Firefox browser extension. The more time you spend building your library, the more robust Zotero becomes. For a while, itll feel like youre doing a bunch of data entry to get the related-texts feature up and running. I promise, if you stick with it, youll have a really useful, really searchable database of your books. Lots of helpful how-to guides are  available online and the Zotero community forums contain many  helpful, generous users. Theyve also put up some  useful how-to videos over at Vimeo. (By the way, Im not in any way affiliated with Zotero. I just use and genuinely love the product.)