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7-1-2012 Technology in Practice. Tools for Optimal Flow: Technology-Enabled Research Workflows

Meredith G. Farkas Portland State University, [email protected]

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Citation Details Farkas, M. (2012). Technology In Practice. Tools for Optimal Flow: Technology-enabled research workflows. American Libraries, 43(7/8), 23.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Library Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. In Practice I TECHNOLOGY Tools for Optimal Flow

Technology-enabled research workflows by Meredith Farkas

t's amazing how quickly personal computers, the portability didn't see anywhere else. Unlike things change in the world of tablets makes the experience databases that ñnd things based on of technology. When I wrote similar to that of relevance, I can I a book in 2005, I printed working with . While there are see in Mendeley out all my research sources so I paper. many great how many other could highlight and take notes Using and annotation tools scholars have add- on them. I kept track of things I Mendeley, I haven't ed the work to found on the web using a social had to create a cita- for personal their own library, bookmarking tool that only helped tion from scratch computers, the portability which is a tacit me find the resource later, not in years. Zotero is a of tablets makes the recommendation. cite it in my manuscript. I cited free and open Can't choose everything manually, with the ' source citation experience similar to that between Mendeley source in one hand and an MLA management tool of working with paper. and Zotero? You guide in the other. Yes, citation that allows re- don't have to. I tools like EndNote and RefWorks searchers to easily grab citation in- have Mendeley set up to pull any ci- existed, but they didn't make it formation at the click of a button tations I add to my Zotero library, easy to import resources from from any website that provides the which means I can capitalize on the library databases or the web, information in a structured format power of Zotero to pull content from and they certainly weren't free. (think research databases and Ama- the web and still use the Mendeley When I moved across the country zon, for example). Mendeley is a ci- interface, which I prefer. last year, I got rid of my research tation management and social from that book, tossing out an en- networking tool whose strength lies Organization is key tire large nie drawer's worth of pa- in grabbing from folders on Everyone has a different research per. Ouch! I could do that with a your desktop and puzzling out the workflow, and fortunately, many clean conscience because in the en- citation by searching the PDF text amazing tools are now available to suing years, many fantastic tools and various databases. Mendeley enable the diversity of approaches. have been released that make the has a great PDF annotation tool From Evernote to Diigo to Instapa- work of collecting and using re- within its interface, which allows per, many free or inexpensive tools search so much simpler than I could you to keep your citations, docu- now allow you to manage, annotate, have imagined in 2005. ments, and notes in one place. and use sources in ways that ñt your Both tools offer needs. Because keeping organized is Annotating without agony and OpenOfñce plug-ins, which so critical to the success of any re- Tablets have made the experience of make it easy to insert citations in search project, taking the time to annotating research online far more your chosen format directly into ñnd the tools and techniques that pleasant. These days, instead of your paper. work for you may save a lot of time printing out my research, I corral all Mendeley has also proven to be a in the long run. I of it into a folder in Dropbox, a great discovery tool, allowing users cloud storage service, and then up- to search its crowdsourced database MEREDITH FARKAS is head of/nstructional services at Portland (Ore.) State University and load it into iAnnotate on my iPad, of hundreds of millions of resources part-time faculty at San José State University where I highlight and take notes di- that its users have collected. I've School of Library and Information Science. She blogs at Information Wants to Be Free and rectly on the PDF. While there are now added Mendeley to my search created Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. many great annotation tools for routine and always ñnd things I Contact her at [email protected].

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