Zotero 1.5 Beta has been released!

When I attended OneBigLibrary Unconference last summer, Trevor Owens gave a talk (un-talk?) on this version of Zotero and some of the new features and ideas that would be part of it (my post about it is here).  It has come to fruition, and it can change the way you do research (especially group research).  See the video for a great overview.

In addition,  Peter Murray (a.k.a. the Disruptive Library Technology Jester) has already set up a way to distribute your own Zotero citations via an RSS feed.  It is a great sign of success for a project like Zotero when people are creating mashups when your product is just a few days old.  Think of the ways that this could be used to promote library services, especially if your library software doesn’t do RSS.

There it is, on CNN.com:  Hard Economic Times a Boon for Libraries.  Recognize that, oftentimes, the writer of a news article is not the same person who writes the headline for the article.  However, it does seem as though the article is suggesting that libraries are doing wonderfully because of the economic downturn.

Libraries are doing well, so far, because our funding is not directly affected by economic factors; our funding will be affected indirectly, yes sir.  Are you funded by property taxes?  Endowments?  Tuition?  All of these will suffer, one way or another, and we will see cuts.

Our saving grace is that we can see it coming… I refer to a prior post:  A Look Back, A Look Ahead.