Have awesome Zotero group library, but may have to switch to EndNote. Help.

ra

I'm working with a research team with several Zotero users + a couple EndNote users where:
- I can't make the EndNote users switch to Zotero
- I can make the Zotero users switch to EndNote
- I really don't want to make Zotero users switch to EndNote

But the team would of course like everyone to be able to work together, like say in a Zotero private group (or EndNote group...I guess...) where everyone can add articles and notes that all the members can see.

Right now the team is leaning toward switching the existing Zotero group to an EndNote group. Please help me avert this corruption of all that is true and beautiful.

bwiernik

I’ll share some of my experience when I made a similar move with my group 6 years ago.

Endnote groups are really difficult to use and don’t intersect well with personal Endnote libraries. It’s very difficult for example to move an item from an Endnote group to a personal library (or vice verse), which is the major reason why I picked Zotero six years ago for my research teams. That move involved converting a 20-year Endnote user. In the end, she is much happier with how much easier it is to add items to a Zotero library compared to Endnote. Zotero’s magic Save button is leaps and bounds better than any of Endnote’s tools to get items into the library. The better group tools, faster import, and free price make us very happy with the switch.

It’s also very easy to move all of your Endnote libraries to Zotero in one go.

If you can’t convert the Endnote users, I would say it would honestly be easier for your group to work with Zotero and have the Endnote users email items to the other group members or use a Dropbox folder. The Zotero users could handle inserting citations into documents, etc.

ra

Thanks for the reply; I'm sorry I didn't see it before.

I think, yeah, some version of your second option is what we'll try for. The EndNote users seem to rely on admin support with reference management now anyway, while Zotero users manage their own material and share with others directly.

Could be we just need to establish a predictable, relatively efficient workflow between the main Zotero group and EndNote users.