Integration w/ Irex Iliad? or othe e-readers?

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I just wanted to float the idea to brainstorm potential ways that Zotero might integrate with the Irex Iliad or other ereader that allows for software development? Many of us in the research fields are interested in e-readers; just having Zotero run on one would be an incredible way to integrate things... but, there must be more creative ideas?!

http://www.irextechnologies.com/ is the website for the e-reader; a discussion on research exists on the www.mobileread.com forums.
  • bdarcus
    I don't know; this looks to me like a rather typical closed platform. I have a feeling the best you could hope for some kind of export functionality that would allow you to export notes. But from reading the website (which is all marketing fluff; nothing for developers), it's hard to say if even that will be possible.

    But in any case, my point (am not a Zotero dev, so this is just a personal opinion) is that when thinking about how to use Zotero in X context, you need to think more of software services that tie into Zotero, rather than, for example, running Zotero itself on these devices.
  • synoptic
    I was wondering about Iliad integration myself and found this post in a search. Although I don't own an eReader (yet!) I have to agree that some kind of integration would be absolutely magnificent, a real killer-app-type-scenario :)

    The Iliad uses a Linux kernel for it's OS and has a really good user base that are active in developing extra functionality and applications for it.

    Check out the forums at http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=99

    I was wondering about how integration might be accomplished usefully and my initial thoughts were to have an eReader subcollection that could be synchronised with the external device. The Iliad is really interesting as you can annotate the documents you look at (with some proviso's about merging the annotations and original PDF in a seperate utility). Perhaps it might be possible to export a reading list of PDF's to the Iliad and then reimport them into the Zotero database after annotations had been made (perhaps creating copies to optionally keep the original PDF untouched).

    It seems that some other referencing software is being explored by the Iliad developer community (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27906) so I don't think it is implausible that there could be interest in some kind of plugin... I do speak as a non-developer though so I am afraid I wouldn't even know where to start!!!

    Zotero's very open attitude to development seems to be mirrored by iRex's enthusiasm for community participation... perhaps we just need to start a discussion about these things and get the right people talking to one another. I live in hope!

    Cheers.
  • migugg
    Without pressing this point, I would just like the developpers to keep her eyes open in the direction of e-readers. My dream scenario would be that I can write indeed zotero notes on an ereader, not just annotate documents.
    Since with my offline reading, I often have the problem that I read some paper-article in a train, make annotations, and then have the annoying task to rewrite these annotations into zotero notes at home. If one could do reading and note-taking on an ereader that would be perfect.
    Even though the new barnes and Noble nook seems not to allow for third party applications, they talk of this becoming a future possibility. txtr is linux and it is open source (but unfortunately has no way of input).If only txtr would produce a reader with the possibility of input.
    I also think that the ereader producers may not be aware that this scholarly uses could be a huge market for them, since they concentrate on novels. To have a zotero integration would immediately open a huge market for them.
  • anatolica
    edited October 21, 2009
    I find any possible integration of mobile readers with zotero fascinating, and I agree that these devices have a main appeal in the academic community.

    For iLiad (and other readers, it is said) per se, I know that there exists an extension to export files from Zotero to iLiad, fyi:

    ZoteroExport: https://zoteroexport.mozdev.org/

    also see the related mobileread forum post by the extension developer nagyv:
    http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23492

    I haven't tried it with the device, as I don't have one, but I think this is a good start for a possible future integration of Zotero and eReaders.
  • JonEP
    Plastic Logic's Cue e-reader is designed with PDFs in mind, and they emphasize a digital workflow that involves markup and annotation. It would be fantastic if there were easy coordination and flow from reading and markup on the e-reader to a pdf viewer with annotation, tagging, and analysis / filtering features (find all notes with the tags "woody plants" and "pesticides" but not "spruce"), and then to a reference manager. Ideally, this would involve a tag tree structure that is preserved across all three parts of the system, and would allow tagging of individual portions of text (not just whole documents).
  • migugg
    for those interested, the upcoming entourage edge combines a netbook and an e-reader. It runs android and if firefox could be made to run on android, then one could run zotero on it and have a perfect integration of zotero and e-book. One could possibly even use zotero to organise and search the books.
    http://www.entourageedge.com/entourage-edge.html

    see also the very end of the faq:
    http://www.entourageedge.com/faqs
  • emulder
    looks cool, also the bigger screen means you can probably view a full journal article pdf without having to zoom...con - harder to hold up than a nook.
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