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Group: CiteULike-discussion - Forum Thread

Topic: Feature requests

CiteULike and Zotero integration

Just wondering if people are actively working on integrating CiteULike with Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/) ?

I like Zotero a lot, but currently it has no way to store references on a central server. I also much prefer CiteULike over Connotea, so the option to scrape sites using Zotero and sync to a CiteULike database would be great.

Any developers working on this at the moment?

Posted by neils on 2007-11-14 01:17:49.

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I am also looking for such feature.

Perhaps this can be done by letting zotero read an online db instead of a local one. However I am not sure if zotero has such capability, nor do I know the format and db used by citeulike.

Posted by snakehsu on 2007-11-26 09:52:24.

I also support this request. Even limited integration (at least one way and possibly limited to just basic metadata, tags and pdfs) is going to be big help. Does anyone know if anything related to this is being done?

Related topics: http://www.citeulike.org/groupforum/336, http://www.citeulike.org/groupforum/126, http://www.citeulike.org/groupforum/451, http://www.citeulike.org/groupforum/92, http://www.citeulike.org/groupforum/110

Posted by paulclinger on 2008-07-07 06:09:10.

I'd also like to add my vote to this request ! That would be awesome.

Posted by lechristophe on 2008-07-07 10:07:00.

Also, Zotero has a very nice and growing set of bibliographic styles for formatting reference lists (for publication). It also has plug-ins for MS Word and OpenOffice Writer. For these reasons alone, it'd be terrific if Zotero could read directly from one's CiteULike collection. But I wonder if that work would have be done on the Zotero end.... Anyways, thanks.

Off-topic to neils, if you're still checking this thread: can you tell me why you like CiteULike better than Connotea? I'm curious, that's all. I use CiteULike exclusively, but tried Connotea a few years ago. Thanks.

Posted by emayorga on 2008-07-07 15:00:33.

I also think this would be very nice. My first thought is that the most useful way would be for CiteULike to import from Zotero rather than the other way round. Ah, but I guess emayorga's comment is a good argument for prioritising the reverse.

Posted by rickl on 2008-07-09 03:08:17.

I see that Zotero just released a preview version with (a) synchronisation to their own servers and (b) many more citation styles. So my original post here may not be relevant for much longer. It might make sense for the Zotero developers to build their own synchronisation framework, rather than try to integrate with multiple, existing solutions.

emayorga - I find Connotea slow, buggy, broken, ugly and more suited to general bookmarking than as a reference manager. CiteULike works better for me in all respects and has a larger, more responsive community.

Posted by neils on 2008-07-09 04:58:48.

neils: thanks for your comments on Connotea. The reason I stuck with CiteULike a while ago was precisely b/c it focuses on citations/publications rather than trying to be a general bookmarking tool. That's also a reason (not the only or main one) why I don't use Zotero as my local reference manager, because it tries to cover everything; I use JabRef instead. But JabRef has an awful/non-existent set of citation styles, no plug-in into Word or Open Office, and a fairly low-traffic user community.

I just saw the Zotero preview, too. Version 1.5 will import EndNote styles! I also saw that they're building a synchronization to their servers and possibly other tools. This is all going in the right direction. Between JabRef, Zotero and CiteULike, that's all I'd ever need. Though I'd be a bit more at ease if CiteULike was open source...

Anyways, I'm rambling.

Posted by emayorga on 2008-07-10 23:13:42.

[rant] Having just played with zotero I have to say I can only see citeulike being dead pretty soon. Its a shame citeulike haven't been able to work more closely with the zotero team as this article suggests. It now seems like zotero will have their own online central server so the goal posts will soon move one shift closer to zotero having the upper hand.

Granted - citeulike's biggest advantage is that no plugins (or even firefox) is required but heck.. the power you get from a very hackable and open system far outweighs the web-only advantage. Why am I writing this? Well I'm just a little frustrated that's all. A large number of folk have been asking for citeulike to have more desktop integration for ages - its the missing link... yet nobody from citeulike seems to recognise this - or at least tell us they have recognised this. The chances for citeulike to work together on other open source projects like bibdesk, jabref seem numerous - and they were way ahead of the game.. its just the progress seems to have been so slow that others will quickly take over.


Andrew Berman's SyncUThink is one part of the jigsaw to 'the missing link'. Why though aren't citeulike doing this. And if you are - tell us.. so we don't have to jump ship. I personally love citeulike - heck I have lectured on its usage twice this year already.. but crikey am I getting a little tired of people saying "why aren't you using zotero" or "how do I get my citations in word easily?". [/rant]

Posted by willwade on 2008-08-04 10:09:49.

Thanks for your rant. We know you like CiteULike, so your comments are welcome.


We do recognise that 'desktop integration' is something that we need to add to CiteULike, and we're currently exploring the best way to get this done. 'Desktop Integration' is a big lump of stuff. If you think there's a way of breaking that down into bite-size development chunks, and then prioritizing them, please let us know.


If anyone wants to write plugins or extensions for Zotero (or anything else) to make operating with CiteULike easier, then we'll do all we can to support that work (adding functionality to CiteULike if necessary - we did this, quickly, to help Andrew Berman recently).

Posted by cjhall on 2008-08-05 15:14:28.

Thanks for your Reply. It's appreciated.

I don't have the time right now to do any plugin creation for Zotero - although have spent 20 minutes looking at the developer docs. My thoughts go something like this if anyone stumbles across this thread with the willing or inclinination:

  • Zotero needs a "sync with citeulike" option - much like SyncUThink.
  • Zotero uses a pretty straightforward SQLite database for its backend - you can access the database of refs and do queries on data pretty easily this way.
  • Some stumbling blocks of user design would need to be overcome - how do you login to citeulike.. where do you enter your credentials etc..
  • It would be nice to download the papers too :) (One of Zoteros features is that it can do a full-text index of the PDF's as well as citations). This feature would in effect make CiteULike a offline system. Much like if it was a Google Gears system..

I have often wondered about getting citeulike support built into jabref or the really good one on the mac (name escapes me now) but Zotero makes most sense because its far closer to citeulikes aims and 'looks' far easier to develop with. Its interesting too that Zotero have already got some plugins for OpenOffice/Word integration..

Posted by willwade on 2008-08-06 11:22:52.

CiteULike organises scholarly (or academic) papers or literature and provides bibliographic (which means it makes bibliographies) for universities and higher education establishments. It helps undergraduates and postgraduates. People studying for PhDs or in postdoctoral (postdoc) positions. The service is similar in scope to EndNote or RefWorks or any other reference manager like BibTeX, but it is a social bookmarking service for scientists and humanities researchers.