Recently I've been trying to make better use of Zotero in my research at home. What I've discovered is that I really do appreciate the tool.
Currently I'm using it to organize the children's literature books that I've read, as well as some that I stumble across in my reading that I would like to read. It's easy to add links either into the Summit Catalog or to Worldcat.org, both of which are useful places to link to. It's also easy for me to keep copies of web pages, or download and attach .pdf articles to abstracts & citations I find through our local databases.
The best aspect about it, is simply knowing that if I add all of my information there it's easy to find. I have a paper folder that I'm keeping print copies of articles in, but I'm trying to be faithful about adding those electronic copies into Zotero - because then I know anything I've looked at - I won't lose it, it's going to be there waiting for me to pull it up again.
As I'm trying to do a wide variety of reading in this topic - I'm currently looking at everything from the history of Children's librarianship, to the history of children's print, to actual reviews, criticism, and analysis of children's books specifically - it's really useful to have it all in one place, where I can include notes.
This month's plan is to read Children's Books in England, since I think I'm most interested in criticism of British authors of children's books, in general, and specifically those writing fantasy, i.e. E. Nesbit, George MacDonald, and of course C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling, to name a few more modern examples. Fairy stories, if you will.
At any rate, I think I can learn more about making Zotero work for me, but I'm well on my way to making it a very real part of my research process.
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