My Zotero library

I've just added a Zotero widget to my sidebar using Yahoo! Pipes, pretty closely following the procedure that Mark Sample outlines -- and justifies -- with such clarity:

Looked at prosaically, public Zotero libraries may be the equivalent of a give-a-penny, take-a-penny bowl at a local store. This convenience alone would be useful, but the creators of Zotero are much more inspired than that. They know that sharing a library is crowdsourcing a library. The more people who know what we’re researching before we’re done with the research, the better. Better for the researchers, better for the research. Collaboration begins at the source, literally.

I wouldn't quite say I've drunk the crowdsourcing Kool-Aid yet, but I agree with Sample's subtext, that cultural shifts are needed to make the humanities more collaboration-friendly, and opening up your Zotero library is one step in that direction.

Happily, the Zotero widget gave me a lot less trouble than the Twitter search widget on my course blog, something I may whine about in the future, because the Twitter widget still doesn't really work properly, and the documentation is officially "unofficial." Argh.

Okay, well, actually, it seems like I just got that whining done.

Next project!

[Update: the little Dapper whozit that I'm using seems to like to screw up and display a lengthy error message every once in a while. It's a passing thing, apparently. You get what you pay for and all that.]