Maybe I’ve been shoe-gazing or was just late to the rally. It took me a while to notice the calls to boycott Endnote specifically and Thomson Reuters products more generally, but now I’m hearing them loud and clear. In varying tones of disgust and disappointment they are here here here & here.
The good news on the subject is that Dan Cohen, one of the fellows behind Zotero, still has the time to attend conferences in spite of a lawsuit nipping at his heels. If James Grimmelmann is correct, then perhaps Cohen and his fellows at the Center for New Media and History won’t have much to worry about. However, according to Michael Feldstein the lawsuit might have some merit. The crucial issue revolves around Endnote’s styles and the way they can be imported by Zotero. At this point I get lost on the details, not really understanding the ins and outs of programing code, etc. Something that did grab my attention was an update on DLTJ. The Thomson Reuters quote is in the first paragraph, followed by the DLTJ comment:
Following that link to Endnote export styles [link] you end up on a page containing the following words: “EndNote output styles are provided solely for use by licensed owners of EndNote and with the EndNote product.”
What’s interesting is the fact that this sentence was recently (within the last 8 months) added to the site. The January 13th snapshot of that page in the Wayback Machine doesn’t have that sentence. I wonder when it was added. In both cases (the current page and the Wayback Machine snapshot), the note at the bottom says “This page was last modified on: November 4, 2005″ — I would disagree.
Ooh, I like a good conspiracy. I don’t like playing dirty though. Either way, this is just one tiny detail. The bigger issue is what is at stake in terms of the kind of scholarship academics are able to pursue online and the methods that are available to them in this pursuit.
Or as Catriona at Circulating Library writes,
“And in the case of EndNote as opposed to Zotero, it’s dangerous to allow a commercially driven company to determine not only what type of bibliographical tool suits academics but also whether or not those tools should be used to foster collegiality.”
That sums it up nicely.
Michael has made a follow-up post in which he is far less charitable to TR. Also note DLTJ’s follow-up post with the new click-through contract that TR is imposing.