Mendeley or Zotero: Which Should the Mobile Researcher Use?

Today’s bibliographic managers provide cloud storage so that papers can be attached to citations and syncing services, in order for papers and citations to be available in multiple mediums. Mendeley and Zotero are two services that offer online storage of papers and citations, desktop applications, and tablet integration. Mendeley has an iPad application and an open API so that developers can create apps for Android tablets. Zotero is an open-source project that encourages developers to create both iPad and Android apps. Both suites can be integrated with word processing software for accurate in-text and bibliographic entries, provide full-text indexing of PDF documents, and can attach notes to citations. Choosing between them depends upon what features a mobile researcher would need and use.