I’ve been using Zotero (mainly because it was free – but also because of the integration with MS Word).  So far so good, it was fairly easy to install (plugins) with both Firefox and word.  However, I have Word 2008 on my mac, and

Word for Mac 2008 lacks support for Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), making it impossible to create a toolbar. (VBA support has been restored in Word for Mac 2011, and the Zotero plugin for Word 2011 includes a toolbar in addition to an AppleScript menu folder. )  So as a result, the Zotero word processor plugin for Word for Mac 2008 doesn’t offer a toolbar, instead adding a “Zotero” entry to the AppleScript menu (the manuscript icon to the right of the Help menu):

This makes the integration with Word a little less than advertised, but is still much easier than typing out citations, and makes organizing and correctly formatting bibliographies in various styles a snap.  This alone makes up for any “inconveniences” with my older version of Word and the Zotero plugin.

With all this said, it’s disappointing that I’m just now learning about these services (they would of come in super handy in previous classes and research papers).  I guess you’re never to old to learn!

Aside from that, the interface is familiar (even though I’ve never used it before) and learning it is simple.  At this point, until I’m proved otherwise, I don’t see the need to try out any of the other applications (RefWorks, EndNote or Mendeley).  If I run into some serious limitations, I’ll explore those options, however for the time being, Zetero is working well for me. Some of the features in Mendeley are appealing to me (mobile applications) but with services like Pocket, not having a mobile version isn’t a deal breaker or necessity.