INTRODUCTION TO ZOTERO: A FREE, OPEN-SOURCE TOOL TO MANAGE AND SHARE CITATIONS AND DOCUMENTS

Presented by Janet CrumRAD, February 17, 2016

WHAT WE’LL COVER

• What is Zotero? And why should you care?• Introduction to Zotero and demo of most commonly-used features• Summary of selected other features• Q&A

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ZOTERO: WHAT AND WHY

• What: Free, open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and associated materials, e.g. PDFs (thank you, Wikipedia)• Why Zotero?

– Free and open source– Non-commercial – produced by the Center for History and New

Media, George Mason University– Because it’s free, anyone can get it – great for collaboration– Full-featured – supports many document formats and citation

styles, lots of other helpful features– Mature product; has been around since 2006

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OK, I’M SOLD. HOW DO I GET IT?

• Firefox extension– Usually works with most current version of Firefox– May be incompatible with certain older versions

• Standalone client– For Windows, Mac, Linux– Browser connectors for Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox

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ZOTERO.ORG

• Installers• Documentation• Shared storage• Groups

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SAVING CITATIONS

• Import from search results via browser plugin and web translator– Many library databases– Library catalogs– Worldcat.org– Amazon– Google Scholar– Publisher sites– And more

• Capture web pages

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IMPORTING CITATIONS FROM SEARCH RESULTS

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• When viewing search results, click the folder icon in upper right to choose citations to import.

• Check the ones you want to import and click OK.

IMPORTING CITATIONS FROM SEARCH RESULTS – GOOGLE SCHOLAR

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Process is the same for Google Scholar.

IMPORT A SINGLE CITATION

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When viewing a single citation, click paper icon in upper right to save it.

SAVE A WEB PAGE

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While viewing any web page, click the paper icon in the upper right to save it. Zotero will save the title and link, as well as a snapshot of the page.

ORGANIZING CITATIONS

• Collections and sub-collections• Tags – automatic and user-assigned• Related citations• Searching• Identifying duplicates

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WRITING PAPERS

• Plugins for Word and LibreOffice/OpenOffice/NeoOffice– Similar to Write-N-Cite for RefWorks– See screencast at https://youtu.be/RuRF8zxkxIo for demo

• Many, many output styles– Basic installation includes several popular styles (APA, MLA, etc.)– Over 6750 additional ones in the Zotero Style Repository

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COLLABORATING WITH ZOTERO

• Groups• Zotero.org and shared libraries

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MORE WAYS TO GET CITATIONS INTO ZOTERO

• Import files of citations – e.g. from another program like RefWorks• Add a citation manually• Add via identifier – ISBN, DOI, PubMed ID• Drag and drop PDF – and import metadata (if available)

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A HIGHLY SELECTIVE GUIDE TO ZOTERO PREFERENCES

• Connect to your zotero.org account (Sync)– Sync your personal library– Sync group libraries

• Citation styles (Cite -> Styles)– View styles currently installed– Add more styles

• Automatically recognize proxy (Proxies)• Add library link resolver (Advanced -> General)• Change location of data directory (Advanced -> Files and Folders)• Keyboard shortcuts (Advanced -> Shortcuts)

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Click the gear icon, then click Preferences

TIPS

• Check imported metadata – it can be messy• Move your data directory• Extremely large databases can make Zotero run slowly.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Zotero documentation, Getting Started • Georgia State LibGuide by Jason Puckett (who wrote a book on Zotero)• Series of video lessons from Muntz Library, University of Texas at Tyler• Importing from RefWorks to Zotero (video) – Ohio University Libraries• Mastering Zotero: A User Guide for the Zotero Reference Manager (free e-book on GitHub; simple, clear introduction with screenshots from the Mac version of Zotero)

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FRITZ SAYS… ANY QUESTIONS?