A Brief Guide to Using Zotero

Visual learner? Watch these!

1. Saving & Organizing References See full size

2. Citing your Sources See full size

Zotero is an extension to the popular web browser Firefox that allows you to easily collect, manage and save bibliographic information about the items you find on the Web.

Installing Zotero

Before you download Zotero, it is a good idea to make sure you have the latest version of Firefox. You can download this from the Mozilla website. Once you have the latest Firefox installed, you can download Zotero from the Zotero website.

Once Zotero is installed, you will see the word "Zotero" in the bottom right-hand corner of your Firefox window. Click on this to open the Zotero window.

Using Zotero: The Basics

Adding Items

When you visit a page that Zotero recognizes as a bibliographic item, such as an item in a library database or catalog, a lined page icon will appear at the right-hand end of your browser's address bar.

When you click on the page icon, information about the item will be automatically entered into your Zotero library.

If the page or other resource you want to save does not register with Zotero as a bibliographic source, you can add page manually using the "new item" button (the green circle with a plus sign), and choose the type of resource that you want to add. Note that this menu allows you to add non-web-based resources such as printed books, letters, and documents.

Once you have selected the appropriate document type, details about the document may be filled in the right-hand panel.

Taking Snapshots

Sometimes you may want to capture a web page as it is right now, for instance a news site on the day of an important event. This may be accomplished by using Zotero's camera button. This saves an image of the page into your Zotero library. Be aware that some page elements, such as flash animations, may not be saved.

Creating Bibliographies

Once you have items of interest saved in Zotero, you can create a bibliography from your items by simply selecting the items you want to include and then dragging them from Zotero into a word processor document.

To select the format of your references, click on the gear icon and select "preferences." You will see the following dialog box, which will allow you to select the format that you want:

Notice that you can also choose to copy your references as HTML for use on a web page.

Using Zotero on Multiple Computers

Because Zotero lives within your browser software, you can only access your Zotero library from the computer on which it is installed.

If you want to be able to access your library from a computer other than the one on which you created your library, you will need to export your library and save it to a place you can get to from another computer. You can save the file to a flash drive, e-mail it to yourself, or save it to your Novell account (G drive) (PDF document). To export your Zotero library, click on the gear icon and select 'export library.'

Leave the format selection on MODS, check the "export notes" box if you have notes included in your library, and click OK.

Select a place to save your library. A file called "My Library.xml" will be created at the location you specify.

Once you have exported your library and saved it, you can import it into Zotero when you are on another computer.

It would be a good idea to always export your library whenever you make changes to it, so that you can then download it later if you happen to be on another computer.

To import a Zotero library to a new computer, first make sure that Zotero is installed. Then click on the gear icon and select "import."

Select the library that you want to import and click OK. This will import your library into the Zotero program on the new computer.

Getting Help

Zotero does far more than is described in this brief summary. Abundant documentation is available at the Zotero web site. This includes a number of screencast tutorials and information on how to:

  • organize your Zotero library using folders and tags
  • integrate Zotero with your word processing software
  • search within your library
  • add notes and attachments to your references
  • create reports from your library