Zotero is a Firefox add in and a standalone download for Chrome and Safari that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free.
Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies.
NOTE: Zotero is hosted on a US server and does not comply with BC's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) which requires that the mandated use of systems located outside of Canada must be with prior written consent if the user has to provide personal information.
TIP: There is an existing file titled ‘Zotero Quick Start Guide’ that is in the ‘My Library’ folder. This file has is a detailed introduction to using Zotero.
If you don't see the Zotero “Z” icon in the Firefox toolbar, click the “Open menu” button in the Firefox toolbar (the icon with three horizontal lines) and click Customize. You should see the Zotero icon in either the customization page to the left or the menu panel to the right. Drag the icon where you want it. If you only open Zotero infrequently and would prefer not to take up room in your toolbar, you can keep the icon in the menu panel and use the “Open menu” button to access it.
Zotero saves references from most library databases, library catalogues (including TRU's) and even many web pages, with one click. If Zotero detects that you're looking at a book or article in a catalog, database, or a site like Amazon.com, you'll see a book or page icon appear in the address bar of your browser. Click the icon and Zotero will automatically save the citation.
If you're on a page of search results with many items, you'll see a folder icon instead. Click this to get a list of all the items on the page, and check off the ones you want to save.
Drag one or more PDFs from a dedicated folder on your desktop, shared space or USB driver into your Zotero library. Zotero can take PDFs of scholarly papers and query the Google Scholar database for matches. The most straight-forward way it does this is by matching up an embedded Digital Object Identifier (DOI), but that's far from necessary. If Zotero finds the PDF in Google Scholar, it creates a new library item for the paper, downloads the bibliographic metadata from and attaches the original PDF to the new item. Begin by dragging your existing PDFs into your Zotero library or use the “Store Copy of File” option from the add new item menu (green plus sign). Once they appear in the middle column, select the ones for which you wish to retrieve metadata. Right click on them and select “Retrieve Metadata for PDF”. If Zotero was able to find a match on Google Scholar, you should be all set. With this feature, there should be no major hurdles to switching to Zotero and taking full advantage of all its powerful search, indexing, organizational and citation features
Word processor plugins allow you to insert citations and bibliographies directly into your documents. Installing them is optional but highly recommended.
(If you're using Zotero Standalone, you don't need to install Word toolbars; they are included with Zotero Standalone.)
Note: If you have attached files in RefWorks, they will NOT be imported. Save the files to your desktop and save tehm into Mendeley using Add Files. Mendeley will use the metadata to attach them to the correct record.