Screencast introduction to using Zotero

Zotero is a freely available citation management tool, however QUT does not offer user support.

In brief:  Zotero is an extension for the Firefox web-browser. It is an open source (free) tool that lets you capture information about the screen. It is designed to store, manage, and cite bibliographic references, such as books and articles.

Who can use it: Anyone.

Best suited for: Web-based information resources.

How to get it: Free download.

Zotero works within Firefox, so you need to have Firefox 3 or higher installed before you can use Zotero.  For the current version, if you want to be able to work on multiple computers, you will need to install and run both Firefox and Zotero on a flashdrive.

Word processor compatibility: Zotero's Word and OpenOffice plugins allow users to insert citations directly from their word processing software. Also works with Google Docs.

Collaboration: Zotero users can create collaborative or interest groups. Shared group libraries make it possible to collaboratively manage research sources and materials, both online and through the Zotero client. Zotero.org can be the hub of all your project group's research, communication and organization.

Support and training: The Zotero web site offers an extensive selection of screencasts explaining how to use the various features.

Learning curve: An intuitive interface and one-click capture of references make Zotero an easy tool to use, expecially for new users. 

Further information: http://www.zotero.org/

Strengths

• Free
• Lives in the Browser [Firefox] rather than installed on the hard drive
• Single click capture of references from web pages.
• Ability to store image files and archived web pages.
• Can easily share list with other users. 
• Can index PDF files and harvest metadata.
• Can share libraries of references via the Zotero server.
• Drag and Drop citations into your library from the web.
• Automatically updates itself to work with new online sources and bibliographic styles.
• Great for importing non-traditional references, e.g. wikis and websites. 
• Can add notes, highlight, and annotate web pages.
• Integrates with Microsoft Word, OpenOffice and NeoOffice.
• Intuitive user interface.

Weaknesses

• Have to remove duplicate references manually, there is no automated way.
• Only compatible with Firefox.
• Cannot use Zotero to search or download from non-web based subscription databases, [although batch download is available for some databases].
• Zotero is not pre-installed on QUT computers.
• Not formally supported at QUT.
• Limited bibliographic styles available.
• Can't annotate PDF documents.
  
• Requires more maintenance of import records than other programs, e.g. RefWorks or EndNote.
• No social tagging or 'recommended reading' functionality