Thank you to Hannah Rempel at the Oregon State University for allowing us to copy her excellent Zotero guide which she has generously shared under a CC-BY-NC licence. We will alter content based on our local needs, but appreciate the jumpstart that Hannah has provided.
This KPU Library guide is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International licence.
Welcome to this Zotero guide. Use this guide to learn how to use Zotero - a free, open source tool for creating bibliographies, storing, and managing your sources. This guide uses screenshots and text to walk you through how to use Zotero. The tabs on the left side of the page guide you through a variety of Zotero topics.
Zotero is a free tool that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use and lives in your web browser where you do your work. Zotero can be downloaded as a stand alone version that works with the Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge browsers. This tutorial uses images from an installation of Google Chrome, but other browser versions are very similar.
Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes, and images to your citations, organize them into easily searchable collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Word (for Mac or Windows), Google Docs or OpenOffice using any of over 10,000 citation styles.
References can be added to a Zotero library in many different ways: directly from databases, journal websites, Google Scholar, or a library's catalog, by reference file import (for example from an EndNote library), by dragging in PDFs from your hard drive, and by entering them manually.
Many people like to know the pros and cons between the various citation management software choices before they start using a particular tool. Here is a brief overview of the differences between two common tools: Zotero and Mendeley.
| Zotero | Mendeley | ||
| Cost | Free | Free | |
| Web based? | Yes | Yes, but not primarily | |
| Storage capacity | unlimited local storage; 300 MB free online storage | Unlimited local storage and data syncing; 1GB personal and 100MB shared online space (larger online storage plans available for purchase) | |
| Create group or shared libraries | Yes | Yes, free for up to 3 group members (larger group plans available for purchase) | |
| Number of Citation Styles | +10,000 styles | +10,000 styles |