Zotero 101: Organize Your Research  

1. Create and manage citations of books, articles, videos, etc.

2. Import citations from databases and AU Catalog.

3. Attach searchable files (e.g. PDFs), notes, link, images and tags to citations

4. Quickly create a bibliography in multiple formats (MLA, Chicago, APA...)

5. Automatically manage in-text citations in Microsoft Word or Open Office

6. Annotate and organize research results into Collections

7. Share collections through Group Libraries

Zotero 3.0 which was released in beta version in August 2011 allows you to download and install a version of Zotero that runs fully independently of the Firefox browser. http://www.zotero.org/blog/announcing-zotero-3-0-beta-release/

Zotero.org

Zotero runs in your Firefox web browser, which must be open in order for you to access your research collection. Only features such as notes, search, and organization will work offline.

To install the Zotero Firefox extension, visit zotero.org with Firefox and click the red download button.

o   Click the “Allow” button if a yellow band appears at the top of the web page with “Firefox prevented this site from asking you to install software on your computer.”

o   Then click the “Install Now” button in the Software Installation pop up window (the button may be greyed out for a few seconds while Firefox downloads Zotero), and restart Firefox after the installation has completed. You should now see the Zotero logo  in the status bar in the right bottom corner of your Firefox browser window.

o   Sign up for an account and validate your email address

Registering a user account allows you to sync your library, participate in groups, or post to the support forums.

In the upper right hand corner, click: Fill in Register Form Fields and open up the email that Zotero sent to confirm your Zotero account.

After your e-mail has been validated, open Zotero: Click the actions icon  and select “Preferences…” option and then the Sync Icon: 

Enter your Zotero account username and password and check the following Sync Preferences.