Getting Started with Zotero

Zotero is an Open Source digital research platform, and the most useful software tool for young researchers. The free software and documentation, including video tutorials, are available at http://www.zotero.org. Zotero is a powerful tool for gathering, analysing and sharing research materials of all kinds, and it has been specifically developed to help scholars keep control of digital materials that can be found online.  Used with an extension called Zotfile, Zotero can dramatically speed up and enrich your research practice and effectiveness.

This demonstration will be much more useful if you have completed the following:

• Download and install Zotero on your own laptop.

• Install the browser extension for your preferred browser, also from the Zotero download page.

• Review the Quick Start Guide

• Setup an account on the Zotero servers (this will allow you to store your data to the Zotero cloud, and to share with other researchers).

To recap, the key features of Zotero include:

• Extraction of highlights and quotations from PDFs
• The ability to automatically harvest references from libraries, newspapers and online catalogues (including the South African National Archives repository)
• Full text harvesting and indexing of pdf files
• Automated extraction of annotations and highlights from PDF files
• Document types (like video, letter, manuscript) that match the research materials of humanities researchers
• Tagging, search and infinite rich text annotation for note taking
• Automated synchronisation and backup of data in the Internet Cloud
• Very powerful collaboration amongst researchers