Using Zotero for projects

Do you need to share references with collaborators? Or make a bibliography available to a wider audience? Or crowd-source information about publications or objects? Then you may find Zotero's Groups functions useful.

Zotero is software that helps researchers and students to organise references and cite them. It works in similar ways to other products like EndNote, RefWorks and Mendeley. It is distinctive however, in being run on a nonprofit, open-source basis.

As well as having a personal reference library, you can also create Groups where you share references with others. Groups can be restricted or very open. There are three types: 'private', 'public closed' or 'public open'. You can control the ability of others to edit records in the group.

Users can search, sort and browse the references and export citations if they wish. They can read any notes or tags that have been saved. In private or closed groups, attached files can be shared, but this is disabled in public open groups.

You are not restricted to standard publication types. Information can be saved and shared for manuscripts, correspondence, legal sources, artworks, maps, and audio-visual materials.

Examples

I have created two public open Zotero groups to support projects I have been involved in:

History and GIS

This group was originally created for graduate students on an introductory course to the software ArcGIS. I wanted participants to be able to look at real published research that used GIS (in this case within the discipline of history,) as this helps to show the possibility of the techniques we had been learning to use. And I wanted them to find sources of geo-data that they could use in their own work. As the students were studying very different time periods and countries, I needed a large reading list to be relevant to them. They were also from different institutions, so a public open group library seemed the best way solution.

Trade Directories

I have been working on enhancing the contextual information for users of the Historical Directories of England & Wales collection. Like many collection websites, we have a list of 'further reading'. I decided to expand this list into an open bibliography, as this would be easier to update regularly, and could be re-used by readers more easily. Again, as the collection is aimed at a public audience Zotero is an ideal tool.

Zotero -> Online Database

You can go one-step further, and use a Zotero library as the basis for an online database. Omeka, the online publication platform for heritage collections, has an import from Zotero function to facilitate this. Other plugins allow you to add records to a custom-built website. This means you get going more quickly on database creation and have a more visual appealing interface for users. Here are some examples:

Franco American Library http://www.francolib.francoamerican.org/items
Reproductive Justice Virtual Library https://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/centers/crrj/zotero/library_research.php
International Society for First World War Studies http://firstworldwarstudies.org/bibliography.php

This way of working would particularly suit projects re-using metadata from library, archive and museum catalogues. I would be happy to help any University of Leicester project that wanted to try Zotero. Below are some basic user guides.

Guides to using Zotero

Getting started: https://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide

Guide to Groups: https://www.zotero.org/support/groups

Import Zotero into Omeka Classic: https://omeka.org/classic/docs/Plugins/ZoteroImport/

Import Zotero into Omeka S: https://omeka.org/s/docs/user-manual/modules/zoteroimport/

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