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OLD Zotero Citation Management Tool: Collecting Sources

Collecting Sources

Books and Articles
Zotero senses when you are looking at an article in a subscription database, the New York Times, a book in the library catalog or at Amazon.com and allows you to add it to your Zotero library with just one click.

To save references to your Zotero library, open Zotero, then go to your web browser and look in the address bar for the item's "Save to Zotero" icon in the upper right. The icon image will change from a book, newspaper, article page, or folder depending on the type of resource you are viewing.

Books:
Since Zotero has written meta-data translators for sites like Amazon.com, you can look for the book icon at the upper right side of the address bar and click the icon to save the reference to your library.

saving books from Amazon into your Zotero library

 

Books in the Library's catalog:

adding a book from the library catalogue to your Zotero library
 

Articles:
Search results in databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR, or Google Scholar, will include a folder icon in the upper right side of the address bar. Click on the folder in order to choose the search result item(s) (in this case articles) that you would like to save.

saving multiple sources from a database into your Zotero library
The citations and any additional meta-data from the items you are selecting will automatically be brought into your Zotero library, where you can edit all of the attributes, add tags, notes, child items, and create relationships between your resources.
Zotero book button icon
 

Collecting Sources: Other Websites
If a particular website does not have Zotero translators written to interpret its metadata, you can manually add the reference to your library using these steps:

Right-click the page background and selecting “Save Zotero Snapshot from Current Page” This will save a new web page item to your library. You can add information about the author, etc., if you'd like.

This will also attach a snapshot of the page to the citation. Taking a snapshot saves a copy of the page to your computer as it appears at the time the page is being capture. This includes the page's text and images, so if the page is removed later, or if you're offline, you'll still be able to view your copy.