Zotero at Temple

Adding Items to Zotero  provides detailed explanations on how to bring in different sources to your Zotero program.  They include:

• Drag and drop or Store Copy of File
• Import with Zotero browser connector
• Link or Attach any file type from anywhere
• Search and add by Identifier (ISBN, DOI, PMID …)
• Find Full Text
• Import RIS files
• Manually add new item and files
• RSS feeds

Some citation styles, such as APA, require the use of sentence case for titles (e.g., “This is sentence case”). Others, like the Chicago Manual of Style and Modern Language Association (MLA), require title case (“This is Title Case”).

Tip: Store titles in sentence case in your Zotero library and let Zotero automate the conversion to title case if necessary. Zotero will also automatically capitalize the subtitle for styles that require it.

Steps to automatically convert a title to sentence case

1. Right click on the title in Info and select Sentence case. Warning: This will uncapitalize proper nouns.
2. Check for proper nouns and manually capitalize the first letter of proper nouns.

Zotero 6 sentence case in Info

Zotero 7 sentence case in Info

Converting title case to sentence case demo

The image GIF demonstrates the steps listed above.  Refresh to play the GIF.

Use the Zotero browser connector to capture citation information and download web pages or one or more records and files into your Zotero library. The icon will change depending on the source.

Download one record and file with the Zotero connector

1. Click on the Zotero icon in the browser.  Citation information and available PDFs will automatically download, depending on your setting.
2. To add tags or select the collection or folder for the download, click on the arrow down at the end of the Sending to box.
    

Download multiple records with the Zotero connector

1. Click on the browser folder icon.  When there are multiple items to select, a folder icon will appear in the Zotero browser connector.
2. Select the record by clicking the box.  You can also Select All.
   Available PDFs will also be downloaded, depending on your setting.
3. Click OK.

Use the database "Send to" or "Export" option to directly download records into Zotero.  The steps below demonstrate with EBSCOhost but are generally applicable for most databases.

Steps for direct export from EBSCOhost databases

1. Click on an individual record or create a list of records.
2. Click on the Export button.
3. Select the option for RIS file.
4. In Zotero, click on File in the upper left, and in "Where do you want to import", select import, then "A file..."
5. Zotero searches your computer, most likely your Download folder. Select the file and open.
6. Select "Copy files to the Zotero Storage folder".
7. Look for the folder under My Library and rename it if you want.

Get the ISBN, DOI, PubMed ID, arXiv ID, or ADS Bibcode.

Click the Add Item by Identifier button ( in Zotero 6) in the toolbar, type or paste in the identifier, and press Enter/Return.
To add more than one item, separate identifiers by spaces, commas, or line breaks.

The figure shows Zotero 7 with DOI entered.

Zotero 6 Library Lookup location

Zotero 7 Library Lookup location

The instructions below are for creating an RSS feed in PubMed and ProQuest databases. Check other platforms for RSS Feed instructions. For more information and online Zotero documentation visit Feeds.

PubMed RSS feeds steps

Step 1.  Enter your search terms in PubMed and click Search.  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) . (A proxy URL may not work) 

On the results page, select Create RSS link, located below the search box.

Step 2. Enter a name.  You will overwrite existing text.  Name cannot include a symbol. 

Leave the number of items to be shown as is or change.  Click Create RSS.

Step 3. Click "Copy" to copy the RSS URL

.

Step 4. Go to Zotero desktop

Zotero 6:  Click on dark brown folder and select "New Feed" and "From URL".
Zotero 7: Click on File tab. Select New Library. Select "New Feed" and "From URL.

Step 5. Paste the RSS URL from PubMed into the top URL box. If you are successful, the Title box will show the name that you had created. Click Save.  If you do not see anything in the Title, and you see proxy in the URL, try the search at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ without a proxy.

ProQuest RSS feed steps

Step 1.  Enter your search terms in ProQuest and click Search.  On the results page, below the search box, toward the right, select "Save Search/alert link and select Create RSS feed.

Step 2. Enter a name in the "Name this Feed" box.   You will overwrite existing text. You can leave the other settings as is or change.  Click Create Feed.

Step 3. Copy the URL from "Your RSS feed" at the very top.

Step 4. Go to Zotero desktop.
Zotero 6:  Click on dark brown folder and select "New Feed" and "From URL".

Zotero 7: Click on File tab. Select New Library. Select "New Feed" and "From URL."

Step 5. Paste URL into the top URL box. If you are successful, the Title box will show the name that you had created. Click Save.