Zotero is a software application for managing citations. Its functionality is based on the creation of one or more "libraries," in which citations for journal articles, reports, books, websites and other information sources are gathered and organized into "collections," making them easy to find and insert into documents. Zotero is an open source product of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship ("a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of software and services for researchers and cultural heritage institutions, and is developed by a global community"). Zotero can be freely downloaded and used through the zotero.org website.
Whenever you need to collect, organize, use or share multiple citations (e.g. when you're writing a paper), a citation manager, such as Zotero, allows you to...
Depending on whether you choose to use Zotero, or another citation manager (e.g. EndNote or Mendeley), there may be additional functionality available. For more details, see the section of this guide: Zotero vs. Other Citation Managers.
This guide seeks to answer questions such as...