Transcript for:
Using Zotero to Collect and Organize Sources

welcome to this video for Zotero this is part three of a four part video series on Zotero in this video I'll provide a demonstration of how you can use Zotero to collect and organize your sources during the research process I'll show you how to create collections in the Zotero application add items to the Zotero application using the web browser connector find available PDFs add items manually add items by using identifiers like do is and ISBNs add items by dropping PDFs into the Zotero application how to use tags and lastly we'll use op file to extract annotations like highlights and comments from our PDFs into a Zotero note let's get started you can use collections to help organize your resources it is helpful to set up collections before you start searching to organize your resources as you add them to Zotero to create a new collection click on the folder icon with the plus symbol in the top left hand side of the screen enter a name for your collection and click OK when you're done if you want to further organize your resources you can create sub collections as well select the collection you want to use as the parent collection right click and select new sub collection type in the name of your sub collection and click OK when you're done now that we have our collections ready to go I will demonstrate how you can add resources to Zotero while doing your online researching these web browser techniques require the Zotero application to be running so for future searches make sure you open the Zotero application before you start your search it is also helpful to select your collection in Zotero before you start your searching so that Zotero automatically adds items to the appropriate collection the techniques I will show you only work if you have the Zotero connector installed in your web browser if you do not see a Zotero connector visit zotero.org to install one now the Zotero connector icon will change based on the source type the connector recognizes in this example I have a journal article on the web page the Zotero connector icon is a white page with lines across it indicating a journal article this means that the connector recognizes the resource in my web browser as a journal article and the resource will be added as a journal article item type into Zotero if I want to individually add items from a webpage I can click on the Zotero connector icon and the item will be added as a journal article to Zotero this works for other item types including books newspapers and webpages when adding a web page Zotero captures and saves a snapshot as an attachment to your item a snapshot is a locally stored copy of the webpage as it appeared when it was saved you do not require internet connection to open a snapshot this can be very useful if you are working with online content the zotero connector also recognizes if there is a list of items on a page when the zotero connector recognizes a list of results on your webpage the connector will become a folder icon click on this folder icon to get a list of all the items on the page you can then select a few items from this list or select all the items to be added to Zotero if you adjust the results per page option you can quickly collect large quantities of articles from your search with the click of one button this is a great tool to use when conducting a review of literature for a systematic or scoping review once you have made your selection Zotero will add the selected items to your specified collection or to my library if you have not specified a collection back in Zotero you can see all of the items that you have added you you may have noticed that as items were being added to Zotero some included a message that a PDF was also attached to the item Zotero sometimes adds a PDF of a work if it is able to find one for any items that do not have a PDF right-click on the item and select find available PDF Zotero will try to locate an available PDF of the item you there are a few other ways to add items to your Zotero collection you can add items in manually by clicking on the plus icon selecting the item type and inputting all information into the appropriate fields please keep in mind that Zotero uses the information in these fields to generate citations you can also add items using the item identifier such as a DOI ISBN or PubMed ID click on the icon that is a wand with a plus symbol to open the add item by identifier option type or paste the identifier x' into the box and click search so Tara will add the items to the collection if you want to add items using the identifier and have multiple identifier types like journal articles and books stick to one identifier type at a time for example add only journal article do is then add book ISBNs if you already have a collection of PDFs that you retrieved from the web and want to add these to Zotero you can simply drag and drop the PDF into Zotero so taro will create an item along with the record of all of the bibliographic information associated with the PDF keep in mind this only works for digital born PDFs and not scans of print material organizing your resources into collections is one way to manage your sources but what if you want to draw connections between sources the tags feature is a great way to draw connections between different items the tags feature is located on the right hand side of the Zotero application where your item details are displayed click on the tags tab some of your items may already have tanks these are generally taken from the subjects or keywords associated with the item on the web to remove a tag click on the button with a minus symbol to add a tag click on the Add button when adding a tag so Tara will bring up a list of tags that already exist in your collection you can connect your item to an existing tag or create your own once you have added tags to items you can use the tag search box at the bottom left hand side of the screen to retrieve items with the tag in your collection in addition to collecting and organizing your research you can also use Zotero to manage annotations from PDFs in the first video we went through the steps of downloading and installing SOT file a Zotero add-on zip file is a tool that extracts annotations including comments and highlighted text from PDFs that you have saved in Zotero the annotations are added as a note attachment to an item to get these annotations open the PDF from Zotero make your annotations you save and close the PDF if you are prompted to select a folder choose the already selected folder and replace the PDF that is in that folder find the PDF in Zotero again and right-click on the PDF select manage attachments and select extract annotations zot pile we'll go through the PDF and extract all the annotations into a note the extracted annotations will include hyperlinked citations that will take you to the page where the annotation was made to open an annotation click on the hyperlinked text then click on the Open link option saw file will open the PDF to the exact page where you made the annotation the extracted annotations are also searchable in the Zotero search bar giving you quick access to locate the resources associated with your ideas and comments you that's all for this video on using Zotero to collect and organize your sources check out the last video in this series to learn how you can use Zotero during the writing process for in-text citations and to create a bibliography please feel free to contact your new college librarians at New College Library at Utah note CA for additional information or support thank you for watching