Historian’s Toolkit – Zotero
A common question I hear is what reference management software is right for you. There is no single correct answer since different programs have different merits, but I wanted to offer my take on the program I use most often: Zotero. What are my thoughts on the program? Since I use it, I must adore it! Well sort of. I like the program a lot, and it has a lot of strengths, but it has weaknesses too. I will break the program down into several key categories, and let you decide. For this commentary, my comments specifically apply to Zotero 5.0, although some of them may apply to earlier versions.
Primary Rundown
As of August 2017, Zotero is a two-piece program: the standalone application, and the browser’s connector. The application is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. The application is the part of the program that you add references manually or from other databases, organize them, modify them, or export them. The citation capture tool is available in Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari, and is the main way that you import new references. There is also a bookmark tool that you can add to these browsers and to mobile-based browsers to save web pages to your library. All you have to do is open the source’s web page, and click on the Zotero icon in your extensions toolbar. These two tools connect through your free Zotero account. All you have to do is log in through the preferences in both the browser and the standalone application, and click “sync” within the application’s “Preference” section. With this setup, it is entirely possible to import your references from online databases with one computer and have them automatically update the standalone application on another computer. To add citations to your word program, be it Microsoft Word or Libre/Open writer, you need to install Zotero’s plugin for each program. You can install this plugin through the standalone application, or you can download the plugin manually from Zotero’s “Download” page.
System Compatibility
I often switch between Windows and Linux work environments, and cross-compatibility is essential for my core software. Zotero fills this niche in that it runs natively on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. Furthermore, the citation capture tool is available in Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. Zotero’s broad browser compatibility makes keeping my database updated on any computer very easy. That said compatibility does not extend to writing programs. As of this article’s publication in August 2017, only Microsoft Word, and Open/Libre Writer is formally supported. Programs like LaTeX and Scrivener do not have first-party support, which substantially limits Zotero’s viability for different users. Luckily third-party plugins are available at https://www.zotero.org/support/plugins for other programs, although I cannot attest to these plugins’ reliability as I have not recently used many of them. Furthermore switching between the supported work programs is not perfect, although this is more related to different coding in these programs rather than with Zotero. For in-text citations as often used in APA or MLA, you’re safe to switch between Microsoft Word and Open/Libre Writer. If you use a footnote or endnote based citation style, however, you will not be able to switch between the different programs cleanly. What will happen is that all of your references will convert into plain-text entries, and you will have to re-add them manually for the Zotero plugin to recognize them. To mitigate this issue, work within only one writing program from start to finish.
Managing Your Library
The three ways of importing data are with the web citation tool, manually creating an entry, and importing previous databases. The Web Citation tool can grab documents from academic and library databases with ease, often offering multiple import options and listing all the documents available for import. Once you move outside these realms, however, your quality varies heavily on if the web page in question Zotero reads different web pages. I commonly find that on news websites, it does not always catalog the author or publisher of the various articles. Sometimes you will also get information, such as the ISBN or DOI, when publishers or supervisor prefers that it remains absent, which means that you must manually remove these values in the standalone application, or modify the citation template. Archives such as the Imperial War Museum are not always optimized for Zotero either, and you still must manually add the entry.
The manual addition is, thankfully, straightforward. You select the type of sources that you are citing, such as book or document, and input the information. I love the control and ease of adding references, especially for multi-author books. You can define different creator roles, which is useful for citing specific chapters from one in a compilation piece. The only downside that I encountered with manual addition is that sometimes it is ambiguous which category your reference fits under, so you should experiment to see what looks the closest to what you need.
Finally, you can import previously-existing databases. You will likely only use this process if you are transferring data from other programs into your Zotero library, and it works well enough the last I tested it with an Endnote library. Since I mostly use the other two tools, I cannot comment on how well the program reads different databases from various programs.
Collaboration
When collaborating with other users, the difficulty of synchronizing documents varies heavily on what citation software different people use. If everybody uses Zotero, it is straightforward: you create a group in the application, invite other users, and then you can share a set of references. The ease of use makes transferring documents back and forth very easy since, rather than referencing multiple libraries, it is technically only referencing one library. Importing citations from other programs is also easy. Zotero can, by default, read databases created in other applications and convert it to its format. While it adds a few extra steps compared to a simple Zotero setup, it can work well. The easiest way to convert from Zotero to other formats is to export the library as an RIS file, which other citation management software can read without too much trouble.
Stability
I have not had any crashes or loss of data from errors since I started using the program in mid-2015, but that anecdote is insufficient to describe the program’s stability or CPU use. As of writing this, the developers were in the middle of updating the system requirements page for Zotero 5.0. The only information available at the time were the operating system requirements, which are as follows:
*macOS 10.9 or later 1)
*Windows XP SP2 or later
*Linux
I decided to run a test to see how what the program demanded out of its users. For Windows 7, I decided to use the provided resource monitor to track how much RAM and CPU Zotero required. In a clean install of the program and with the process set to a “Normal” priority, the operating system dedicated 176,000 Kilobytes of RAM to the process, with it actively consuming between 80,000 and 100,000 Kilobytes at any given time. The CPU usage was negligible except for when the program was actively updating its database. The average CPU usage was 0.14% of available resources on a machine running an Intel i5-4570 processor (3.2 GHz, quad core).
What does this mean for average usability? Any modern computer with at least 2 gigabytes of RAM should run Zotero conjoint with a word processor and browser, although I would personally recommend 4 Gigabytes of RAM to run all three processes with no slowdown. I also expect that a dual core with at least 2 GHz of RAM would have no problem with all three methods, although I recommend at least a dual core with 2.5 GHz or any quad core. Most stock laptops and desktops should, therefore, run the program with a browser and a word processing program with no issues.
Community Support
Zotero benefits from an active community of researchers across disciplines, and the developers take full advantage of this. One function that I find useful is that there is a user repository of citation style templates available for free download, which encompasses everything from loose variations of standard styles like Chicago to journal-specific styles. Still nothing quite like what you’re looking for? There are official guides on how to edit a template manually on Zotero’s website. A good place to start is at https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step. One example of this is that I commonly use Chicago Manual of Style with full notes, but no Ibid., which is not available in the default settings.
Conclusion
Is Zotero right for you? I like it a lot, but I can see where it falls short. It does not work the best in settings where software such as LaTeX is the primary tool, and it does have some cross-program compatibility issues that software like Endnotes does not have. Nonetheless, I like it for its stability, ease of use across multiple computers, and its active community. I would recommend trying the program with a smaller course paper before committing to a full project. For me, it is my primary program for the foreseeable future.
