SPEAKER: Welcome to Mason
Libraries Tutorial Zotero Part
3 Adding Sources.


In this tutorial, you will
learn how to add sources
to your Zotero library.


Zotero is designed to
work well with library
online catalogs, databases,
and any website that
includes descriptive metadata
like YouTube and Amazon.


Zotero reads the metadata of
potential research sources
and grabs it to create
a record once you
select an item or items
from the page you are on.


You can use Zotero for
websites like The Washington
Post or The New York Times,
but since these sites
don't include a lot of
descriptive metadata,
you will need to
manually complete
records for items like these.


We'll touch on that a bit later.


To begin, you must first open
the Zotero desktop client,
in order to add items
to your library.


Zotero works in the background
while you do the research.


After you downloaded the
Zotero browser connector,
you'll notice that you
have an icon in the menu
bar of your browser.


This is the button you
will use to add sources
as you search online.


Let's try it out.


Using Mason Search, I'm
going to look for information
on sustainable housing.



Notice how the icon on the menu
bar has changed to a folder.


That's Zotero
recognizing everything
on the first page
of the results.


Let's click on the folder.


Using the folder
icon, is helpful
if you want to add
multiple items at once
and then return to the
items to look at later.


You can choose to select
everything for your Zotero
library or select a few items.


Zotero will add these sources to
the last collections you used,
but you can change
this in the pop-up.


Now, we have items
in our main library
and in the project collection.


Most likely, you will use Zotero
to add items one at a time.


Zotero works best when you
open the item in full text
so we're going to
open this journal article.


You'll see here, that the icon
has changed to a document.


For some sources, Zotero
will also download the PDF
from the website.


Other icons include
a newspaper, a book,
and a camera for videos.



There are other ways to add
items to your Zotero library.


For example, if you
want to cite information
from texts you use in class, you
can enter ISBNs, Digital Object
Identifiers or, DOIs, and more.


This tool is especially
helpful if you
have to cite a physical
item that you have.


Often you can locate the ISBN
near the barcode of the book.


Here, I'm going to use the wand
tool to add the book Creating
Co-housing.


You can also add
notes manually.


This is helpful if you are
working with primary research
or your own research.


Select the green
plus symbol icon.


Zotero will ask what type
of item you want to enter.


Here, I'm going to
select Interview
because I'm going to
enter the information I
need to cite on a
sustainable housing
expert I interviewed myself.


Be sure to include
as much information
you need to meet your
citation styles requirements.


Speaking of
citation-style awareness,
it's important to remember
that Zotero works only as well
as the data its stores.


For example, if an
article title is
in all capital letters
in the database,
it will also be in
capital case in Zotero.


If you need to change the
item from capital case
to sentence case because
of your citation style,
you can right click on the
title in the info field
and make the change.


Try to fix mistakes when
you're adding the resources
if you can.


If not, they can be fixed at any
point, even when your paper is
finished.


We'll go over that
in another video.


Finally, you can
also add PDFs that
are optimized for screen
readers into your Zotero library
and have the metadata
populated into the fields.


Simply click and drag
a PDF from your desktop
into your main library.


In this video, you
learned how to add items


to your Zotero library.


Thank you for watching
this tutorial.


If you have other
questions, please
refer to our ever expanding
How do I page or use our Ask
a Librarian service.