Zotero is a free tool that helps you collect and manage research notes and references. It has many useful features including the automatic creation of bibliographies and footnotes, online back-up and syncing, and search and tagging of your notes and references. Zotero also integrates with many different websites (such as library catalogues, online journals or newspapers, and reference sites like Wikipedia) to automatically record appropriate citations when you are doing online research.
State Records’ new API (http://api.records.nsw.gov.au) supports the automatic capture of series and item citations by Zotero.
To try this out:
- download Zotero. If you use Mozilla Firefox as your browser, you can install it as a browser plug-in. Otherwise, install the standalone version.
- navigate to the series or item in the API that you would like to cite. E.g. http://api.records.nsw.gov.au/series/1
- click the scroll icon in your browser’s address bar to automatically capture the citation.
To check that the citation has been correctly added, bring up the Zotero screen (Ctrl-Alt-Z) and you should have a new item in your Zotero library. You can append your research notes or attach digital images to this item.
