Many students and faculty rely on the digital tool Zotero to organize their research literature, especially the all-important management of bibliographic citations. Now an upgrade funded by Northwestern Libraries provides students and faculty unlimited storage of essential PDFs and images at no cost.
Zotero is a free, open source tool, but if researchers want to save articles for easy reference, the free version only comes with 300 MB of storage space. After that, staggered tiers of storage limits begin at $20 a year, and rise quickly.
“PDFs take up a lot of room. The average grad student or faculty member is going to hit that 300 MB limit,” said STEM librarian Becca Greenstein. “We don’t want people to pay for their research.”
Thanks to the Libraries, the Northwestern research community now has unlimited storage, a $120 annual value if purchased individually. Users need only to sign up with (or add) their Northwestern email in order to get the free storage.
When installed on a computer and linked to a browser, Zotero gives researchers many ways to be efficient and effective in their literature search.
“You can keep your references in one place, take notes on the things you’re reading, save things from databases, make bibliographies – many stages of the research life cycle are supported by Zotero,” Greenstein said.
For example, as a researcher is navigating the Libraries’ vast databases, they may come across a promising article title they’d like to follow up on later. With Zotero integrated into their browser, they can effortlessly capture all the pertinent information about that article, including an abstract for quick reference, citation information, and any associated PDF, if it’s available. Now that article will be easy to find again when it’s time to give it a deep reading. (If the reading proves fruitful, Zotero integrates with Microsoft Word and Google Docs to generate an automatic citation that complies with any of the most popular scholarly standards.)
Librarians have a strong support network for teaching Zotero, Greenstein said, from workshops to individual consultations.
Now that storage is unlimited and free, Northwestern researchers have one more reason to make sure they are using the service to its fullest effect.
Contact Greenstein for more information, or watch a quick tutorial to jump start your Zotero-infused research.