Rachel Suppok, Research and Instruction Librarian, rachel.suppok@pitt.edu
With Zotero, you can only have one library on your desktop and one library per online account. Generally, if you want to sync your desktop and online libraries, this will mean that you only have one Zotero library. This differs from some other citation managers, such as EndNote, which allow you to create multiple libraries. However, items in your Zotero library can still be organized on a more granular level; see the Organizing References section of this guide to learn more about how to do this.
You should store your Zotero library on your hardrive, not on the cloud or in a shared drive. Setting up a Zotero account will allow you to sync your library and store the information on Zotero's servers. While your library should not be stored in a cloud storage service such as OneDrive, Google Drive, etc., full-text PDFs associated with items in your library may be.
There are several ways to add references to your Zotero library:
In Zotero, you can only have one library. This differs from some other citation managers--such as EndNote--where you can have different libraries for different projects, classes, etc. While you can only have a single library in Zotero, you can organize that library using collections, subcollections, and tags.
If you have added references to your library without a full-text PDF and you don't already have that PDF saved somewhere, Zotero can sometimes find and attach one. Zotero will not be able to find every PDF you ask it to--and in those cases you will have to find and manually attach one--but it can save you time by finding some of them.
To have Zotero look for PDFs for you, select the item or items for which you want to attach a PDF, right click, and select Find Available PDF. If Zotero can locate a PDF for that reference, it will attach it.
Even if Zotero doesn't find a PDF for you, it can still help you see if our library provides access to it! The first time you want Zotero to check the library's collection and subscriptions for an item, go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced. Under "OpenURL," paste the following link into the field labeled "Resolver": https://pitt.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/openurl/01PITT_INST/01PITT_INST:01PITT_INST?sid=
Now, whenever you want to look an item up in Pitt's library system, you can select the item in your library that you wish to find full-text for, and then click on the "Locate" arrow to the right of the item details. From the drop-down menu that appears, select Library Look-Up. If we provide access to that item, you will be taken to a listing for that item in PittCat, and from there you can see where the full-text is available. If the library doesn't provide access to that item, then you may need to use Document Delivery to get it.
Zotero automatically checks your library for items that have been retracted through an integration with Retraction Watch. Retraction Watch maintains a database of retracted articles, so if you add an item to your library that has already been retracted or an item already in your library gets retracted, you will receive a notification in Zotero.
Retraction Watch is a nonprofit organization (just like Zotero!), and there may be some time between an item being retracted and its addition to the Retraction Watch database. Therefore, you might not be notified in Zotero to an item's retraction until several weeks after the item has been retracted.