Help:Zotero web library

This document provides basic guidance to Dried Fish Matters partners and collaborators on how to use the web interface for Zotero – our primary tool for collecting, cataloguing, sharing, citing, and publishing resources connected with the dried fish economy.

About Zotero

Zotero is a free and open-source research data management platform developed by the Corporation for Digital Scholarship and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. It includes a desktop client, browser plugins, word processor extensions, and cloud-based service that collectively allow users to download documents from online sources and to cite them in academic papers.

Dried Fish Matters has a shared document library that is accessible both online (through the web library) and through the Zotero desktop client. The original desktop client provides several features that are unavailable in the web library, including:

• Offline access
• Saved searches
• Collection reports
• Word processor integration

The web library provides access to most of Zotero’s functionality and allows you to use Zotero from a shared computer or mobile device.

For information on how to install and use the Zotero desktop tools for reference management, see the online quick-start guide.

Accessing the DFM web library

You will need to sign in to Zotero in order to view or download resources in our group library.

You should have received an email invitation to join our group library, sent directly from Zotero.org. If you did not see this email, please check your bulk or spam mailbox, and contact us if you still don’t find anything.

The Zotero login page is accessible at this address: https://www.zotero.org/user/login.

To view the resources online, go to our Zotero page: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2183860/dried_fish_matters/library.

Main components of the web library

The layout of the web library will differ depending on the type of device you are using (phone, tablet, or desktop computer) as it will adapt to the available screen size.

You should see a page that looks like one of the screenshots below. The item shown in these screenshots is a book chapter:

Coulthard, Sarah, Lahiru Sandaruwan, Nasheera Paranamana, and Dilanthi Koralgama. “Taking a Well-Being Approach to Fisheries Research: Insights from a Sri Lankan Fishing Village and Relevance for Sustainable Fisheries.” In Methodological Challenges and New Approaches to Research in International Development, 76–100. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137293626_5.

① The group library panel lists the main folders within the Dried Fish Matters Zotero library. You can click or tap on any of the folders to view the resources contained in each collection within the overall library. Collection folders have been set up for each country – you should add new resources to one of those folders. If you have a set of working documents for a paper or research activity, you can place them within a dedicated sub-folder within your overall collection. It is always possible for an item to be in more than one collection. There is also a “Trash” or “Bin” folder for items that have been deleted, from which you can restore accidentally deleted items or attachments.

② The items list shows a list of resources. The list may be filtered by collection, tag (keyword), or according to search results. Clicking or tapping on one of the items from this list will open the item metadata view.

③ The item info panel shows the primary metadata for each item. At the top of this area are the name of the person who added this item, the item type, title, and abstract. This information was loaded automatically into Zotero using the browser plugin, but it can also be entered and edited manually through the website, as described below. The URL of the original resource takes us to an online copy of that resource. When adding new resources, be sure to check that the author, date, and publication metadata are complete and correct.

Libraries, items list, and item info (mobile view). ① Collections list ② Items list ③ Item info

④ The item notes panel shows notes associated with an item. These can be used for providing annotations, notably by describing the significance of the item or listing / quoting important passages. These notes can later be exported to create an annotated bibliography.

⑤ The item tags panel shows keywords associated with the resource. More information on how we use tags is provided below.

⑥ The attachments panel lists any files that are associated with an item – typically a PDF in the case of a journal article, report, thesis, or book chapter. If you are logged in and are a member of the DFM Zotero group, you will see the option to view/download and upload new file attachments from this panel. Otherwise, you will see a list of attachments but they will be inactive (greyed out).

Item notes, tags, and attachments (desktop view). ④ Item notes ⑤ Item tags ⑥ Item attachments

⑦ The tag list indicates all the tags used in the Dried Fish Matters group library. By clicking or tapping on one or more of these tags, it is possible to filter all the resources in the library, or in the current collection folder, according to those tags.

The tag list is visible at the bottom left in the following screenshot; it may be hidden by default on smaller screen sizes:

Web library overview and item info (desktop view). ① Collections list ② Items list ③ Item info ⑦ Tags list

The same elements shown above, which were taken from a desktop browser screenshot, will be presented in a stacked view on mobile devices:

Item info, notes, tags, and attachments (mobile view). ③ Item info (continuation of the abstract) ④ Item notes ⑤ Item tags ⑥ Item attachments

Adding items

On smaller screens, the main item actions are hidden behind a menu at the top of the items list; on larger screens, you may see a series of icons. The “New Item” action (the “+” icon) will generate a blank item with editable metadata fields. When creating the item you will need to select an appropriate item type. Typically you will choose one of the following:

• Journal article
• Book
• Book section (i.e., book chapter)
• Conference Paper
• Thesis
• Report (e.g., an FAO report)

The available metadata fields for each item type will differ. For example, a “Video Recording” allows you to identify the director, running time, and so on.

Actions menu (mobile view)

Actions menu (desktop view)

Creating a collection (mobile view, left; desktop view, right)

One of the options available in the actions menu is “Add By Identifier”, which allows you to upload an item to the currently selected collection by URL, ISBN, DOI, PMID, or arXiv ID. You can provide the URL for a web page or for an academic article (e.g., an article description page on Jstor or an online journal).

You can also access this function directly at https://zotero.org/save:

Screenshot from zotero.org/save

About Zotero tags and collections

Items in Zotero libraries can be organized with collections and tags. According to the Zotero help text:

Collections allow hierarchical organization of items into groups and subgroups. The same item can belong to multiple collections and subcollections in your library at the same item. Collections are useful for filing items in meaningful groups (e.g., items for a particular project, from a specific source, on a specific topic, or for a particular course). You can import items directly to a specific collection or add them to collections after they are already in your library. It is important to understand that items can belong to multiple collections and sub-collections. Adding an item to multiple collections does not duplicate the item.

Tags (often called “keywords” in other contexts) allow for detailed characterization of an item. You can tag items based on their topics, methods, status, ratings, or even based on your own workflow (e.g., “to-read”). Items can have as many tags as you like, and you can filter your library (or a specific collection) to show items having a specific set of one or more tags.

(https://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags)

DFM collections

DFM uses collections to organize sets of working documents related to a particular research project or activity.

As our research gets fully underway, we will establish new collections to reflect ongoing activities. The current folder hierarchy is as follows.

Collection	Description
ARCHIVE	Contains a set of sub-folders representing items imported into Zotero at various times, and no longer of active use.
DFM Bangladesh	Working folders for country teams. Create sub-folders as appropriate. These folders should contain resources that are specifically related to work in your country.
DFM Cambodia
DFM India
DFM Myanmar
DFM Sri Lanka
DFM Thailand
Literature review working folders	Resources downloaded and analyzed as part of a literature review search. Each item is associated with tags that indicate the search terms that were used to retrieve that item, as well as thematic keywords.
Methods	Key resources related to the methodology of DFM research, notably Stacked Value Chain methods.
TEST	Sandbox area for testing.
Trash / Bin	Items that have been deleted from the Library (and not just removed from a collection) stay in the Trash bin for 30 days. Afterwards they are permanently deleted.

DFM tags

We use tags to label items permanently throughout the Library.

There are several types of tags in use in the DFM Library.

Automatic keywords

These are terms that are automatically applied to an item when it is retrieved from a search catalogue or imported into Zotero. It is possible to hide these keywords in the desktop client but not in the web interface.

Search terms

Items in the “Lit review keyword searches” collection (a sub-folder of the “Literature review working folders”) have been tagged with the search terms according to which they were originally retrieved.

DFM topic tags

There are several prefixed tags within the library that we have been using for the purposes of our global literature review. These include thematic tags (e.g., #THEME: nutrition and food security), relevance tags (#RELEVANCE: Direct and #RELEVANCE: Indirect), geographic tags (e.g., *Cambodia, **SOUTH-EAST-ASIA), and product tags (e.g., +dried fish, +smoked fish).

Before adding or modifying any of these tags, please take note of the descriptions in the document Help:Zotero tags.

Note that the single "@" tag designates resources that have been manually reviewed for inclusion in the literature review.

As noted above, if you select one or more of the tags from the overall tags list, the current collection will be filtered to show only the items that match that tag.

Filtering by tag (laptop view)

Citing items

The “Cite” action lets you cite an item. It will create a formatted reference for the selected item in the style of your choice. Note that for longer bibliographies, it is preferable to install the Zotero word processor connector, which is installed along with the Zotero desktop client.

Persistent links to the web library

When using the Zotero web library, it is possible to create a persistent link to a given collection, tag, or search. Simply navigate to the desired view and copy the URL from the browser address bar; this link can be shared with collaborators as needed.

Since collections and items are identified by permanent IDs, the link to a collection or item will not change even if the item is moved or renamed within Zotero.

Here are some examples:

• https://www.zotero.org/groups/2183860/dried_fish_matters/collections/2UASHVEK - The “DFM Bangladesh” collection folder
• https://www.zotero.org/groups/2183860/dried_fish_matters/search/belton/titleCreatorYear/items/6J48JJ8W/item-list - A search for the name “Belton” in the overall Dried Fish Matters library
• https://www.zotero.org/groups/2183860/dried_fish_matters/items/96WSQL26/library - Description for the item: Belton, Hossain, and Thilsted (2018), “Labour, Identity and Wellbeing in Bangladesh’s Dried Fish Value Chains.”
• https://www.zotero.org/groups/2183860/dried_fish_matters/collections/W7EUL34A/tags/#RELEVANCE:+Direct,#THEME:+labour/collection – All items matching the tags “#RELEVANCE: Direct” and “#THEME: labour” within the collection “Belton – Dried fish papers”.