Citation managers help researchers manage a complex web of scholarly information and resources in a digital format. With a citation manager like Zotero or Mendeley, users can store permalinks and citation data, make notes, save PDF documents for later use, create bibliographies, and share research content with colleagues.

Choosing a citation manager: Zotero and Mendeley Comparison

About Zotero

Zotero is a standalone software program that works with Firefox, Chrome and Safari. It allows users to:

• Create a databases of citations by easily selecting items from your browser
• Attach and organize your PDFs
• Sync your database to the cloud
• Share group libraries with others
• Create bibliographies in a variety of styles

How to use Zotero

• Zotero quick start guide

• Zotero tutorial videos 

• Zotero help documentation

• Add a citation style to Zotero

About Mendeley

Mendeley is a free citation and file management application. It allows you to:

• Manage your PDF collection of articles on your hard drive.
• Extract metadata for each file, rename/move them, and sync across platforms.
• Tag files, organize them into folders, annotate, and share with others (including annotations/notes).
• Use the capabilities within Mendeley to generate a bibliography, or export bibliographic data to other citation management applications.

How to use Mendeley

• Create an account

• Using Mendeley guides and videos