Zotero is a free citation management software plug in for Mozilla Firefox & NOW Chrome/Safari.

It enables users to collect, manage, and cite research from all types of sources. It is easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and it is free!  Zotero allows you to attach pdfs, notes, images and screenshots to your citations, to organize them into collections for different projects, and to create bibliographies using Word or OpenOffice.

Zotero detects when a book, article, or other resource is being viewed and, with a mouse click, finds and saves the full reference information to a local file. If the source is an online article or web page, Zotero can optionally store a local copy of the source. Users can then add notes, tags, and their own metadata through the in-browser interface. Selections of the local reference library data can later be exported as formatted bibliographies.

Because it is a Firefox add-on, it automatically updates itself periodically to work with new online sources and new bibliographic styles.

To use Zotero, you can either download Zotero for Firefox, which is a browser extension, or Zotero Standalone, which runs as a separate application but plugs into your choice of browser. Downloading Zotero Standalone includes the plugins for Word and OpenOffice; as for Zotero for Firefox, you can add the plugins for Word/OpenOffice as an additional download.

For more help, see this official Zotero Guide.

Zotero 4.0 Is Here!

Zotero 4.0 has officially arrived. Many new features and bug fixes have been incorporated in this new version. The most exciting new features are automatic journal abbreviations, colored tags, on-demand file syncing, and more.

Feel free to Ask a Librarian if you have any questions.

The complete list of changes

If you're interested in comparing Zotero to other major citation managers, check out the follow links:

• Zotero vs. EndNote - this ProfHacker blog post reviews major differences between Zotero and EndNote.
  
• Citation Managers: Comparison of Features - University of Wisconsin has created a helpful chart comparing different citation managers. Note that UIUC has an institutional subscription to RefWorks.