Zotero is open source software for academic research. It is primarily aimed at professionals and students. But anyone who has to do research will find the program handy. Zotero gathers your materials in one place which you can then search and edit. The software is developed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.
The software allows you to add webpage snapshots, videos, images, audio files, PDFs and other files. Your texts are indexed so search results are quick. Apart from colleting research materials, you will be able to manage bibliographic data.
Zotero has several features designed to make your work easier. There are tools for managing bibliographies, footnotes, in-text citations and syncing online. There is web browser integration too. You can integrate it with NeoOffice, OpenOffice.org Writer, LibreOffice and Microsoft Word.
When you are on websites like Wikipedia, Google Docs, Google Scholar etc, Zotero displays an icon when you are looking at a book or article. Click the icon to save the entire reference data to your library. You can also save full text PDF copies of academic text. Copies of web pages can be saved for reference too.
Once you have all your materials, you can add attachments, tags and notes. Part of your library info can be saved as bibliographies with full formatting. You can save rich text memos and bibliographies as HTML. Zotero lets you make bibliographies and citations via word processor plug-ins. You can prepare your own citation designs.
There are two versions of the software. One is standalone for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The other is an add-on for Firefox. Both are available on the download link.
Related Links:
Download Zotero
Zotero Official Website
Zotero Forums
Zotero Blog
Zotero on Facebook
Zotero on Twiter