Literature Search from within Zotero

am2222 · April 28, 2020

Hi,
I am considering to mover to Zotero and wanted to know if there is any capability to search for literature and add it to Zotero? I know about its ability to search in local db or add items using browser extensions but having such feature makes things easier to add items
The same feature in Medeley :https://blog.mendeley.com/2013/07/08/new-release-literature-search-from-within-mendeley-deskop/

adamsmith · April 28, 2020

No -- don't think it's planned either.
Zotero doesn't compile a literature catalog based on user data the way Mendeley does, so wouldn't be able to copy what they do; the way other tools, like Endnote, have literature search integrated (by building import filters for every specific database) is just too burdensome to be worthwhile given that Zotero does work well in the browser: the idea that most researchers work in their browser when they do searches, not in the reference manager, is fundamental to Zotero.

am2222 · April 28, 2020

Thanks for your reply, What about using scholar websites and find items there and add them in that way? we just need to be able to have access to the apis of those websites?

adamsmith · April 29, 2020

to the extent that they have APIs -- but you'd then have to write custom API implementations for all of those. Which is doable, but not how Zotero has decided to focus its development.

dstillman · April 29, 2020

Right, to clarify, the point of Zotero is that its "literature search" is, by design, the entire web — that's its founding principle. And that's why Zotero has much better saving from a much wider array of websites than any other tool. See Zotero Translators for more info.

(Saving from the app also would also prevent people from using web-based proxies, which is how many people access gated resources. Technically it'd be possible to support logging into web-based proxies within Zotero, and we might do that at some point to improve PDF saving when using Add Item by Identifier, but most people are already logged into the proxies in their web browser.)