1. To create a Zotero account
Go to zotero.org and click on “register” in the top right corner. Follow the instructions to create a free account. When you validate your email address you’ll be asked to open Zotero and change your password in preferences – you can ignore this step for now.

2. Once you have an account
Be sure you are logged in. Click on the “groups” tab on the zotero homepage and search for the group “Macaulay Seminar 2, Professor Libman″. Clicking on the group will take you to a page with an icon that says “join group”. Click on that, and we’ll be sure to approve your membership!

3. Making Zotero work for you
Now that you have a Zotero account you can add and upload citations to your library manually, however a lot of the cool functionalities which make zotero easy and awesome are not yet available to you. You’ll need to download Zotero onto your macbook. If you use Firefox as your regular browser, choose “Zotero for Firefox”, otherwise choose the “Zotero Standalone” with the browser extension that matches the browser you use most often (ex. Chrome or Safari).

Once you’ve created an account, joined the class group, and downloaded Zotero onto your macbook you’re all set to begin sharing and saving citations! In the mean time, you can explorethese great tutorials on the Zotero.org website.

If you run into any trouble with the tasks listed above, please feel free to be in touch with me.