Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery - Staff Wiki

Processing Works Using Zotero

Owned by Michelle Flinchbaugh
Last updated: Aug 21, 2024
7 min read

Installing and Configuring Zotero

  1. Go to https://www.zotero.org and install Zotero and the Zotero Connector for the browser you use

  2. When prompted, set up a free Zotero account

  3. In Zotero, go to the  edit menu then preferences. Select the citation tab, and choose Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, full not

Before Working

  • When starting work a different set, delete whatever is leftover from your last set from Zotero and make sure it has no content in it.

Google Alerts

  • Copy and paste the email contents into a Word document

  • Find each title given in all of the UMBC emails, and remove all duplicate entries.

If there is a limitation on what you’re supposed to process

  • If you're working on an update, delete everything you don't have to process.

  • If you're working on new work and have to park some of it:

    • Cut and paste everything that you’re not supposed to process into another Word file,

    • Give both files appropriate names

    • Post a task for Michelle in Workast to “Park” the portion of the work that you’re not supposed to process. Attach the file with the work you’re not supposed to process to the task. Give it the tag "Works to be parked."

    • Attach the file that you’ll be processing to the existing processing task.

Determine if the Work is Out of Scope

CV's, Obituaries, Patents, Abstracts with no Full Text, Theses and Dissertations

Strike these out and do no processing:

  • CV

  • Patent Application

  • Abstract with no full text document—if it’s more than a paragraph, and doesn’t say it’s an abstract, it’s not one

  • Obituary unless the subject is a UMBC person

  • Description only of a grant funded project.

  • Theses or Dissertations:

    • Generally, if the item is a master thesis or PhD dissertation, or says Proquest Dissertation Publishing, we don't add manually–cross it off on the print-out.  UMBC thesis and dissertations are automatically sent to UMBC by Proquest and batch loaded, so don't add to a spreadsheet.

    • EXCEPTION: We don't receive any senior theses from Proquest, so these should be added to the spreadsheet and manually loaded.  Other institutions' master theses or PhD dissertations are out of scope. 

About UMBC or an Author Affiliated with UMBC

  • There must be a UMBC author or alternately, the item must be about UMBC, a UMBC department, or person affiliated with UMBC. Often, the authors’ affiliation is included on the item. If not, use the UMBC directory, here, http://www.umbc.edu/search/directory// to determine. If there is no UMBC author, and the subject is not UMBC, a UMBC department, or person, it's out of scope–strike out and do no processing

Determine if the work is already in MD-SOAR

  1. Search MD-SOAR to determine if the work is already in the system. If you find a work with the same title, authors, and formats, it’s the same work. If the authors or format don’t match, ask Arushi or Michelle if it’s the same work.

  2. If you find the work, determine if the record or pdf needs to be updated, and make appropriate changes. If the work was previously not published, the publisher should be added along with a citation and any publisher requirements. If there are missing orcids, they should be added, and any errors should be corrected. If we can replace the pdf with a better version, you should do so. After making the changes, indicated “record updated” on the word doc.

Identifying Federal Government Documents and Works on CC licenses

  1. Find the publisher’s record for the item that you’re processing

  2. Determine if the work is a federal government document

    1. Check if the publisher is a U.S. government department or agency. Check if any authors’ affiliations are a U.S. government department or agency

      1. Federal government agencies often have U.S. or national in their name, e.g. U.S. Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). They can also be identified by a .gov URL (see exceptions below). Sometimes, you simply have to know that it's a federal government agency, e.g. Smithsonian Institution, Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

      2. Some common government agencies that we encounter are:

        1. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce)

        2. The National Weather Service

        3. NASA Goddard Flight Center and any other NASA (National Aeronatics and Space Adminstration) agencies

        4. Army Research Labs

        5. Navy Research Labs

        6. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce)

        7. CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) and any CDC department or divisions

        8. Los Alamos and other National Laboratories

        9. Smithsonian Institute

      3. If you're not sure if a publisher is a U.S. federal government agency, google and look for the .gov in the URL. If the .gov is in the URL, it's a U.S. federal government agency.

      4. The U.S. government is notthe publisher of works on ERIC, eric.edu.gov, (works on education), Medline/PubMed, NCBI - WWW Error Blocked Diagnostic  (medical works), and the NASA Technical Report Server, NASA STI Compliance and Distribution Services  (NASA Publications and NASA employee publications), except for works on the NASA Technical Report Server where another publisher isn't given in the record for the item

      5. City, state, and county publications are not U.S. Federal Government publications.

    2. Find the authors affiliated with federal government agencies. At least one must be only affiliated with a government agency.

  3. If either publisher is a federal government agency, or an author is only affiliated with a U.S. government department or agency, it’s a federal government document.

  4. If the work isn’t a federal government document, look for a creative commons license on the work

Processing