Pairing Zotero with Claude, Codex, and NotebookLM

Zotero has become the core of my research workflow. It helps me collect papers, organize references, export clean BibTeX, and connect my local library to Claude, Codex, NotebookLM, etc. This setup takes some time initially, but once configured it saves a lot of effort in writing, citing, and literature review.

Installation and Connector for Browsers

  1. Zotero Installation Guide can be found here: https://www.zotero.org/support/installation.
  2. Zotero Connectors allow you to save to Zotero directly from your web browser, such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari. Installation guide is here https://www.zotero.org/download/connectors

Necessary and Optional Plugins

How to install .xpi plugins in Zotero:

  1. Download the .xpi file from the plugin release page.
  2. Open Zotero, then go to Tools -> Plugins (or Tools -> Add-ons in some versions).
  3. Click the gear icon and choose Install Add-on From File....
  4. Select the downloaded .xpi file.
  5. Restart Zotero if prompted.

Necessary Plugins

  1. Zotero Add-on Market (Download)
  2. Better BibTeX (Download)
    • Citation key formula: auth.lower + year + shorttitle(1, 1).lower
    • Remember to refresh BibTeX keys after metadata updates.
    • Fields to omit in export: abstract,urldate,keywords,file,url,copyright,month,language,note,annotation,lccn,langid
  3. Better Notes (Download)
  4. Ethereal Style (Download)
  5. Attanger (Download) (I set the sync directory to my Dropbox Folder.)

Optional plugins (disabled if not needed):

  1. Actions and Tags for Zotero (Download)
  2. DOI Manager (Download)
  3. Sci-PDF (Download)
  4. Zotero PDF Preview (Download)
  5. Translate (Download)
  6. Zutilo Utility for Zotero (Download)

Change Settings for BibTex Export and Local File Syncing Issues

  1. Export: In Item Format, use Better BibTeX.
  2. Sync: In File Syncing, uncheck both file-sync options if you don’t want to sync files through Zotero storage.

Track New Publications through RSS Feed

Zotero can also track new publications through RSS feeds. This is useful if you want to follow updates from a journal, conference, lab website, or academic blog.

To add a feed:

  1. In Zotero, go to File -> New Feed.
  2. Choose From URL.
  3. Paste the RSS feed link from the journal or website you want to follow. For example, use the Nature Machine Intelligence RSS feed: https://www.nature.com/natmachintell.rss to follow that journal, or the arXiv math.AT RSS feed: https://rss.arxiv.org/rss/math.AT to follow new pre-prints in algebraic topology.
  4. Click Save.

After setup, new items from that source will appear in the Feeds section of Zotero.

Zotero-MCP for Claude and Codex

I use zotero-mcp to connect my Zotero library with Claude/Codex, so I can search papers, retrieve metadata/notes, and discuss references directly in the chat workflow. Please follow the official documentation: 54yyyu/zotero-mcp.

Load Local Zotero Library to NotebookLM with Attanger

Attanger is an attachment manager for Zotero. The feature I use most is Rename and Move Attachment. In the Zotero library, right-click a paper and choose Rename and Move Attachment. The PDF attached to that paper will be renamed using a consistent rule, then moved/linked to a synced root directory (for example, Dropbox or Google Drive) with collection-based subfolders.

After using Attanger to export local Zotero content (whole library or selected collections), I upload those files to Google NotebookLM as sources and organize notebooks by topic. Compared with general-purpose chatbots that rely on open-ended web knowledge, NotebookLM usually has fewer hallucinations in this workflow because responses are grounded in my own curated papers and notes, instead of generic web search.