Zotero is a free tool that helps users collect, organize, cite, and share research sources. Zotero was first released in April 2009 as a FireFox browser extension and later developed into an extension for other browsers.

The Zotero team recently announced the release of Zotero 3.0, which provides improvements for the web browser plugin as well as a fully-functional, standalone version of the application. Users may finally use Zotero with or without web browser integration.

With both browser and standalone versions supporting cloud-based syncing of files, duplicate reduction, group research, and a web interface for social networking around research, Zotero 3.0 is an exciting release.