MCP Zotero

MCP Zotero is an MCP server that integrates Claude and other Model Context Protocol clients with your personal Zotero reference management library. It connects directly to the official Zotero API to give AI assistants programmatic access to academic papers, citations, bibliographic metadata, and project folders. Designed for academic researchers, writers, students, and analysts, this server enables users to query their research collections through natural language conversations. By exposing tools to inspect items, locate recent papers, review specific collection hierarchies, and execute global keyword searches, MCP Zotero eliminates the need to manually copy citation details or context between reference managers and writing assistants. Researchers can use it to verify bibliographic sources, summarize stored publications, organize citations across diverse projects, and retrieve full document details directly inside their everyday generative AI workspace.

Category: Files, Documents & PDFs

Tags: bibliography, citations, reference-management, research, zotero

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How to install and configure MCP Zotero

1. Generate an API key in your Zotero account settings. 2. Retrieve your user ID by running curl -H "Zotero-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" https://api.zotero.org/keys/current. 3. Install the package globally with npm install -g mcp-zotero (or run it using npx mcp-zotero). 4. Open your Claude Desktop configuration file and add zotero under mcpServers: json { "mcpServers": { "zotero": { "command": "mcp-zotero", "env": { "ZOTERO_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY", "ZOTERO_USER_ID": "YOUR_USER_ID" } } } } 5. Replace YOUR_API_KEY and YOUR_USER_ID with your credentials and restart Claude Desktop.

What you can do with MCP Zotero

• Searching your Zotero library for specific academic sources and retrieving citation metadata during paper drafting. - Listing and navigating project collections to inspect categorized research papers for a literature review. - Fetching detailed metadata and abstracts for specific papers using the item details tool directly within Claude. - Reviewing recently added research papers to generate synthesis summaries or create annotated reading lists.

Key facts

• Open Source
• https://github.com/kaliaboi/mcp-zotero
• Files, Documents & PDFs, Notes & Knowledge Management
• bibliography, citations, reference-management, research, zotero

Part of MCP Servers

How do I install MCP Zotero?

You can install MCP Zotero globally using npm with the command npm install -g mcp-zotero, or execute it on demand via npx. After installing, add the server command and your Zotero API credentials to your Claude Desktop configuration file.

What tools are available in MCP Zotero?

MCP Zotero provides five main tools: get_collections to list all folders, get_collection_items to retrieve papers within a specific collection, get_item_details for granular paper metadata, search_library for keyword queries across your library, and get_recent to inspect newly added entries.

Which MCP clients work with MCP Zotero?

The server is officially documented for integration with Claude Desktop via standard MCP server configuration, but it can work with any client application that supports the Model Context Protocol standard and standard input/output process management.

How do I find my Zotero user ID?

First create an API key in your Zotero settings. Then execute a curl request to https://api.zotero.org/keys/current passing your key in the Zotero-API-Key header. The returned JSON object contains your numeric userID field.

Is MCP Zotero open source?

Yes, MCP Zotero is an open source project hosted on GitHub under the repository kaliaboi/mcp-zotero, allowing community contributions and local installations.