Zotero saves references from most library catalogs, databases, and even many regular web pages, with one click.

When Zotero detects that you’re looking at a book or article on a catalog, database, or a site like Amazon.com, you’ll see a book or page icon appear in or near the address bar of your browser. Just click the icon and Zotero will automatically save the citation. Zotero will import your citation into the last folder you had open.

Make sure Zotero is open before you begin to save citations; otherwise you will get an error message and the option to save it to your online account.

Tips for organizing your citations:

• Create folders to organize your citations. Citations can be present in more than one folder at a time.
• Organize your citations using tags, notes, or the related function. 
• Attach files (like PDFs) to items in your Zotero library. Just drag the file into your Zotero pane. Dropping a file onto a collection, or in between library items, will copy it into your library as a standalone item. Dropping it onto an existing item will attach it to that item. This is the easiest way to attach a copy of an article to its entry in your library.

You can add materials without using the Zotero Connector if you need to. 

You can add individual items using the "New Item" function. Select the type of item you have, and then fill in the citation information manually. 

If you have citation information from another tool, you can export the citation data as RIS files and then import those RIS files into Zotero. 

Look at File > Import, and follow the steps to import your data.