This basic research toolkit helps to get started on historical notetaking and analysis with Zotero and Obsidian. It does not require programming skills or command-line installation and does not rely on paid features in Zotero or Obsidian.
Note: if you have your own setup for linking Zotero and Obsidian, jump to Advanced Features and Best Practices for Historians
Two translator files link Obsidian note to a Zotero item. They should be mapped to keystrokes in the Zutilo plugin (map "Markdown Item URI Citation" to Shift-Command-1 and "Markdown Obsidian Dataview" to Shift-Command-2). Included above.
A starter vault (a storage unit for your notes) with several plugins preinstalled (see the list of plugins below). The vault includes several example notes and Dataview tables. Download the "template-project" folder here: http://elenarazlogova.org/?attachment_id=314
Use the following four shortcuts to transfer Zotero item data to Obsidian for linking and citation (a BibTex citekey is included in the Dataview export to support cite-as-you-write down the road).
- Shift-Command-1 - copy reference with links to an item in Zotero, online and locally on your computer
- Shift-Command-2 - copy a reference with links and fields for a reference to use for search and sorting with Dataview plugin
- Shift-Command-C - copy bibiliographic reference
- Shift-Command-A - copy footnote reference
- Editor: Readable line length (off)
- Files and Links: Automatically update internal links (on)
- Appearance: Dark/Light View (Light)
- Core plugins: Tag pane (on), Templates (on), Starred (on), Workspaces (on)
- Community plugins: Safe mode (off)
- Install community plugins: Tag Wrangler, Dataview, Kanban, Longform, Better Word Count, Footnote Shortcut, Reading Time, Focus Mode, Typewriter Scroll
- Install Beta version of Zotero https://www.zotero.org/support/dev_builds
- Add Zotero Connector to your Browser (video)
- Create online account on Zotero https://www.zotero.org/user/register
- Set up sync for your data (not PDFs) to your online Zotero account https://www.zotero.org/support/sync
- Download and move two translator files to Zotero/translators folder (video)
- Install Zutilo for Zotero (video)
- Install Zotero Obsidian Citation plugin to link from Zotero items to Obsidian notes
- Map Markdown translators to keyboard shortcuts in Zutilo https://github.com/wshanks/Zutilo (video)
- Install BetterBibTex to use cite-as-you-write down the road (this feature was not yet fully supported as of March 2022 - check this thread for progress) https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/ (video)
- Install Obsidian https://obsidian.md/
- Download the "template-project" folder here: http://elenarazlogova.org/?attachment_id=314
- Move "template-project" folder to the Obsidian folder and open it as a vault. (video)
- Turn on Live Preview (if it comes up at first launch)
- Turn Safe Mode Off (comes up at first launch - included in video above)
- Download a book from Worldcat into Zotero (video)
- Download an article from JStor into Zotero (video)
- Annotate a PDF in Zotero and move the annotation to a Zotero note (video)
- Create a new vault (video)
- Create and link notes (Files and Links: Automatically update internal links - on) (video)
- Write in Markdown (italics, headings, external link, highlight) (video)
- Add footnotes in Edit View and navigate in Reading View (Community plugins: Safe mode - off; install Footnote Shortcut plugin) (video)
- Tag notes (Core plugins: Tag pane - on; Community plugins: Safe mode - off; install Tag Wrangler plugin) (video)
- Search notes (Core plugins: Starred - on) (video)
- Link visualization: Backlinks, local Graph view, Global Graph view (video)
- Organizing with Workspaces (Core plugins: Workspaces - on) (video)
- Use Shift-Command-2 shortcut to link a Zotero item to an Obsidian note (video)
- Shift-drag to copy an annotation from Zotero to Obsidian (video)
- Tag and link Zotero items that have notes in Obsidian
- Get to to a Zotero item from a link in Obsidian in edit view with Command-click (video)
- Get to a Zotero item from a link in Obsidian in reading view (video)
- Get to an annotation in Zotero from a link in Obsidian (video)
- Combine free-form "Zettelkasten" linking of ideas with structured data necessary to know who did what and when
- Sort your notes by source date, by source page number, and by event date (start-date and end-date) with Dataview
- Trace social networks: create and link person, place, and event notes and visualize with the Graph view
- Use the Kanban plugin as a Corkboard for writing, in a Scrivener-like setup
- You have to include source fields (author, title, year, etc.) in all notes related to a particular source, not just in the "Literature Note." That's what makes precise Dataview searches possible.
- You have to export archive, archive-location, and recipient fields from Zotero into Obsidian because archival research (including private correspondence) is central for historical work.
- You have to use a Zotero-Obsidian plugin that scales up well for a large number of sources. Plugins that rely on BibTex exports do not - searches can take several minutes for large databases.
- It is recommended that the title of your note (also your file title) reflects the content of the note, in contrast to the established practice of using the source BibTex citekey as the title for the "Literature Note."
- If you can use an existing Zotero-Obsidian plugin to achieve the above conditions, that's great. I use my translators/shortcuts setup mostly because I don't want automation but I know most users do.
- Use Tags to categorize your notes
- Organize and explore your graph with Groups and Depth settings
- Create and use Templates for Person, Place, Event notes
- Import source info from Zotero into YAML fields
- Set up your own fields (event start-date and end-date; page number)
- Create a table of your source notes; sort by author and page no. (Community plugins: Safe mode - off; install Dataview plugin)
- Create a table of your archival sources; sort by archive location
- Create a table for a timeline of your notes
- Set up Dataview notes in a special folder
- Set up Dataview Workspace(s)
- Create Analysis notes ("Permanent" notes in Zettelkasten parlance)
- Outline with a Corkboard (Community plugins: Safe mode - off; install Kanban plugin)
- Write with a Corkboard (Community plugins: Safe mode - off; install Longform plugin)
This setup is a simplified and modified version of Sean Graham's "Obsidian Student Starter Vault," https://github.com/shawngraham/obsidian-student-starter-vault
Zachary M. Schrag, The Princeton Guide to Historical Research (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021).
Katherine Jewell, The History Mixtapes: Liner Notes, Podcast series of interviews with historians on their notetaking methods, February-April 2021:
- Audio https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-history-mixtapes-liner-notes-katherine-uptPFITeGgf/
- Video https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ_bIX7g9SjC2lp58Ax6Hm2ZhKtoMBU31
Ian Milligan, History in the Age of Abundance? How the Web Is Transforming Historical Research (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019).
Mark Merry, Designing Databases for Historical Research (London: Institute of Historical Research, Univeristy of London, -2022), https://port.sas.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=75&chapterid=124.
Umberto Eco, How to Write a Thesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).
Roy Rosenzweig's research notes, Roy Rosenzweig Papers, Collection #C0038, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University.
Niklas Luhmann, “Communicating with Slip Boxes: An Empirical Account,” Luhmann.Surge.Sh, [1981], accessed 2021-04-11, http://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes.
Johannes F. K. Schmidt, “Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: Thinking Tool, Communication Partner, Publication Machine,” in Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe, ed. Alberto Cevolini (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
Markus Krajewski, Paper Machines: About Cards & Catalogs, 1548-1929 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).