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Group libraries for research teams
What you’ll do
By the end you’ll have created a group library, invited one teammate, and know what members can and cannot do — extended milestone E2.
Why it matters
The lab spreadsheet-of-PDFs breaks the moment two people save the same paper. A group library gives every member the same collections, with Zotero resolving who saved what — and it’s the standard answer to “how does our reading group share sources?” in the support data.
Your library (1) and the group library (2) sitting alongside it. Illustration, not an actual screenshot.</figcaption> </figure>
Steps
- Create the group: on zotero.org/groups, click Create a New Group (or in Zotero: File → New Library → New Group…).
- Choose the type deliberately:
- Private — invisible to non-members; the right choice for an unwritten thesis chapter or a lab’s internal library. Admins can enable file sharing.
- Public, Closed Membership — anyone can read the page, joining needs an invite. Good for published reading lists.
- Public, Open Membership — anyone can join, and open public groups cannot share files (a documented limitation worth knowing before you promise PDFs to the team).
- Invite members: in the group’s Members Settings, click Send More Invitations. Roles: member, administrator, owner.
- Find it in Zotero: with data syncing on (lesson 9), the group appears under My Library in the left pane. Create collections inside it like in any library.
- Copy items in: drag items from My Library onto the group. This creates a separate copy — editing the group copy does not change your personal item, and vice versa. That’s the “where did my edit go?” trap; now you know it’s a copy, not a link.
- Agree on team norms — one admin curates structure; members tag rather than reorganize; annotations from teammates are visible (and removable) per item.
Check it worked
Your invited teammate accepts, syncs, and sees the group library in their Zotero — and an item you drop into the group’s collection appears for them within a minute.
If it didn’t work
- Teammate can’t see the group → confirm they accepted the invite and that their data syncing is on, with the same account
- Files don’t appear for members → group file sharing must be enabled by an admin (and remember: open public groups can’t); see troubleshooting: sync flow
- Group vanished from the web library but shows in the desktop app (a real case in the support data, row #22) → product-side issue: check your groups page on zotero.org and post in the forums if it persists
Last verified against Zotero 10.0.6 documentation on 2026-10-25. Zotero's interface changes between versions — if a step does not match what you see, check the official documentation linked above and report the lesson via the “Report an outdated lesson” issue template.