What is zotero-citation-map?

Zotero is a popular reference manager used by researchers to organize academic papers, notes, and PDFs. Zotero Citation Map is a plugin built for that tool. It lets you visualize how the papers in your library connect to each other through citations and shared references, so you can explore relationships between papers without leaving Zotero. The author built this to solve a problem in their own workflow. When they wanted to understand how a set of papers related, they had to jump between Zotero and external services like ResearchRabbit or Litmaps. This plugin brings that kind of visualization inside Zotero itself, removing the need to switch back and forth between apps during a literature review. The core features focus on making literature exploration easier. You can start from a selected paper and follow its citation links to see which works it references and which later works cite it. Papers already in your library are matched to their Zotero entries, so you can jump back to the metadata, notes, or PDF for any item in the map without hunting for it. The plugin also helps you spot gaps. Citation data providers sometimes surface papers you have not added yet, which can point you toward relevant references or newer work that builds on what you already have. You can refresh the citation data when provider information changes or when you add new papers, and there is a manual option for building custom maps. Installation is straightforward. You download the latest plugin file from the GitHub releases page, open Zotero, go to the Plugins menu, and drag the file into the window. After confirming and restarting Zotero if needed, the plugin is ready to use. Updating works the same way, and Zotero replaces the old version automatically.