Research & KnowledgeDone with Claude
Search literature and write notes into Zotero
A researcher uses Claude to search Google Scholar, follow citations, query a Zotero library in natural language, and write summary notes into Zotero or Obsidian.
- What They Did
- Pin Shuai runs Claude Code with the Paper Search MCP to find top-cited papers and the papers citing them. A Zotero MCP, backed by Zotero's local API and a search database, lets Claude query his library in natural language. He asks for a summary of one paper's findings and knowledge gaps based on his own annotations. Claude asks a few clarifying questions, then writes the note into Zotero or Obsidian.
- How It Went
- The note appears in Zotero when he opens it, and library search saves time on hundreds of entries. He hasn't tested having Claude write a literature review from the retrieved papers.
- Worth Knowing
- Searching your own Zotero library keeps Claude from hallucinating papers that don't exist. The setup needs the Zotero local API enabled and a database build, with a slower full-text option.
Try it yourself with Claude
Search the literature on [research topic] and find the [number] most relevant papers, following key citations from them. Write a short summary note for each paper into [Zotero library or Obsidian vault path], including title, authors, year, main findings, and how it relates to [my project]. Finish with an index note linking them all, and ask before modifying any existing notes.