[suggestion] Better Discovery

edited March 10, 2024
It is exciting to see the progress on the new beta with notes, ebooks, etc. The ability to search collections sounds good.

I am writing to suggest strategic improvements to discovery features in Zotero. I appreciate the majority user base will always have smaller libraries and simpler needs, but the growth of use is research and teaching, which will also bring new users, will be limited by the ability to control and navigate large collections. One wants to have a group per class iteration, per project with external collaborators, per research unit, etc. The complexity grows and better discovery (and management) tools would really help.

Some basic suggestions:

1. The search that works across groups, can be directed to search collections of groups, displays metadata about groups.
2. The search that allows the use of all fields and data for searching, integration of this into the Saved Search, with awareness of groups.
3. Documentation and examples for more sophisticated searching in the SQL database and via scripts.
4. Some simple dynamic statistics and, especially, lists as an output of Saved Searches, plus the ability to export the results or save as reports or notes.

Do other users with groups or large databases have further suggestions? We could try for an aggregate list.

Existing relevant discussions:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/453952#Comment_453952
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/108773/capacity-to-search-across-profiles-or-groups/p1
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/47107/searching-across-all-group-libraries#latest
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/444689#Comment_444689
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/96069/note-management-in-group-settings#latest
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/77753/more-powerful-saved-searches#latest
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/75725/how-to-add-an-added-by-column-to-zotero-desktop#latest
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/111777/zotero-7-beta-filtering-collections#latest
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/111803/how-do-you-apply-boolean-operators-to-a-search#latest
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/111773/searching-for-empty-fields#latest
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/112616/feedback-on-zoteros-search-functionality/p1
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/112534/suggestions-for-enhancing-the-advanced-search/p1
  • Some of the linked threads have fine suggestions, but an aggregate list of tenuously related feature requests isn't really that helpful. Any discussions for these things should happen in their respective threads, with concrete examples.
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