Upgrade StorageTimes cited (locally) column, warning on delete, owner of reference column
Hi!
My suggestions are mainly concerning the easier use of groups. We have created a group for our lab, which is extremely usefull for cooperation and if somebody proof-reads a manuscript, but poses some risks and problems, when many people have access to perform changes.
The first suggestions, which would be usefull without groups also, I believe, is to add a database entry and a corresponding column which counts, how many times a reference has been cited using the Word or OpenOffice plugin. This would be very important. The problem is as follows: When you want to clean up the Library, you would propably not want to delete an item that you or others have cited, because the reference would not work in the document anymore. Also, if somebody adds the same reference again, and you want to delete duplicates later, how do you know which one is in use and which one can be deleted safely. This might also be helpfull if a merging duplicates feature is planed in the future, because it might be easier to decide which reference to use as base.
Accordingly, there should be a special warning on deleting a reference, if it has been cited in a document already.
Another field in the database should store the person who made the reference. With many people in the lab, and some students only being there for the rather short time of their diploma or doctoral thesis, the group library might get filled with references, that nobody else might need in the future because they are only relevant for one project. Even when buying a lot of space for the library, it might get filled way to quickly. Besides, you might wish to contact the person who added the reference if you are interested in this topic, because he or she might already know more about it than you.
What do you think? Or didn't I see that there already are comparable possibilities?
Milan
My suggestions are mainly concerning the easier use of groups. We have created a group for our lab, which is extremely usefull for cooperation and if somebody proof-reads a manuscript, but poses some risks and problems, when many people have access to perform changes.
The first suggestions, which would be usefull without groups also, I believe, is to add a database entry and a corresponding column which counts, how many times a reference has been cited using the Word or OpenOffice plugin. This would be very important. The problem is as follows: When you want to clean up the Library, you would propably not want to delete an item that you or others have cited, because the reference would not work in the document anymore. Also, if somebody adds the same reference again, and you want to delete duplicates later, how do you know which one is in use and which one can be deleted safely. This might also be helpfull if a merging duplicates feature is planed in the future, because it might be easier to decide which reference to use as base.
Accordingly, there should be a special warning on deleting a reference, if it has been cited in a document already.
Another field in the database should store the person who made the reference. With many people in the lab, and some students only being there for the rather short time of their diploma or doctoral thesis, the group library might get filled with references, that nobody else might need in the future because they are only relevant for one project. Even when buying a lot of space for the library, it might get filled way to quickly. Besides, you might wish to contact the person who added the reference if you are interested in this topic, because he or she might already know more about it than you.
What do you think? Or didn't I see that there already are comparable possibilities?
Milan
I think that some of the issues here will be resolved when the word processor plugins start embedding all their item metadata, so that items can be imported from Zotero-produced documents... Metadata embedding is, I think, on the roadmap for the word processor plugins.