Annotating/commenting on an uploaded library item

spartner

I'm new to Zotero, and joined in the hope of finding a tool where a group of collaborators can work together on creating a bibliography, and can discuss, comment, and post notes on library items that have been added by themselves or other members. However, when I click on a library item all I really see is citation data (author, journal, publisher etc). I don't see any discussion or comments. Am I missing something? Or is this not a feature of Zotero? Thanks to whoever responds!

adamsmith

items can have notes which can be used for some level of discussion. Whether people use them is another question - many people don't put their notes in groups because they are casual and private in nature (i.e. "what a moron! cf. p. 16" etc.).
At some point there was a feature for group discussion boards, but I don't know if that still exists and if not where it went.

spartner

Adamsmith, thanks for your response. So who would be able to add a note? Just the person who uploaded the item, or all group members? And can you tell me how? What I'm actually looking for is a tool whereby one group member might import an EndNote database on, say prehistoric Japan, and then all of the members would start to annotate and add comments to the citations, and we would actually discuss the published works through this exchange of comments and annotations. Ultimately we would aim to create a relatively comprehensive annotated bibliography and make it available publicly.

adamsmith

anyone can add a note - I believe it might be necessary for the admin of the group to allow for that type of editing privileges, but the group settings are pretty self explanatory. One setting that might be appropriate for you is "anyone can view, only members can edit".

The standard way to add a note would be to sync, upon which the group will show up in your client (standalone or in FF), you add the note there (add child note) and sync again, it will show up online and in other people's clients once they sync.

Alternatively, in the online group library (under groups here on the webpage) you can select an item, click on edit, then click on "add note" at the bottom of the screen.