Share a collection, not an entire library?

tilmaniac

I am trying to share a collection of references (a subset of a library) with a collaborator.

I want my collaborator to have read-only access to these references. We have created a "new group" but this requires that all the references I have in my own library to be duplicated in this new library. Instead of the duplication I would just like to have my collaborator have a read-only view of a set of papers that relate to our shared project without having to add them to my library as well as the shared one.

Is this possible without duplicating all the entries in the Zotero database?

adamsmith

no. The group is the only way to go.

kerim

Too bad. It would be very useful to be able to "publish" a collection which other people could follow and import but not be collaborators on. Mendeley has this feature, but I prefer using Zotero.

adamsmith

I believe more fine-tuned sharing is planned for Zotero.
Also, you can limit access to groups for the public to view, not edit.

justmikejust

Really, I can just share an entire library. I currently have a library with about two dozen collections in it. I've just created a new group with a colleague and was hoping to just drag-and-drop one of the collections (folders) in my library over to the group library. It sounds as though this is not yet possible?

mronkko2

No, not possible at the moment.

You need to create a grou and drag and drop that collection there.

dstillman

I've just created a new group with a colleague and was hoping to just drag-and-drop one of the collections (folders) in my library over to the group library.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, yes, you can do exactly this. (That's not what this thread is about, which I think confused mronkko.)

gschrock

Hi, has there been any progress on the "fine-tuned sharing" front? I'm very interested in this. Like others, I am interested in having more intermediate options for sharing my library, beyond: sharing with nobody vs. sharing with everybody in the world (which I find problematic for a number of reasons), and using group libraries. The group libraries are very helpful for certain applications but I'd like to be able to give particular followers "the keys" to my library (and vice versa).

mark

There is a fairly detailed proposal on roles for groups here but so far I haven't seen developers weigh in on the issue in any detail. Clearly many users are hoping for more sophisticated collaboration options.

gschrock

OK, but that still only deals with groups. What it seems like a lot of us are asking for is the ability to share our libraries (not our groups) with a more select group (e.g., only those following us), rather than the "everybody/nobody" option.

mronkko

gschrock: Your comment about groups and libraries does not make sense. A group and a library are basically the same thing. You need to clarify what you mean. Do you mean that you want to share collections from your "My Library"?

gschrock

I want to be able to share my entire library more selectively. Right now, under the Privacy settings, there is an option to "Publish entire library." All I'm suggesting is that there by an intermediate option (or two), such as making the library available only to followers, or even to allow you to individually select users for access (since anyone can follow you without your consent). The "publish entire library (to everyone)" function seems really problematic to me, especially since many of us keep copyrighted material in our storage space.

It would be nice to be able to share individual collections, but I realize that would be a qualitatively different functionality than currently exists. That would be much easier than setting up groups, which have a particular purpose and do not automatically synchronize with your individual library.

mronkko

I see what you mean. So you want a more control in publishing your "My Library", and this request has nothing to do with groups. This makes sense, and you should probably post to the feature requests forum about this.

Part of my confusion was caused by the fact that this thread discussed groups, but your request was unrelated to those.

dandylion77

cant believe this remains to be an issue since 2012. I should be able to simply share individual collections (and their sub-collections) with my research group. Dragging a collection to a group's library is not useful at all because they (the original collection and its copy in the group library) then become two separate entities and they do not sync! and no one wants to bother with manually syncing them

mikelemus

share collection without using groups would be really useful

sdflewrit783

+1