Read-only sync mode?

andre

This is a use case I have in mind: some (group of) people own the zotero database (think librarians) but share it read-only with many others (think students). Or just imagine that some review process is required before entries are added to a shared database.

The "others" can see both the shared database and their own local database when using zotero.

Is this kind of operation going to be supported in the foreseeable future?

Sorry if this is documented.

dstillman

Many different sorts of sharing configurations, including the kind of read-only sharing you describe, will be possible as we roll out additional server-based features along with Zotero 2.0. See the development roadmap for a rough overview.

The sync functionality in 1.5 is meant to provide full synchronization of the primary database on multiple machines, which is a different use case.

andre

Thanks for that. The roadmap is fairly terse so its a bit hard to tell what usage models have been considered.

I can also see a case for having a thin "back-end" database interface spec to allow institutions to roll their own zotero compatible servers or wrap existing database servers.

It is nice that a server is publicly available but it is not going to suit everyone.

willsmithorg

As far as I can tell, this functionality does not yet exist, please correct me if wrong. I am hoping to maintain a library on behalf of someone who is relatively computer illiterate. So I want to changes to my library to regularly synchronize on their computer, but they cannot themself make changes.

adamsmith

Will - that can absolutely be done with a group with appropriately set privileges.