Zotero for group use - small non-profit organization

I work in a small research department of a small non-profit organization.I have used Zotero for my personal reference management needs, and am trying to figure out if/how to make this work for our organization. We have about 5-10 people who are regular users of various sets of references, and there is a lot of overlap between them.

I would like to set up a reference manager system that would continue if/when any single individual (such as myself) leaves the organization. Can I set up an account for the organization, and use the share library function for individual people? Can an organization, rather than an individual, be the "owner" of a library? If an individual has to be an owner, can that person transfer ownership to someone else?
  • Yes, you can definitely have an organizational account be the owner of a Group library. In fact, we strongly recommend this (and being sure that at least two people know the login details) in case of employee turnover. Any storage for file attachments only counts against the group owner's quota, so you would only need to pay for file attachment storage space for the organization account.
  • I can say, that I miss some function for "institutional account". For example, an item in My library can be "linked" to the different collections; but it is still one record and changes of them are viewed in all collections. But if I have the same item in the two group then these are two nonlinked records. Changing of one in the first group is not synchronised to the second group. (Or I am wrong?)
    I would like to have something like "institutional account" with "employers/personal collections" and "group collections". Administrator of an institutional account see all items in all collections, (optionally) see a log of each record's changes and can setup rights (which employer/personal account can read/write/edit) for individual collections. Notes and tags in employers/personal collections are strictly personal but notes and tags in the group collection are visible or editable for all members of this group. If I have an item in the two separate group collections then the notes and tags from one collection are not showed in the second collection, but changes in metadata or in related documents should by synchronised through the collections. A user with employer/personal account can decide which notes and tags will be synchronised between two collections. Specific rules I see for attachments. The main document (including supplementary materials) should be shown in all collections, but all others attachments should have similar rules as notes and tags.
  • edited June 23, 2017
    bwiernik's is the relevant answer here — use group libraries owned by an institutional account, with an email address that will survive somebody leaving. @LiborA, what you're describing is a separate issue, not specific to institutions, about general handling of items dragged between libraries. Improvements in that area are definitely planned — it's a valid shortcoming — but there are other threads on this that would be better places to discuss those details.
  • Would the annual cost be $120 for unlimited storage (the individual user amount) or would it be n users * $120 (I'm looking at the starter package costs; n users is < 25)?
  • As long as you only need unlimited storage for the group library (or libraries: in my group we have a public and a private one, for example), it's just $120 for the group owner's account -- running Zotero for labs or small working groups is indeed super cheap.

    And since that's usually the next question: yes, everyone else can have a free account and can still add and sync unlimited files to and from the group.
  • A zotero account is mostly the login details, so in terms of features and functionality, there is nothing unique about individual or organizational accounts. Right @dstillman ? If you create an account linked to a non-personal email id (e.g. myresearchgroup@somedomain.com) and share the password with a few trusted people, then that's like an organizational account.

    Yes, you can transfer ownership, if it ever comes to that.
  • Thanks - this has been really helpful.
  • A zotero account is mostly the login details, so in terms of features and functionality, there is nothing unique about individual or organizational accounts. Right @dstillman ?
    Yes, that's right. There's nothing that makes the account "institutional" beyond your internal handling of it. Zotero doesn't know the difference.
  • How can my organization transfer the ownership of a Group library from one person to another? The original creator/owner has left, and I can't find instructions on how to switch. We are in contact, so I have asked the creator for how-to's. In the meantime, we also now need to invite more people to join the group, but the "manage members" feature is not visible when I log in. Is this feature limited to access only by the group owner?

    I have searched through this Forum, and cannot find the info I need. Thanks in advance for assistance any of you can offer.

    Thank you.
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