Upgrade StorageAnyone have experience using Zotero as a slip box, zettelkasten, or smart notes?
I am looking for a good note taking system and came across the concept of Zettelkasten or slip box or sometimes referred to as smart notes. The basic premise is that when you have notes you put them on an index card and label them in such a way that they're not really categorized, but more hierarchical and linear in terms of your thought pattern. One important aspect is that you can link them like a wiki would. I'm still learning about it so my apologies if I kind of butchered that explanation.
My initial thought is to have separate collections, one for the "slip box" which would function like a digital note card box and another collection for the citations of books, articles, etc. I read with their note attached directly to them. I would then eventually move or rewrite those notes in away that fits the slip box method and put them in that collection. I like Zotero because I can tag and use the "Related" function to link back to other notes and sources, like the entire system wants you to do.
When I've looked online for practical examples of this method in Zotero, I only find examples of people using it for their literature citations and notes, not as the actual slip box to collect notes without necessarily having a citation to go with it. I'm wondering why? Does anyone have some experience or long term use regarding something like this? Thanks!
Edit: I should also say that I would probably keep my short term notes that are more temporary in something like Google Keep. If they prove worthwhile long term, I'll add them to my slip box. I also spend most of my time working in Google Chrome and Google Apps like Drive and Docs. That's why I like Zotero.
My initial thought is to have separate collections, one for the "slip box" which would function like a digital note card box and another collection for the citations of books, articles, etc. I read with their note attached directly to them. I would then eventually move or rewrite those notes in away that fits the slip box method and put them in that collection. I like Zotero because I can tag and use the "Related" function to link back to other notes and sources, like the entire system wants you to do.
When I've looked online for practical examples of this method in Zotero, I only find examples of people using it for their literature citations and notes, not as the actual slip box to collect notes without necessarily having a citation to go with it. I'm wondering why? Does anyone have some experience or long term use regarding something like this? Thanks!
Edit: I should also say that I would probably keep my short term notes that are more temporary in something like Google Keep. If they prove worthwhile long term, I'll add them to my slip box. I also spend most of my time working in Google Chrome and Google Apps like Drive and Docs. That's why I like Zotero.
So I guess there is a way.
Zotero has some advantages such as
Open-source and cross-platform. Works very well on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Integration with LibreOffice, LyX, Word, and Google Docs.
Automatically senses research on the web. One-click download.
Tag suggestions from existing list; tag pane to find related items.
Manual addition of related items (links between notes and backlinks).
Foldable collections, nested collections, and sub-collections of parent items.
Multiple criteria for sorting standalone notes or along with parent items.
Excellent advanced search including full text of pdfs with Zotxt plugin, and smart saved searches.
Zotero is highly customizable and has a number of high quality, very useful add-ons or plug-ins, especially Zotfile, Zotxt, Zutilo, Report Customizer and BetterBibTeX.
Group library (incl. Notes and, optionally, files) can be created by drag and drop from your Library or collections and shared with collaborators using Zotero.org’s free service.
Database (and notes) can be synced across devices using your account on Zotero.org’s free server.
Import and export entire database to and from a wide range of formats.
Excellent documentation and support, and continuous development.
Many of these strengths, though, do not relate to Zotero's note-taking capabilities. A number of sites list Zotero as note-taking software, but, since it was not specifically designed for that purpose, it lacks some features that are common in dedicated note-taking apps. In particular, Zotero lacks support for adding timestamps, reordering items and notes within its collections tree, and exporting notes (and their metadata).
However, with Zotero you can set up a workflow to satisfy the main requirements that enable efficient note-taking: atomicity, unique naming, links to other notes, and tags or keywords, and being able to find notes easily and organize them usefully.
Here is a link to a guide I wrote describing the workflow and workarounds I developed to use Zotero for slip-box or zettelkasten style note-taking. You may find that Apple's internal timestamp shortcut is out of date, but I have described how to make your own. If you find them of use, you will probably want to customize the templates I provided.
https://ontologicalblog.com/note-taking-with-zotero/
There is also a link to my guide for note-taking with zotero-5.0.97-beta
I also tried Google Keep but didn't like how the notes were displayed a the lack of linking on mobile was an issue as well. It just wasn't conducive to me though it is possible. I mainly use Google Keep now to store short terms notes, reminders, and to handle my DVD, Book, and Music collections so when I'm out shopping or find new things I want, I can quickly see if I have it and/or add it to a wishlist. It functions more like a pocket notebook for me to jot down quick ideas and notes until I can get to them later.
This past couple weeks I've found myself back in Zotero with my notes. I felt that using Google Drive and Docs was fairly time intensive linking and the lack of tagging in Drive was a problem too. I had to create an Index doc and using headers for my tags, put the note titles under each header they belonged. It was taking some time to add new notes. So I'm back to Zotero and finding your post here was insightful. I still am not sure how I feel about keeping my notes in Zotero since they are not plain text. I thought about using something like Simplenote since it is markdown and can be exported in plain text and has a mobile and web application. However, I find I prefer keeping my bibliography/sources and my notes in one spot. It is just so much nicer in my opinion to have piece of software to go to. For the time being, I am really going to focus on just using Zotero (I switch software far too often and spend too much time moving notes and setting up a process than I do actually doing research and learning). I'll back up my Zotero database and everything I can and go from there. I'm sure your document will be helpful as I learn more about using Zotero for note taking and my sources. Thanks!
In the end, I went with Zettlr which is primarily a Markdown editor that can also function quite well as a zettelkasten. The advantage is that the files are text-based so can be edited by any text editor. Zettlr just happens to also have nice features for rendering and exporting the text to various formats. It can also look at the output of Zotero to gather in and use the citation info. Primarily, the Citation Key provides the key piece of info to link the two applications.
I do this by using Better BibTex (BBT), which can not only generate citation keys but also export to various formats. Zettlr can use JSON or BibTeX - I use BibTeX due to a long association with LaTeX (30+ years; I even wrote my own .fmt back in the day...). The key point is that BBT can keep the BibTeX (or JSON) files updated so that Zettlr always works with the latest info. So, BBT auto-updates a single .bib file that both my LaTeX and Zettlr implementations can look at, while full control of the citation info stays in Zotero.
It's an extra step, but the logical clarity of using applications doing what they were designed to do is well worth it.
Just my $0.02.
I now use Zettlr for writing longer pieces, while Obsidian is the new Digital ZK. And yes, as @AndrewRRM noted, both can look at the same directory of flat .md files, which is very nice indeed.