Upgrade StorageDifferences between "Create New Item" and "Save to Zotero"
I'm experimenting with Zotero for legal research, and it looks very promising. My office is looking for a tool to be able to annotate, highlight and keep track of legal cases available in web-based legal databases.
One thing I’m not quite sure about is the difference between "Create New Item from Current Page", using the button in the Zotero pane, and "Save to Zotero", using the book icon button in the Firefox location bar. They both create a new item in Zotero, from the same resource, but the information that gets into the database will be substantially different depending on which method the user chooses. I’m assuming that the citation information is ‘better’, as it is additional information about the content itself, rather than just about the web page. There may be situations where one would explicitly _not_ want to capture the additional citation information, but it seems to me that would be a special case.
(I've read through the current discussions about snapshots and parent items and recognize that this is likely one of those things in active development in terms of the developing UI).
I am currently experimenting using Zotero researching legal decisions on CanLII (www.canlii.org), the Canadian Legal Information Institute website, which has an extensive collection of Canadian court and tribunal decisions. I want to be able to add annotations and highlights to the decisions, which means I always need a snapshot. Most CanLII decisions are provided in HTML and PDF. CanLII is "Zotero Compatible", so its decisions will have the Zotero book icon show up in the location bar.
Example: Here is a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal:
1162994 Ontario Inc. v. Bakker, 2004 CanLII 60019 (ON C.A.)
http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2004/2004canlii60019/2004canlii60019.html
Clicking on the book icon in the location bar is “smarter”, e.g., it knows the web page is a “Case”, and puts the relevant citation information into more or less the right places, captures the “Title” of the Case properly with the names of the parties, and (if set to do so in preferences), will also save the PDF copy. The translator does appear to need to be tweaked to properly separate out the components of the citation (year, court, counsel), though I assume that may be a limitation of the data from CanLII. I don’t get an automatic snapshot, but can add one manually so I can annotate/highlight the decision.
I could also have clicked on the “Create New Item from Current Page” icon in the Zotero pane; downside is that this doesn’t see the citation information I get if I click on the above, it identifies the page as a Web Page only rather than a case, the title used by Zotero will be the web title (in CanLII’s case, the citation only, without the names of the parties). The only advantage is that it gives me the automatic snapshot, but now I have to go and edit the information just as if it were a page without the citation information.
The difference between the two won’t be readily apparent to many users, so what will happen is some will click on one, others will click on the other, and the information captured will be inconsistent.
So, if a page contains citation information that Zotero can identify (e.g., it has the “book” icon in the location bar), shouldn’t that information be used whether the "Save to Zotero" book icon or the “Create New Item” icon is clicked?
It would be great for Zotero to have one primary button to add an item to the database that would use the “best available information”, and would give access to all the features of Zotero (annotations, highlights, notes). This would seem to promote consistency in the content of the database, and make it easier for users, particularly those collaborating on projects, to capture information consistently.
One thing I’m not quite sure about is the difference between "Create New Item from Current Page", using the button in the Zotero pane, and "Save to Zotero", using the book icon button in the Firefox location bar. They both create a new item in Zotero, from the same resource, but the information that gets into the database will be substantially different depending on which method the user chooses. I’m assuming that the citation information is ‘better’, as it is additional information about the content itself, rather than just about the web page. There may be situations where one would explicitly _not_ want to capture the additional citation information, but it seems to me that would be a special case.
(I've read through the current discussions about snapshots and parent items and recognize that this is likely one of those things in active development in terms of the developing UI).
I am currently experimenting using Zotero researching legal decisions on CanLII (www.canlii.org), the Canadian Legal Information Institute website, which has an extensive collection of Canadian court and tribunal decisions. I want to be able to add annotations and highlights to the decisions, which means I always need a snapshot. Most CanLII decisions are provided in HTML and PDF. CanLII is "Zotero Compatible", so its decisions will have the Zotero book icon show up in the location bar.
Example: Here is a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal:
1162994 Ontario Inc. v. Bakker, 2004 CanLII 60019 (ON C.A.)
http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2004/2004canlii60019/2004canlii60019.html
Clicking on the book icon in the location bar is “smarter”, e.g., it knows the web page is a “Case”, and puts the relevant citation information into more or less the right places, captures the “Title” of the Case properly with the names of the parties, and (if set to do so in preferences), will also save the PDF copy. The translator does appear to need to be tweaked to properly separate out the components of the citation (year, court, counsel), though I assume that may be a limitation of the data from CanLII. I don’t get an automatic snapshot, but can add one manually so I can annotate/highlight the decision.
I could also have clicked on the “Create New Item from Current Page” icon in the Zotero pane; downside is that this doesn’t see the citation information I get if I click on the above, it identifies the page as a Web Page only rather than a case, the title used by Zotero will be the web title (in CanLII’s case, the citation only, without the names of the parties). The only advantage is that it gives me the automatic snapshot, but now I have to go and edit the information just as if it were a page without the citation information.
The difference between the two won’t be readily apparent to many users, so what will happen is some will click on one, others will click on the other, and the information captured will be inconsistent.
So, if a page contains citation information that Zotero can identify (e.g., it has the “book” icon in the location bar), shouldn’t that information be used whether the "Save to Zotero" book icon or the “Create New Item” icon is clicked?
It would be great for Zotero to have one primary button to add an item to the database that would use the “best available information”, and would give access to all the features of Zotero (annotations, highlights, notes). This would seem to promote consistency in the content of the database, and make it easier for users, particularly those collaborating on projects, to capture information consistently.
As you note, after saving via a translator that doesn't include snapshot support, you can always right-click on the item and add a snapshot of the current page.
I do not think it would be a good idea to have the "create item" button work exactly like the url-icon where a translator exists. That means less user control and redundancy.
I also don't think it would be a good idea to just have one button:
Either that button would be in the URL bar - but then it would be a lot harder to tell if there is actually a Zotero tanslator for a given page - or it would be where the "Create New Item" button is - but that means opening Zotero for every import. I don't like either option very much.
EDIT: So basically what Dan says. Writing this overlapped.