Lean Library

kevinwilson

Hello, we had a demo from Lean Library, which is a SAGE software that integrates with library management/discovery systems and makes library collections discoverable wherever users are (e.g. outside of library platforms). They mentioned they were partnering with Zotero, and when I asked how that would work, they couldn't say (they'll send info over). They said this was going live in the next month or so. Could someone at Zotero give some more information? SAGE are just pitching the product to us - we haven't decided whether to go ahead or not - but more info about the Zotero integration could be useful. Thanks!

sean

We don't know anything about this. Zotero has no partnership with SAGE or Lean Library.

And thank you for reporting this sales pitch here. Unfortunately it's not uncommon for vendors to make false claims like this about Zotero to libraries! If you have contact info for the person doing the demo, we can reach out to ask this person to stop misrepresenting Zotero.

adamsmith

@sean they're announcing this on Twitter now: https://twitter.com/leanlibrary/status/1555214567625605121

sean

@adamsmith Thanks for letting me know. I responded:
https://twitter.com/stakats/status/1555319906979160065

tim820

The original tweet seems to have disappeared, but to be clear, Lean Library and Zotero already work perfectly well together. It's my main means of getting access to PDFs, which can then go into Zotero. The Lean browser plugin is simply a way for a university to allow its users to log into the university library's subscription content when off-campus. So that when one goes to a journal website to which one's university subscribes, the Lean browser plugin recognizes that and you are prompted to log in using your university credentials; you are then logged into the journal site as you would be on campus (no VPN is required). You can then download/read the PDF if you want. If one decides to click on the Zotero Connector, Zotero can access the article's PDF directly and save it to Zotero. So I am not sure what any 'partnership' would yield; they are already compatible.

stoicbadger

I recently heard about this and googled it. This is a how-to I found from Lean Library. https://intercom.help/lean-library/en/articles/6332882-how-do-i-use-zotero-with-the-lean-library-browser-extension

tim820

Interesting. My Lean Library setup with Zotero doesn't use any of that setup under the Lean Chrome extension's advanced settings mentioned on that page. I just had to choose my university library in the Lean browser extension's quick settings the first time I used it, and everything then worked fine for accessing journal PDFs when off-campus (requiring authentication as necessary). I just add articles/PDFs to the Zotero desktop app via the Zotero browser Connector in the usual way.

The Lean Advanced settings mentioned on that site seem to add an additional way of saving articles, but direct to one's Zotero WEB library instead. It does that by adding a right-click 'Save to Zotero via LL' to the journal article web page (assuming the Partnership link with your university is available under Advanced Settings - it's not in my case). That alternative workflow may indeed be useful to some people, if available.