Advice on multilingual libraries
For a big project we are starting, we'd once again like to use JURIS-M, which - I take it - is the successor to MLZ (Multilingual Zotero), especially now that it has also been updated to the 5.0 version. The main reason for that is that we want to be able to quote the original Russian source we will be using; and that the main trunk of Zotero doesn't - alas - offer that functionality. [I have noted before how I find it absolutely irresponsible that the international scholarly community continues to tolerate NON-multilingual citations, but I'll leave that rant aside] And BTW - the reason why we still want to keep using the regular Zotero, is because we'd like to be able to use various incredibly useful add-ons like Zotfile, which presumably will not work on JM.
I'd appreciate it if people could provide us with some advice on a few points:
- is it possible to run both programs on the same computer with both of them using the same Zotero data folder? I guess not, because of the different fields used in both programs, etc. But I still wanted to ask the question, because Frank mentioned somewhere that these different data schemes do somehow get normalized in the syncing process - so I don't see why that same process could not be done locally between the two 'trunks' of Zotero;
- are there any remaining issues on using Zotero/JM in documents in collaborative teams in which some members are using different trunk? (see also the discussion here);
- where do things stand now with (preferably automatically) transliterated fields in JM? (see a previous discussion on this here);
- any other caveats or do's/don'ts?
It's great to see that JM continues to 'play nice' with Zotero. I have asked many times before why Zotero itself could not include some of the very useful (at least for us - and we're not lawyers...) additional functionalities that JM offers. Both Dan and Frank claim that it's technically too hard. In my, infinitely less informed, view, it seems like Frank keeps proving that it IS possible, because his trunks DO work. But anyway, since:
- there are two different programs out there now;
- they both offer some disctinct functionalities that at least some of us find useful; and
- since they still 'play nice' with each other -
it would still be extremely useful to get some concrete pointers on how those of us who want the best of both worlds should proceed.
Thanks!
I don't have answers to the other questions. @fbennett would be in the best position to chime in.
The problem btw. is not so much that it's technically "too hard" to integrate juris-m into Zotero but that it's massively ambitious to reintegrate many, many thousands of lines of code back into regular Zotero and there are just no resources to do that.
jurism.sqlite
, while Zotero data is held inzotero.sqlite
. If both are synced to the same Zotero account, they will contain the same data. Juris-M records will show some machine-speak code in the Extra field when viewed in Zotero, and you shouldn't touch that, but that should be the only limitation.And as to a potential future merger - I still hope somebody will provide some funding for this. If there's ever a potential funder, please let me know, and I will write a glowing (and substantiated!) recommendation...
As Frank notes there, support for additional fields might go a little ways to address some of this within Zotero itself, perhaps paired with some externally maintained data files. But I don't think it's realistic to expect much beyond that.