Upgrade StorageComplicated(?) use case, not sure best strategy for solving
I work in an office where we have a shared hard drive on a server for collaborative work, and work that needs to be accessible to anyone (e.g. leadership). I and a colleague are pushing to have folks start using zotero, instead of the current system of PDFs in folders but no reference management software.
I feel pretty confident that a group library is going to be the best way to share the office's set of references (i.e. those already on our shared drive, in a folder called "references"). However, the group system doesn't allow for file management, as in file name management, as it doesn't allow linking to files. We have wayyy too many files to actually share them through the Zotero syncing, as we could never afford the amount of storage we'd need to pull this off. We also don't really need to sync files over the web, because we already have a shared file drive.
I'm hoping for some feedback/ideas on how to manage all the files on our server drive. I was thinking we should create an office zotero account to be managed by a few admins, who could be responsible for going into zotero and adding the (4500 to start with) files that are on the drive and cleaning up file names and bibliographic information. However, I'm not totally clear on how they would be able to switch back and forth between this "office" account and their personal account. Is that even possible?
The other reason this could be desireable is that then this office account would manage the group library, instead of my colleague or I, although I understand ownership can swap...so this is a secondary concern, but still relevant.
Please let me know if I need to clarify any of this! Thanks!
I feel pretty confident that a group library is going to be the best way to share the office's set of references (i.e. those already on our shared drive, in a folder called "references"). However, the group system doesn't allow for file management, as in file name management, as it doesn't allow linking to files. We have wayyy too many files to actually share them through the Zotero syncing, as we could never afford the amount of storage we'd need to pull this off. We also don't really need to sync files over the web, because we already have a shared file drive.
I'm hoping for some feedback/ideas on how to manage all the files on our server drive. I was thinking we should create an office zotero account to be managed by a few admins, who could be responsible for going into zotero and adding the (4500 to start with) files that are on the drive and cleaning up file names and bibliographic information. However, I'm not totally clear on how they would be able to switch back and forth between this "office" account and their personal account. Is that even possible?
The other reason this could be desireable is that then this office account would manage the group library, instead of my colleague or I, although I understand ownership can swap...so this is a secondary concern, but still relevant.
Please let me know if I need to clarify any of this! Thanks!
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Just looking at the literature folder on our share drive, it's currently 15.6 GB. Is the file storage truly unlimited? We have a lot of old scanned documents that probably explain some of the hugeness, but also lots of reports and grey lit with big maps and photographs.
That said it sounds like multiple profiles might solve at least part of the problem. I could create a second profile and library and use it to clean up the references. I could add all the references from our shared folder and allow zotero to link to the original file, then use that link to rename files so they all follow the same convention. I could then create a group library with all of this, and when we're done dealing with the backlog, transfer ownership of that library to someone else in the office. Unless there is an easier way to rename the files and I just haven't come across it yet. :)
The other thing we are trying to think through is can we move forward testing the group library and then decide to figure out the file naming and organization backend part later. I think the steps I just listed above might break things a bit, but probably not horribly so. People not using zotero much might not even notice that the library suddenly changed. So maybe it would work if we were careful.
One recommendation I would have given my experience working with larger organizations is to set up one "institutional account" (i.e. simply a regular Zotero account that belongs to the organization rather than an individual) that owns all groups (if you end up using groups) or the personal library rather than using someone's personal account. There are many examples where people left organizations without transferring group ownership which is always a mess.
To set up a single account, do I need to obtain a unique email address, or can I have 2 accounts with my company account?