Upgrade Storagegroup library for institution
After having been extensively using Zotero for myself I would like to use it for the research group in my institution (~50 - 100 people). However, I will first need to resolve some open questions and evaluate some features to see whether it meets our requirements.
The idea was to create one big group library with unlimited storage which is then accessible by all the users.
My particular questions:
1) Does Zotero perform well with large group libraries (1'000 to 10'000 items each)? Is there any decrease in reaction time or other performance decreases to be expected? My current local library has 1'000 items and I have never experienced the slightest problem.
2) (Very pessimistically) assuming that over the years we have a library with some GB - let's say 20 GB - of PDFs. Can we avoid that each user will need 20 GB of local storage in order to sync the library?
In other words, is there a setting such that only the library metadata but NOT the files are synced (and that the specific files are only synced once accessed by the user)?
I've tried to look for an answer here but without success: https://www.zotero.org/support/sync
3) Is there a possibility to deploy a Zotero installer (for Win, OSX and Linux) with a specific configuration to "force" all users to start with the same configuration?
4) Is it really not possible to create a "Saved Search" inside a Collection e.g. like a "Sub-Collection"? So far I have only managed to create a "Sub-Collection" but no "Sub-Saved Search". This feature would be extremely handy...
5) Is there a way of "exporting" all library items into a folder and formatting each item with a specific pattern? In other words I would like to have a folder where we have all our PDFs named like "AuthorName - Year - Title.pdf". It could also be a folder with symbolic links to the original files.
I know this is possible using ZotFile for the local "My Library" but I couldn't find this feature for group libraries...
Besides, is it possible to do this automatically e.g. from a client running on a server which does this every hour automatically?
6) There is this great feature to "create bibliography from collection/saved search". Is it possible to do this automatically? Again, e.g. on a client running on a server which does this once a day or upon request?
Thank you very much in advance for your help resolving these questions!
Fab
The idea was to create one big group library with unlimited storage which is then accessible by all the users.
My particular questions:
1) Does Zotero perform well with large group libraries (1'000 to 10'000 items each)? Is there any decrease in reaction time or other performance decreases to be expected? My current local library has 1'000 items and I have never experienced the slightest problem.
2) (Very pessimistically) assuming that over the years we have a library with some GB - let's say 20 GB - of PDFs. Can we avoid that each user will need 20 GB of local storage in order to sync the library?
In other words, is there a setting such that only the library metadata but NOT the files are synced (and that the specific files are only synced once accessed by the user)?
I've tried to look for an answer here but without success: https://www.zotero.org/support/sync
3) Is there a possibility to deploy a Zotero installer (for Win, OSX and Linux) with a specific configuration to "force" all users to start with the same configuration?
4) Is it really not possible to create a "Saved Search" inside a Collection e.g. like a "Sub-Collection"? So far I have only managed to create a "Sub-Collection" but no "Sub-Saved Search". This feature would be extremely handy...
5) Is there a way of "exporting" all library items into a folder and formatting each item with a specific pattern? In other words I would like to have a folder where we have all our PDFs named like "AuthorName - Year - Title.pdf". It could also be a folder with symbolic links to the original files.
I know this is possible using ZotFile for the local "My Library" but I couldn't find this feature for group libraries...
Besides, is it possible to do this automatically e.g. from a client running on a server which does this every hour automatically?
6) There is this great feature to "create bibliography from collection/saved search". Is it possible to do this automatically? Again, e.g. on a client running on a server which does this once a day or upon request?
Thank you very much in advance for your help resolving these questions!
Fab
2) Yes -- set File sync to "as needed" as described here: https://www.zotero.org/support/preferences/sync#file_syncing
3) Don't know -- I believe it's possible but not completely trivial.
4) No -- frequently requested feature and will likely be introduced at some point (but that may still be a good while out), but currently you can't organize saved searches
5) Not from zotero proper, but you can set up a saved search on your operating system that should be able to do just that
6) There might be other options, but I'd use the server API and a cron job on a (python) script that does this.
Thank you very much for your prompt and helpful reply!
I've started using pyzotero to solve 6) and could also overcome 4) by dynamically updating collections using a Python script.
Works great!
Thanks a lot,
Fabian