Hello @Berty1

You can also try the folder import plug-in to make it easier to keep the structure of folders as collections if needed (This can also be done manually one by one)

https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-folder-import

Best Regards

Hi, DWL-SDCA and agam2222
Presently and for many years, I’ve been using Explorer of Windows. I've created several dossiers by topic. Running from politics to philosophy to technology to education to science to economy and so on. I would say that over the years, 80% of all the articles, references summary quotes etc… have been made by cut and paste, into a Word document. Then I titled located and identified per country. Each of those topics has a more specific under-file.
For example for technology of Information, I will have:
Know-how, software, research, technical, investments, history. Whitin all those, I probably have hundreds of words of documents containing hundreds of Articles, references, summaries of books, quotes, screen shut, web-references etc…
That's the way I've done it over the years. And it's the same approach that I had for each topic that I mentioned above. I could have a Word document that contained three or four articles of about 8 to 15 pages altogether, and I could have another one containing 125 to 200 pages with a few hundred articles or references and so on...
I've been looking intensively to find software that would respond to assist me to pull out, classified tags etc all those 25 years of Data that I've got. It is only by reading and doing an analysis of the Annual Report of the Education Council of our province of Quebec, and other countries That I discovered they were using Zotero! That I've decided to explore it.
Nevertheless, even if I consider myself a young, old pioneer and precursor of technology. I will have to make the effort as you mentioned to make it happen. Unfortunately, I no longer have an assistant or employees which I’ve been privileged now being retired…
Thanks again for taking the time to share and answer, I’ve been overwhelmed by the first contact on Zotero
Regards
Bert

If one looks at the whole field of "knowledge management" software (reference management software, zettelkasten/note taking apps, writing tools beyond simple word processors), the options can seem overwhelming. Especially if you already have a workflow developed over many years, that has worked well up to now. What are the benefits of changing, that will outweigh the size of the actual task of switching workflows ? Will all those apps still be around in 5 years time ?

One way to approach a proposed transition is to just take a small sub-area of your knowledge collection and copy that into Zotero. Or if undertaking a new research/writing task, use Zotero for that task from the start. If all goes well, then you can transfer your whole collection later (maybe in small chunks).

It's also a good idea to think about the structure of your library before you start. Do you want to organize collections and sub-collections in the same way you have always done it, or are there more effective structures (remembering that an item can exist in more than one collection in Zotero, without having to have make multiple copies of it) ?

Your existing library may be all divided up nicely into logical folders under your operating system. But Zotero has no need for that folder structure - it implements collections and sub-collections internally in its own way. So you will need to decide at some point if there is any need to keep the folder structure in your OS you have now. That often comes down to whether you need to access PDFs outside of Zotero very often in the future, if it all. There are ways to maintain that folder structure outside of Zotero, and make Zotero use it too, but that setup is more complex.

If you want to use tags as one powerful means of retrieving information, it is good to devise the set of tags before you start. And then add them to items as you add the items to Zotero, or do it progressively and systematically later (but adding a whole new tag system from scratch to a large Zotero library is onerous). Saved searches are also a powerful way to retrieve information, but they can be added at any time with less planning required.

The size of your file storage requirements is another consideration. Do you wish to use Zotero across more than one device ? If not, then you can just store your entire library locally on your computer (for free). If you do want access across devices, the size of your library sounds like it will exceed the 300 mb free online quota for file storage (data storage on the other hand is free). There are other ways to approach multi-device use, but they are more complex. In any case, setting things up on one device only is the easiest way to start.

As I suggested, taking a small initial step to start using Zotero for a small part of your collection first means that you can tackle these issues gradually as they arise.