For a number of years, I have been looking for a software that would do what I will describe hereafter. My question to you is «Is Zotero it?»
My domain is History and for me a history book is just one way of organizing and giving meaning to some of the pieces of the History puzzle. For me, each of these pieces is made of some or all of the following building blocks: theme, event, action, time, location, actor(s) and source. An author will pick and arrange these building blocks to develop and support his point of view, giving meaning to them. Now, as a reader, we may agree or disagree with a particular arrangement and may wish to rearrange blocks our way, removing some, adding some, thus presenting another meaning, another possibility. So what I would like to do is to explode books into their constituting blocks and to create a database that would allow me to look at these blocks along timelines, eventlines, locationlines, actorlines and sourcelines. Then, I would like to build a virtual space where I could simulate and test different timelines and so on. Of course, notes, tags, pictures could be attached to each building block, each with a link to its source. So, can Zotero do it? And if not, what can? Merci. Thank you.
Pierre