Newbie - Multiple Users share one Zotero library
Hi,
I'm quite new to Zotero and we are looking for a good solution for literature handling in my university department. I understand that Zotero with Sync will provide a shared Zotero library for multiple users via the Zotero server. Where is this server hosted? On the internet or in the local network? Is there just one login to it or can it handle e.g. Windows Vista user logins?
Thanks in advance,
martin
I'm quite new to Zotero and we are looking for a good solution for literature handling in my university department. I understand that Zotero with Sync will provide a shared Zotero library for multiple users via the Zotero server. Where is this server hosted? On the internet or in the local network? Is there just one login to it or can it handle e.g. Windows Vista user logins?
Thanks in advance,
martin
The Zotero sync server is on the internet, currently hosted by GMU. It uses your Zotero forums username and password, and there is no choice for alternative AUTH. There are no plans to make a version that you can run on your own server at this time. This server syncronizes the database content, but not your files. You can sync the files over a WebDAV server of your choosing; GMU does not provide a service for this, but you can self-host or use third-party services (free or commercial). Different WebDAV servers use different AUTH mechanisms.
Currently, the sync server works for one username only. Multiple people can share a username now, of course. And there are plans to support groups of multiple users.
I work for a professor who asked me to create a database of all his citations. I've done that, and now need to figure out the best way to transfer it to him. Ideally I would like him to be able to open the library and be able to sync with Zotero with his own user name and password, rather than being stuck with the one I originally selected to create the database. Another professor I support wants me to do the same thing for her, so eventually I'd like to get this transferred to Professor A, wipe out my library, and then rebuild a new one for Professor B.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated...thank you!
Aside: I don't know about anyone else, but I'm struck that the groups feature has not been as successful as I'd expected.
How would I move items into this group library? Thanks in advance!
Just to clarify, the reason I want to empty my library is so I can build a new one for a new professor without having to drag each new reference to a specific folder or whatnot. If that's a bad idea/workflow/whatever, please feel free to let me know.
Thanks again!
why not start doing that in a new group right away?
For some reason I thought I would have to do a lot of tagging or dragging/dropping to keep everything separate, but it's about as easy as can be. I do think the documentation could be improved a little bit, though, and wonder if the group feature isn't as puzzling to other newbies as it originally seemed to me. Anyway, looks golden now, and I really appreciate all the feedback and assistance. Thank you!
Zotero Groups ties you to ZFS. While this is no problem for some, it is a problem for very many scientific organizations, whose policies on data sharing often simply forbid storing data on outside servers. The Zotero Server code has not materialized in any mass-usable form yet.
Web interface is virtually unusable. There is no sorting. It is not possible to customize the displayed columns. Various pages make no distinction between items and attachments (confusing). The Group homepage is ill-organized. It takes too many clicks to get to individual items and to attachments. It takes way too many clicks to add members to closed groups, whereas this is one of the most common actions for group admins. Group Settings page is ill-organized (for example, why is Transfer ownership so prominent whereas Inviting new members is hidden under a "Send new invitations" text link at the bottom (and yes, in a hacked place at the top)).
Client interface could be much improved too. Why are collections expanded by default? This makes the interface unusable if you have more than a few groups. Plus it's impossible to collapse all subcollections at once — and expanding all groups after collapsing them at the "Group Libraries" level makes all subcollections expand again. Groups cannot be sorted in the client (and how they are sorted in the first place is unclear). Dragging and dropping collections is awkward/impossible. Even though from the start on there has been talk of an invisible "link" between local items and group items, there is no actually still no way to keep them synced: changes made in a group have no effect on the local item nor vice versa.
I say this all as a user of the Groups feature. It has taken me a lot of energy to explain all these quirks to colleagues and collaborators, and several of them have chosen to stay away from the Groups feature because of these quirks. It would be great if the web interface could finally be overhauled with some attention to usability and accessibility, and if the client UI could be improved.
And we know why-- there aren't enough developers to go 'round. I'd encourage people to donate to CHNM to hire more developers, but I wonder if that has much chance of improving the situation.
Maybe someone will indeed set up some Zotero bounties for some of these issues? I imagine that users would pony up $500-1000 dollars for some of the medium-sized issues, if the bounties were advertised. And there must be some people with the time to work on them.
My hope is that the web interface has been frozen because there is a new interface to join Zotero Everywhere waiting in the wings; there really would have to be a much more flexible interface if it is to make the online experience roughly equivalent to the plugin/standalone one.
[An alternate explanation is that plugins, styles, and translators have a shorter and more transparent route to the user community / release, so they provide a good way for user-developers to scratch their itches; immediate gratification, as it were.]
Anyway, I do think that we are seeing a more healthy developer community today than when I started to use Zotero two short years ago in fall 2008, so we're moving in the right direction.
1. Set up a group
2. Create - manually - collections with the same name (same name isn't necessary - I'm just thinking it makes sense) as the ones in your library that you want to share in the group
3. Go to the collections in your library, selects all (ctrl+a) items and drag them to the corresponding collection in the group
4. sync
5. Set up a Zotero account for your professor and invite her/him to join the group.
6. Have her/him sync.