Upgrade StorageKeep local storage in place even if online storage is implemented
Lots of users have been requesting some form of online storage with Zotero, and I agree that the ability to access your reference database from anywhere over the web would be a great addition to Zotero's already impressive set of features.
Some have even been arguing that it would be good to make Zotero a fully webbased tool (e.g. Scott Mclemee in his widely advertised review). I want to argue against that.
The fact that Zotero stores stuff locally has some great advantages, chief among them being that it you can access your stuff while offline. This is not trivial, and the possibility of being offline tends to be forgotten in this digital age. But say I'm going on a fieldtrip to a location where I don't have internet - I'd surely want to take my Zotero dbase with me! More to the point, think of educational institutions in countries which don't have regular access to the internet. Right now, I can provide my peers there with a Zotero database (including a PDF library) which will work perfectly even when there is no internet connection. They can make use of Zotero's notetaking, tagging, and organizing capabilities and they can use it with their word processor. If Zotero was webbased (like CiteUlike) al these possibilities would disappear, and Zotero would all of a sudden become a tool for the happy few on this side of the digital divide.
In short, I don't even know if there are plans to make Zotero fully webbased — but I just wanted to register my vote against it.
Some have even been arguing that it would be good to make Zotero a fully webbased tool (e.g. Scott Mclemee in his widely advertised review). I want to argue against that.
The fact that Zotero stores stuff locally has some great advantages, chief among them being that it you can access your stuff while offline. This is not trivial, and the possibility of being offline tends to be forgotten in this digital age. But say I'm going on a fieldtrip to a location where I don't have internet - I'd surely want to take my Zotero dbase with me! More to the point, think of educational institutions in countries which don't have regular access to the internet. Right now, I can provide my peers there with a Zotero database (including a PDF library) which will work perfectly even when there is no internet connection. They can make use of Zotero's notetaking, tagging, and organizing capabilities and they can use it with their word processor. If Zotero was webbased (like CiteUlike) al these possibilities would disappear, and Zotero would all of a sudden become a tool for the happy few on this side of the digital divide.
In short, I don't even know if there are plans to make Zotero fully webbased — but I just wanted to register my vote against it.
I think the most challenging aspect of multi-user (web based) zotero from a usability perspective is the management of duplicate entries, and the more eyeballs on that, the better.
But i need something like foxmark to sync between different pcs...
if i am at work or at home with different computers i need to sync the zotero file like i do with foxmark.
(also a web app could be very usefull in the case in which i am not with my notebook)