Zotero Reading List

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About

Why did I build this?

I use Zotero to manage all the books I read. This solution pulls my Group Library from the Zotero API and displays all the Collections and Items in a navigable way. The default web viewer is difficult for people to quickly scroll through or navigate.

I needed a way to share my content, but I didn't like the idea of posting reviews on Goodreads, sticking everything in a Notion database, or manually curating things on my personal website. It seemed too roundabout. Hence, I was pleasantly enthused to discover Zotero's API capabilities.

Inspired By

These authors also shared their own reading content or shared the books that they read. I stumbled upon such links just browsing the internet, and I think they have greatly contributed to the liveliness and quality of discourse.

I'm considering curating a list of people's "recently found articles" and book reviews. Contact me if you have something to share!

Why use Zotero to manage .epubs?

I've used most of the reading tools available: Google Play Books, Apple Books, Kindle Books, Calibre, storing everything on the file system, and most of them had some sort of significant disadvantage.

Pros/Cons of Google Play Books Press 1 to Toggle

Pros:

  • Syncs all highlights to Google Docs, allowing for easy searching and exporting.
  • Works on Android (but not Huawei Matepad Paper)

Cons:

  • Cloud, so stops working if you don't have internet or servers go down
  • Doesn't highlight PDFs
Pros/Cons of Apple Books Press 2 to Toggle

Pros:

  • Highlights PDFs

Cons:

  • Annoying "This book is protected by copyright" when trying to copy-paste
Cons of Kindle Books Press 3 to Toggle

Cons:

  • .mobi file format, and you have to email things to your Kindle or some roundabout method to get it loaded on.
  • UI is not as good as Apple Books or Google Play Books
Cons of Calibre Press 4 to Toggle

Cons:

  • UI is barely usable as an e-book manager
  • Huge app size

With the release of .epub support for Zotero and an Android app for those tablet-like eReaders, I'm confident that Zotero is the best choice for managing all your reading content. Metadata retrieval and easy citations are a bonus on top.

Unfortunately, it's not possibile to have this site directly link to the book source stored on Zotero servers (there are limitations on public group attachment sharing, probably due to bandwidth or piracy). But I will link to Libgen, Archive.org, or Goodreads if appropriate.

Future Roadmap

I'm mostly done with this project, outside of curating and updating my list of books and links. I'm looking at a few bug fixes and caching for sharing webpage snapshots.

I may look into creating an RSS feed or email list of things every week.

It'll remain a free project unless there is significant demand for a paid version or it becomes unwieldy to offer for free. The difficulty with adoption is that Zotero itself must be adopted as one's primary reading system, and said person must want to share their curated lists with others.

If you do end up using this, feel free to let me know.

Credits