database query order in iPhone app

polacbear
Hello from Australia :-). I'm using the iPhone app. Is there any way to change the library catalogues that it pulls the references from? The first one in line seems to be the Library of Congress, which is great. But if it can't find a reference there, can I add another database that gets queried afterwards?
  • adamsmith
    This is for adding by ISBN, right? Basically the answer is no, but which one would you want?
    We've been talking about adding some additional library catalogs. What's not in the cards currently is to let users determine the order in which they're queried.
  • polacbear
    Yes, that's right. You already enabled Zotero itself to parse the metadata in the CRTS library, which was much appreciated (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/97342/could-you-add-the-crts-library/p1). My ideal would be to have that made possible in the iPhone app as well, so that scanning an ISBN would query that library catalogue if the entry was not found anywhere else. However, I am cognizant that you cannot do this for every specialty library, so this may be asking too much. So if that's not possible, you may want to consider doing it for the Wright Library at Princeton, which duplicates much of the material at CRTS. An overview of the library is available at https://library.ptsem.edu/about-wright-library. The catalogue itself can be queried at https://catalog.ptsem.edu. Thanks for considering!
  • adamsmith
    I'm afraid that's unlikely -- we can do this if the main ISBNs for a library are easily determined (i.e., for national libraries) but I don't see how we would do it for specialty libraries. That said, using the Share button on iOS from the browser when looking at either of those catalogs should work.
  • polacbear
    I didn't know you could use the Share button for that. That's super helpful, thanks!
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