Zotero not pulling in PDFs with DOIs

rsevier
I have someone who has a large list, ~20K, of DOIs that they want to pull into Zotero with the PDFs. Zotero is not including the PDFs even when we have access to them. Even using the Find Available PDF option after the citation has been found is not working. I tried playing around with the proxy settings and have the OpenURL set to our institution. Any ideas why the PDFs are not coming into Zotero. Thanks.
  • adamsmith
    A couple of things:
    1. This is only going to work for so well ever, even if you have access. There are various limits on getting PDFs from paywalled sites
    2. To the extent that it will work, proxy/openURL don't have any effect. To take advantage of access to paywalled access, you need to be on campus or on a campus IP-range (e.g. via VPN)
    3. I'd assume that Elsevier journals will generally fail currently and you won't benefit from access through aggregators like EBSCO, JSTOR, or Proquest -- Zotero follows the DOI and checks if PDFs are accessible there.
  • rsevier
    Thanks for that feedback. It isn't working even when we have access through the publisher, like Wiley, but I suspect it is because we also have access to it through Proquest or Ebsco. It is frustrating but we can work around it.
  • adamsmith
    If you are on a campus IP-range *and* have access to the publisher, that should work. Can you share examples where it doesn't?
  • rsevier
    Here is one that doesn't work and we have access to it through Sage - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0149206313515523
    I'll come up with some others after some meetings. I am on the VPN today but have tried it while on campus too.
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