Finding available PDFs in Zotero application

chrismithie245

Report ID: 1709081919

Hi there! I am currently having trouble finding available PDFs in the Zotero application. In a collection of 324 items, PDFs were only found for about 1/6 of items despite the fact that I have an institutional account with my university that should have access to most full texts. I noticed this morning that my primary Zotero email account was my personal one, not my university one, so I changed that to make my university email primary. I'm not sure if there are other ways to ensure my Zotero account is linked to my institution or not, but is there anything else I can do to be able to retrieve more PDFs through Zotero?

Thank you so much!

adamsmith

The primary email doesn't matter. You need to be on the institutional IP range while using find available PDF: using a web proxy for access doesn't work. Even then, you'll strike out a fair amount -- Zotero doesn't, e.g., find PDFs that you get access for through an aggregator like JSTOR or EBSCO.

chrismithie245

Thank you so much for your response, this is super helpful! Apologies if this is a silly question, but when you say "institutional IP range", does that mean connected to the campus WiFi? Or could it also work if I'm logged in to my university library with university credentials but am off campus?

adamsmith

It needs to be campus network/WiFi or VPN. If by 'logged into' your university library you mean you've logged in through a web portal by putting in your net ID (or whatever the call it) and password, that's the web proxy I mention and won't work.

If you're not sure, you're likely not on your institutional IP range.
You can go to a page like:
https://www.showmyip.com/
which will show your IP -- it'd typically list your university as your ISP if you're actually on their network; otherwise it'll show your home ISP.

chrismithie245

This makes so much sense, thank you. Question on the "no PDFs through aggregators" aspect though, if I'm understanding what an aggregator is correctly, I think all of my articles in my Zotero library were found through this route (APA PsycInfo [Ovid], SociIndex [EBSCOhost], and Social Services Abstracts [ProQuest]). What other locations would you find articles if not from an aggregator or directly through the specific journal itself? And if all my articles were found and imported into Zotero through aggregators, is there any other way to find the PDFs other than finding them manually one by one?

Thanks so much for your time!

adamsmith

No, you can still.get the PDFs if you get the metadata through an aggregator, but if access to the PDF at your institution isn't through the publisher but, say, through EBSCO, Zotero won't find it

chrismithie245

Ahhh okay, gotcha! Thanks so much for the help!