Zotero/Library Thing Import & Export

LukeTJones
Hi all,

New Zotero user getting set up for the first time. In addition to using Zotero for reference management, I’d like to use it to manage the titles in my personal library. I will also be setting up Library Thing for this more specific purpose, but figured that it would be good to have my physical books in Zotero and not just PDFs. My question is this: those of you who have used both Library Thing and Zotero, is there a specific app I should start with when cataloging? The plan will be to catalog everything in one app, then import it into the other for parity (to my knowledge there are no plugins that enable sync.) Both apps have a barcode scanner, so it is up to who plays better with exporting and importing/which service will give more comprehensive data overall. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
  • aborel
    In my opinion, Librarything (which I like for many other reasons) is pretty bad at exporting.
    Their import from Amazon or library catalogues is good, but the other options usually involve some loss of information.

    There is no 100% reliable app to communicate with LT because their API has been out of order for a few years. Librarything exposes some metadata that the Zotero connector can recognize, but I don't know how good it is... give it a try and let us know!
  • LukeTJones
    Interesting! I’m not super familiar with either, so a quick follow-up: if I have a list of ISBN numbers, can I port that into Zarro and have it populate the rest of the information on the publication? Doing some research, it seems like the best option is to start with library thing, and then import into Zotero. I’m thinking the simplest way to do this may be to just export ISBN numbers from library thing after scanning my collection, or maybe exporting MARC and importing into Zotero?
  • aborel
    Librarything's MARC export ignores a lot of information in my experience, so I wouldn't rely on that.
    You can enter many books by ISBN, see https://www.zotero.org/support/adding_items_to_zotero#add_item_by_identifier . Just be aware that in some cases the book might not be available in the sources used by Zotero for this functionality.
  • aborel
    I have just tested Zotero's import translator for one book in my LT collection, it's actually working nicely with the embedded COinS metadata.
    However I don't see a multiple import while viewing my collection, so it can take some time to go over dozens or hundreds of books. Perhaps a dedicated translator could be written to support this use case.
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