Lexis support?

Luis

Sean, you mentioned in the other Law thread that there was lexis support, but I'm not seeing it here with the latest beta release. Is there something I'm missing? Does it have to be turned on? Any tips/pointers on debugging if not?

bill

Hi Luis,

Looking at the zotero javascript scraper source (scraper.sql), it appears that the url in your browser's address bar must match something like this regular expression:

http://web\.lexis-?nexis\.com/universe/(?:document|doclist)

I haven't tested this translator myself but it appears to currently focus more on articles as opposed to legal materials (its looking for things like headline/byline/author/title).

Luis

Ah. The legal stuff is rooted at lexis.com, so that would explain that. Where is zotero's source?

bill

Ok Luis, (remember you asked):

C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[profile-id].default\extensions\zotero@chnm.gmu.edu\scrapers.sql

The stuff in square brackets will vary on your computer. The file is a set of SQL commands that has already been executed and exists in your Zotero SQLite database which lives here:

C:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[profile-id].default\zotero\zotero.sqlite

Among other things, the SQL text file contains a bunch of translator javascript functions that are populated into the translators table.

I'd recommend these tools if you want to poke around and experiment:

http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/
http://www.sqlite.org/download.html

bill

Also, here is some real documentation: http://deskbox.gmu.edu/translators.html

antonh

The URL matching doesn't seem complete. When I pull up a journal article, the URL looks like this (ie. doesn't contain "universe" in the path:

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve?_m=bc05f2a79cd9f4d56516ae847fb37202&csvc=le&cform=byCitation&_fmtstr=FULL&docnum=1&_startdoc=1&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkAz&_md5=9496bd8e7db5b03cc0b7a62b9c0f4ff0

Also, does the fact that the actual article is inside a frame matter?

Cassandra2323

What is the current status? Are there any legal sources that work with Zotero? I can't use Zotero with Lexis, Westlaw or Hein.

THANKS!

maztec

Isis: It appears to be broken.

The best I have been able to do with Lexis or Westlaw is capture the page [useful, but not everything needed].

Mainly it appears that the Lexis translator is out of date [even with the URL fixed, I can't get it to work]

LWittern

Can someone update as to the status with Lexis-Nexis? I am not able to capture anything from Lexis-Nexis academic.
Thanks!

maztec

I believe the status is: "I am working on it." But, I am starting with Westlaw. Sorry. If, once that is figured out, I have time, I may do LexisNexis also.

I cannot guarantee I will complete Westlaw. As my time is ghastly limited. :( But, I'll give it a shot!

Chris112x2

Westlaw support and Lexis support would be amazing tools to speed up legal research. I'll be keeping an eye out for updates.

fbennett

In a past life, I worked up a regular expression and supporting code to parse Lexis "headers" for secondary materials. It was written for a completely different environment (Plone/Zope), but the core regular expressions and parsing code are in Python, and might be a useful starting point for a retuned Zotero screen scraper. The code is available here:

http://plone.org/products/biblexis/

I dropped work on the Plone/Zope product some time ago. I've just started working with Zotero, but for the time being I will be concentrating on tuning of the Bluebook output style. Meanwhile, if anyone working on this end of Zotero finds this old "biblexis" code a useful starting point for a revamped Lexis input module, by all means be my guest. As I remember, Lexis "header" formatting is extremely loose, particularly for secondary resources (it's governed by a set of rough conventions, there's no proper standard lurking in there to reverse engineer), but the above code worked reasonably well when it was running, and was certainly preferable to hand retyping of citation data.

Enjoy,
Frank Bennett

seinecle

I had exactly this problem and found a parade:

My library (Erasmus University in Rotterdam) offers the following link to access Lexis Nexis:

http://academic.lexisnexis.nl/eur/?language=en

and zotero can't translate the results into its database.

BUT !!! with the following link, zotero catches on perfectly! (don't ask me why...)

http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/

Hope it helps,

Clement

fbennett

Clement,

There is a pattern match done on the URL before the translator offers to download. It may be that only a simple change is required to make things work with the Netherlands address.

I have never used LexisNexis Academic, but from the look of the translator, the pages are marked up as normal HTML, with clear id attributes on the citation elements. The legal information service offered by Lexis that we rely on for law research has no markup of that kind. I've written a translator that is capable of reading citation data from Lexis law review articles, and will eventually get to court decisions. The translator has been submitted to Zotero, not sure whether or when it will turn up in the distribution.