Translator Issue with Sabin Americana Database

Amy_Barker
I was trying to download a citation from Sabin Americana (http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Sabin?locID=gustavusacol), but even though an icon appeared in the address bar, I got the error message. When I hovered over the icon, it said it was using the Eighteenth Century Collections Online translator, which seems incorrect since Sabin is offered through GALE Cengage. I've posted the link for the page I was at, but I don't think it will work for anyone who doesn't have access to this database through their institution.

Also, I just want to make clear that I only want to alert you to the issue - as far as I know, this isn't a database that sees a lot of use, and as far as I'm concerned it's no big deal if people have to manually enter the citation info on some things. If it were something like JSTOR I'd be more concerned :) On the other hand, if it's not going to automatically grab the info, it'd be nice if there wasn't an icon, too.

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/Sabin?dd=0&locID=gustavusacol&srchtp=a&aa=AND&c=21&SU=All&l2=GE&a0=transcontinental+railroad&vrsn=1.0&af=RN&al=All&a5=0X&ste=9&d4=0.33&stp=DateAscend&n=10&am=All
  • anniekj
    Has this problem ever been addressed? I can't seem to get citation info to work for Sabin Americana either.
  • aurimas
    edited October 3, 2013
    No, unfortunately that website is still unsupported and it's unlikely that we will add support for it. Sabin Americana does not seem to provide metadata in any structured format, so it would be quite difficult for us to fetch it. It would technically be possible for us to scrape the metadata from the Full Citation page, but that would involve a good amount of work. If this database is not used very often (as indicated by Amy Gratz), I don't think it is worth the trouble.

    Edit: I did some looking around and it seems that the Full Citation page is created from a MARC record. If Zotero could access it, it would be easy to create _accurate_ metadata imports. Then I found this in their FAQ...
    25. Are MARC records available?
    Yes, MARC records are available for Sabin Americana, 1500–1926 and there is an additional charge for them.
    I hate when companies do this. Maybe I'll spend some time and add support for Sabin Americana to Zotero.

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