Author first names now in Google Scholar, Zotero not scraping

Cassandra2323
Google Scholar is now making first names available through a new feature called Cite described on the home page and here

http://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2012/10/cite-from-search-results.html

After each search result is now a link "cite" which takes you to cut and paste citations in 3 styles, including 2 which have first names. However, Zotero still downloads initials only.

Sidenote: the cite feature lists several biblio management programs like Endnote that seem to be linked to Scholar. Any reason Zotero isn't one of them?

Thanks
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited October 21, 2012
    You can use the RefMan export. It is essentially RIS.

    You raised my hopes. However, I tested several combinations of citation styles and software selections. Although the author first names appeared in some of the style examples none of the exports included author first names. Someone more expert than I might be able to scrape the names from the popup box. That said, the Google Scholar metadata is also missing DOIs and ISSNs.
  • Cassandra2323
    edited October 21, 2012
    Could you clarify - in your examples the first names did not appear in the style examples generated by Scholar>? So then it isn't surprising that first names weren't exported and maybe there are a lot of missing first names in the Scholar database

    However, try

    MLA
    ACEMOGLU, DARON, and A. ROBINSON. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation." The American Economic Review 91.5 (2001): 1369-1401.
    APA
    ACEMOGLU, D., & ROBINSON, A. (2001). The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation. The American Economic Review, 91(5), 1369-1401.
    Chicago
    ACEMOGLU, DARON, and A. ROBINSON. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation." The American Economic Review 91, no. 5 (2001): 1369-1401.

    At least the first authors name is there in the cite style example but does not export. So presumable there is some way to scrape, no?
  • adamsmith
    basically what DWL says, but to add a bit:

    When google added the cite feature and I saw the first names and I poked around a bit and I could not find any way to get google to deliver them in one of the bibliographic formats. As soon as they do (and please ask them about that!) we'll get them in Zotero.

    I don't have any insights into google's decision not to include Zotero in the list of reference managers, but I'm actually happy they didn't, because that's not how Zotero works:
    Zotero works nicely on GS using the URL bar icon and that's much preferable to clicking a link: You can import multiple items at a time, but also, Zotero can do some extra clean-up where necessary.
  • adamsmith
    that overlapped:
    We could _try_ to get the first names from the citations, but I'm really wary of doing that. It's unstable, it's an extra http request and they really should be in the export data.
  • aurimas
    I think we just need to make this recursive. I'm just waiting to hear any thoughts on whether we need to make users able to disable recursive scraping. it would solve a lot of problems.
  • adamsmith
    needless to say, I agree with that, but it might be a while until we get there?
    And until then and for the cases where we don't have a Zotero translator on the target page it'd be really nice to get full names still.
  • aurimas
    we could have recursive scraping working tomorrow. I'm not too excited about trying to parse first names from formatted citations.
  • adamsmith
    edited October 21, 2012
    oh no, I wasn't going to parse them from the citations. I was hoping to pray to the gods of google to include them in the bibtex.
    we could have recursive scraping working tomorrow.
    awesome, I didn't know we had everything else in place. It'd be great to hear from Simon and Dan on this and make it happen.
  • Cassandra2323
    >> (and please ask them about that!)

    Please tell me EXACTLY what to request, and where (email, blog response). I periodically do ask and most recently got an email telling me about the cite feature, not sure I was able to explain why this wasn't working for me or whether I was most effectively directing my request.

    This is a major issue for me, since i use a cite form that requires first names
  • adamsmith
    edited October 21, 2012
    I don't know where/how to best contact google scholar - you seem to have gotten through to them, so you're the expert on that - but what to ask them for is

    "to include full first names of authors instead of initials in the bibtex export on google scholar (seeing that that data is clearly available as it's included in the citations)."
  • Cassandra2323
    Let's inundate them. This is the email I used

    scholar-support@google.com
  • Cassandra2323
    So I wrote an email using the almost the exact wording you suggested, and got the following snarky response:



    "Sorry, it doesn't make sense to discuss this via a proxy. We're unable to offer further assistance.
    The Google Scholar Team"

    Which does at least imply that they might listen if you asked.
  • fbennett
    Hmm. Not a warm response, but that's an easy hurdle to clear. I'll write, I'm sure Sebastian will write, we'll see what happens.
Sign In or Register to comment.