Can't retrieve metadata - HELP

rebeccasenior
Hello.

I'm just getting to grips with Zotero, and today I was delighted to see that I could retrieve metadata for pdfs that I'd just dragged & dropped into Zotero. That was great, because it meant that I could use the citation macro in Word effectively.

I managed to do this for loads of papers, and then something happened. No idea what, but it just stopped working. I've trawled through the internet & can't figure it out. I tried re-retrieving metadata for pdfs that had previously worked fine, and they're not working now either.

No idea what I've done. Please help :)
  • adamsmith
    Zotero queries google scholar when you use retrieve metadata - after a while GS locks you out (temporarily) because your behavior resembles a bot. It will start working again in a day or so.

    (Note that generally the data quality you get from google scholar - and thus retrieve metadata) isn't all that great, so it may not always be a good idea to rely on that as you'll have to do a lot of manual fix-up later.
  • rebeccasenior
    oooohhh. Good stuff, thanks for the speedy reply!
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited December 19, 2012
    I, and many others, recommend that pdf files and the associated metadata should come from the publishers' websites. Much better, more complete metadata from there. Use GS to locate the items. Then, visit the publisher website for the pdf and metadata. GS metadata is almost always incomplete and is frequently wrong.

    Inline with what @adamsmith said above, the incomplete fields can be filled. Actual errors may not be obvious so could go uncorrected.

This is an old discussion that has not been active in a long time. Before commenting here, you should strongly consider starting a new discussion instead. If you think the content of this discussion is still relevant, you can link to it from your new discussion.

Sign In or Register to comment.