exporting to CSL JSON results in loss of fields

williamstraub

Apparent bug when exporting to JSON from Zotero standalone, version 4.0.17 running on Windows 7 Enterprise.

When exporting a book reference or entry-encyclopedia with a contributor, there is a difference in the markup output between TEI XML and JSON. The CSL JSON export appears to lose the contributor, i.e. it is missing the respStmt – not included. Similarly the "Series (number)" also disappears when exporting a Journal article as CSL JSON. Therefore, this issue may be more widespread.

Please note the difference in the export from a book item when comparing between TEI (okay):
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<listBibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><biblStruct type="book" xml:id="s2013"><monogr><title level="m">jello</title><author><forename>first</forename><surname>s</surname></author><respStmt><resp>contributor</resp><persName><name>contributor1, 2nd</name></persName></respStmt><edition>3</edition><imprint><pubPlace>here</pubPlace><biblScope type="vol">13</biblScope><publisher>me</publisher><date>2013</date><note type="accessed">2014-03-14</note><note type="url">cnn.com</note></imprint></monogr><series><title level="s">134</title><biblScope type="vol">XI</biblScope></series><idno type="ISBN">1324123413</idno><idno type="callNumber">BS134</idno></biblStruct></listBibl>

==========
and same book item exported as CSL JSON (missing item for responsibility statement/CONTRIBUTOR):
[
{
"id": 22,
"type": "book",
"title": "jello",
"collection-title": "134",
"collection-number": "XI",
"publisher": "me",
"publisher-place": "here",
"volume": "13",
"number-of-volumes": "20",
"number-of-pages": "13",
"edition": "3",
"source": "1324",
"archive": "afd",
"archive_location": "1",
"event-place": "here",
"abstract": "ab",
"URL": "cnn.com",
"ISBN": "1324123413",
"call-number": "BS134",
"note": "adaddsads",
"shortTitle": "o",
"language": "spanglish",
"author": [
{
"family": "s",
"given": "first"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
"2013",
3
]
]
},
"accessed": {
"date-parts": [
[
"2014",
3,
14
]
]
}
}
]

--------

Thanks for fixing this or letting me know if I am incorrect in my analysis.

William Straub
Systems Librarian and Web Developer

adamsmith

That's not a bug. CSL JSON is the format Zotero (and other software) uses to pass on data to the citeproc-js citation processor. Only variables defined in CSL are (and can be) included. Not all Zotero variables have CSL equivalents - that includes "contributor".
You can see a full mapping here:
http://aurimasv.github.io/z2csl/typeMap.xml

If you need a full export of Zotero data, Zotero RDF is the (only) way to go.

nickbart

Another CSL-JSON export issue: "Presenter" fields of item type "Presentation" are currently not exported at all. They should be mapped to "author" (as zotero does, apparently, when sending such entries to citeproc-js).

fbennett

Export of several primary creator types is failing.

It's a small problem code-wise; there are just a couple of field ID mismatches in the export method. I've filed a suggested fix and confirmed that it works. When the team have a chance to review the patch, it should be fixed right up.

fbennett

All done. The fix will appear in the next Zotero release.

https://github.com/zotero/zotero/pull/478

John_muccigrosso

Curious about a comment on this old thread:

> Only variables defined in CSL are (and can be) included.

Will non-CSL variables actually break CSL readers, like pandoc? I stuck a "file" variable into a library export in CSL JSON format and pandoc seemed ok.

adamsmith

that depends on the processor, but I'd assume most won't care about additional fields, so wouldn't break. The way you'd typically parse JSON, you just ignore things you don't know.

John_muccigrosso

Yeah, that's what I figured. Thanks.