URL vs. DOI what is the difference?

geolr

Hi all,

please forgive me not to be aware of the difference between the URL and DOI fields.

I recognized this behaviour when i add i.e.
http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=GPYSA7000055000007000924000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes
=> which gives the current site url in URL but leaves DOI empty eventhough there is a DOI link.

I am still a very beginner in zotero...

Thanks alot
Rudy

noksagt

A DOI is a persistent identifier. A URL is (often a temporary) location.

Many legacy formats were created before there were DOIs and/or are limited to having only a single URL field. Furthermore, Zotero can easily get the URL from the current page's location.

Obtaining the DOI is sometimes more difficult & may require page scraping or automated queries to crossref, so they aren't obtained from every site.

If you find DOIs useful (which they are), but frequently use sites where they are not read by the translator, search these forums for other threads that note that other sites do not grab the DOI & put in a feature request. If you have some minimum programming experience & can recognize a pattern for how to obtain the DOI from a site, you can try to modify the translator yourself.