How to get stuff into Zotero?

mmp997
I've watched the video 'How to get stuff into Zotero?' but it doesn't correspond to what I see in front of me.

Of course if I search Google or Google Scholar I see the little symbols allowing me to download content and references to Zotero. But when I search my university library's online databases no such little symbols appear anywhere. Faced with a set of results I can right click to 'Create Web Page from Current Page' or to 'Save Link as Web page' but neither saves the pdf with the bibliographic information.

What to do?
  • adamsmith
    If you don't get the URL bar icon there isn't much you can do--you can import DOIs; you can see if the databases export to RIS (sometimes that will be called "Export to Endnote"), which Zotero is able to ready, but none of that auto-imports PDFs, so even if either of those work, you'd still have to manually download&attach the PDF.

    Zotero does support every major database vendor I'm aware of, though: EBSCO, ProQuest, Gale, JSTOR..., as well as publishing platforms like Sciencedirect, Springerlink, Taylor and Francis, Cambridge U Press, Muse, as well as anything published on the Highwire or Atypon platform (including Sage and Oxford U Press), so I'm curious what online databases we're talking about.
  • mmp997
    Not sure how it works with you, but with us you log into the university library and it serves up listings from all the vendors, no icons. Even when I click through I don't seem to see any icons. I could send you a couple of screenshots to illustrate.
  • adamsmith
    if you'd post a screenshot to dropbox or imgur.com and link to it here that'd be great. Ideally it'd include a visible URL. If you're really concerned you can black out your U's name there.

    But what you're describing sounds like a so called discover layer. Zotero supports the most popular one of these--Primo--but I'm sure there are examples it doesn't support. But you wouldn't normally be able to get straight to a PDF from that anyway, would you? You'd have to click through to the actual database. And that's where you'd see the URL bar icon.
  • mmp997
    OK I get it. Sometimes when you click through there's nothing, you have to click again. Sometimes the icons are there immediately. OK, no worries.

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