search for most recently published work

michellebosche

How can you search in Zotero for most recently published work? For instance, I want to search for all the articles published in 2014 that have been tagged "vaccines." Note: my articles have not been indexed, but I also do not want them to be indexed (if possible). Thanks!

adamsmith

Advanced Search:
Date -- is after -- 01/01/2014
Tag -- is -- vaccinces

Though I'm not sure what you mean by "indexed." This doesn't rely on full text indexing, but the articles need to be in Zotero. You need to do actual literature searches in the database(s) itself.

michellebosche

Thanks for your response. The articles are in Zotero. And I did perform a literature search of the database itself using the advanced search function and the search toolbar (e.g., title, creator, year). Thoughts?

adamsmith

well, then this will work, see above.

michellebosche

unfortunately, I just followed those steps and no articles populated from the search. (however, I know there are articles in the repository that fit both criteria)

michellebosche

other suggestions?

adamsmith

No, this works. Something else isn't right if it doesn't.
How about if you just search for the tag?

Also, you use a lot of terms that I'm not sure what you mean by e.g. "repository". So it might help if you describe your set-up. Is this a group? Personal Library? How did you import the data?

michellebosche

As a little bit of background information, I have collected several hundred articles on a particular disease in a group library. I imported the data from my desktop. The articles have been tagged e.g., molecular biology, drugs, pathology.

However, group members want to be able to search within a particular tag (e.g., molecular) for articles published after a certain date (e.g., on/after August 1, 2014).

Is that a search function available in Zotero?

adamsmith

If you want to search in a group you need to select that at the top left of the advanced search window (Search in library: ). Otherwise your search is just in your personal library. Apart from that, same instructions as above.

edit: the other thing is that the articles need to have metadata in Zotero - i.e. just dragging a PDF to Zotero wouldn't do.

michellebosche

I checked and can confirm that I am definitely searching in group library.

As for the metadata, does this mean I have to left click on a PDF and select "retrieve metadata for PDF" for every single article?

adamsmith

You can select multiple at once and do that, but yes (and that does require indexing, too). Without that, how is Zotero to know the publication data of an article?

Edit: generally, this isn't the best way to import data into Zotero. Especially in medicine, you'd normally just do a PubMed search and import from there, which would give you better data and also automatic MeSH tagging.

michellebosche

Thank you for your tip. I will use that method to import information onto Zotero.

I have now started to "Retrieve metadata for PDF". But it appears to delete existing tags for the articles that I retrieve the metadata for. Is there a way to prevent this?

adamsmith

I'm pretty sure those tags would still be there, but would be associated with the PDF/attachment, not with the parent item. No way around that, though, sorry.

michellebosche

Thank you for your help, Adam!