Aleph translator

jodewae

Rapport ID 395745668 20090214
Error trying to download items from http://aleph.ugent.be/F/-?func=find-b-0&local_base=hog01 :
[JavaScript Error: "newItem.title is undefined" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/translate.js" line: 654}]

[JavaScript Error: "newItem.title is undefined" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/translate.js" line: 654}]

[JavaScript Error: "newItem.title is undefined" {file: "chrome://zotero/content

Who can help me to solve that problem?

mcburton

Jodewae,
Yep, I see the problem too, I will take a look at it. My hunch tells me it has something to do with the language use...

leonk

Apparently, the bibliographic format of this catalogue is currently not recognized by the Aleph translator. The translator needs to be changed in order to recognize the format. IHO, the language does not have to do with the problem.

jhmorneau

I encountered a similar problem with our local university library catalogue :

http://rugbis.grenet.fr/
[with a french user interface]

Here are the debug files :

D278202516 (trying to retrieve data from a list of results)
D603797817 (trying to retrieve data from one specific document)

Thanks for your help !

jhmorneau

Aleph is causing lots of trouble with Zotero.

As far as I know, Ex Libris (the distributor of Aleph software in France) doesn't care about it, albeit several library directors complaininig about this nuisance.

I made some investigations on european libraries using Aleph, and here is the result :

The majority of them are Zotero incompatible so far :

http://naude.bibliotheque-mazarine.fr/
http://bibli.polytechnique.fr/
http://sifrix2.sdv.fr/
http://aleph.insa-rouen.fr
http://brenet.ens-lyon.fr
http://bu-pau.univ-pau.fr/
http://babel.bu.univ-paris5.fr
http://inti.univ-paris4.fr/
http://aleph.u-paris10.fr/
http://servaleph.univ-catholyon.fr/
http://armada.scd.univ-paris12.fr/
http://catalogue.univ-angers.fr/
http://biblio.ville-lehavre.fr/

Yet, some of them are Zotero compatible :

http://opac.nebis.ch/
http://scd2.univ-lille1.fr/
http://catalogue.univ-paris1.fr/
http://source.ulg.ac.be/
http://med.cite-sciences.fr/
http://biblio.mulhouse.fr/
http://mediatheque.sigdci76.fr/
http://opac.biu-montpellier.fr/

I hope this will help understanding the reason why Aleph is zoterophobic ;-)

fanneys

Hi all

In Iceland we are using Aleph v.18 (www.gegnir.is). We would be very interested in saving records from our web Opac to Zotero but we always get the notification 'Could not save item, an error ocurred while saving this item'. Are there some modifications we need to do for this to work?

We are also in the process of implementing Primo v.3, has anybody used Zotero with Primo?

Many thanks for your help!

mysheepb

Please try with this potential fix (for single items, not yet for multiples):
http://github.com/mysheepb/Zotero-translators/raw/master/Library%20Catalog%20%28Aleph%29.js

Please save the file to the translators directory of your Zotero data directory (http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data).

ajlyon

This works for all the installations I've tested. Good work!

Would you like to work on fixing multiple-item saves, or should I take a look at that? (I can do it quickly, if you're interested.)

mysheepb

Please do. Because a link has to be generated by looking into the data of each item. So every linked item has to be loaded first, but I have no idea how to use the httpXMLRequest correctly. (I don't even know if this is the right function to use).

Besides, it does not work with all websites, e.g. those which do not have an "add to basket" button. And it is still a kind of work-around. Please take a look at the discussion: http://groups.google.com/d/topic/zotero-dev/d0VioPO5yo8/discussion

Please feel free to tidy up my code if you like. I am very inexperienced. Thanks.

Edit: I mean XMLHttpRequest, that just shows how inexperienced I am.

ajlyon

I'll work on this. Note that you don't actually have to give the final URLs to Zotero.selectItems(), meaning you can present the user with the titles, then add the necessary ones to the basket at the end.

And it is possible (even acceptable) to have translators that do multi-save only with some library catalogs-- we can use that to convince the other libraries to expose the pieces of OPAC we need to enable multi-saves.

mysheepb

I would like to also post a fix to a problem related to the Catholic University Leuven library (http://opac.libis.be). Previously items cannot be saved because Leuven uses <div> instead of <td> to display the records. So far I haven't found any other Aleph sites having a similar problem.

http://github.com/mysheepb/Zotero-translators/blob/master/Library Catalog (Aleph).js

I would like also to know how to change the item uri after user's selection. But perhaps we can discuss it in the developers' forum. Thanks.