How to make references from different search engines consistent?

wang876

For example, in PubMed, it only has authors' initials but not full names, which really sucks. But it provides PMID. On the other hand, references saved directly on publisher websites contain full author names but no PMID. So is there a way to take the strength from different websites and make all the references consistent.

thanks!

bwiernik

You can import from both and then merge the two items. Personally, I find it very annoying that PubMed (pointlessly it seems to me) sometimes seems to discard the full author information.

DWL-SDCA

Some PubMed record metadata only contains author initials even though the publisher website import using the Zotero import button will provide the full name(s).

Probably not relevant but I'm curious: Does Zotero work equally well with the new PubMed interface as with the "old/current" one? The new one replaces the old interface of May 10th. With the old interface I could export a PubMed search to an XML format file. The new website will not provide an XML export.

wang876

At least the new PubMed provides full names!

It would be nice for Zotero has a function to make references consistent. Since pubmed has full author names now, it could be a good website to load the data.

DWL-SDCA

Please allow me to clarify my previous comment. The old/current PubMed also provides full author names when the publisher provides full names to the database. The same is true with the new PubMed system. There are still many journals that only provide author initials with their printed/pdf copies of articles and their metadata reflects this shortcoming.