Suggestion: URL

imf1956

Suggestion: Would be nice when importing from PubMed if the URL of the Publisher page would automatically be imported into the URL field.
Thanks for Zotero and for listening.
Best, IMF

dstillman

The URL isn't available from PubMed, but you don't need it — Zotero saves the DOI, which is a more reliable way of getting to the current publisher page URL.

Double-clicking any item with a DOI in Zotero will take you to the publisher page.

moore.709

I definitely appreciate both sides.
The DOI is very valid in an absolute sense, but there are definitely cases when you want the browser URL.
Two examples are preserving a specific proxy used for paywall access when that is more important than preserving something to share widely, and - just the opposite - capturing a specific publicly available URL and not a private publisher URL for things like NIH grant applications that require it.

dstillman

The DOI is equivalent to the publisher URL. It's just a redirect, and one that's guaranteed to be stable.

Proxied URLs shouldn't be stored in the URL field. The URL field gets cited in some styles, and you shouldn't litter your database with proxied URLs that you may lose access to. The Zotero Connector will automatically redirect unproxied URLs through a configured proxy if necessary.

In any case, PubMed only provides the DOI, so there's no point debating this. If you really want a publisher URL, double-click on the Zotero item and let it redirect the DOI URL to the publisher URL.

moore.709

I hear what you're saying. In fact, what we're raising is the opposite.
I'm not saying it's a big deal or anything I'm worried about a lot, but just to clarify the point is sometimes we do want the url as in the browser and not a doi-as-url or a different, publisher url.

It is certainly not a big deal or change I'm particularly asking for; it's pretty standard to update details like this while saving entries, especially since these cases are often more like exceptions.