Upgrade StorageExclude Journal_Abbr field during import
Is there a way to exclude the Journal_Abbr field during import? This would make my workflow so much nicer!
The problem I have with the auto-population of the Journal_Abbr field is that the abbreviation style is very inconsistent between journals (and even between papers from the same journal); often, it is simply populated with the unabbreviated journal title.
**Why this is a problem for me:** When generating a bibliography in Word, there is a wonderful feature to use MEDLINE abbreviations, but when the Journal_Abbr field is populated the MEDLINE abbreviation is not used (if I recall correctly)—I understand that this is desired behavior (it allows one to override autogeneration in special circumstances), but this setup requires that I prune out all of the bad Journal_Abbr values, and this is tedious. Additionally, I like to use BBT and to include the journal abbreviation in my citation key; unfortunately bad Journal_Abbr values make the keys inconsistent (ideally there should be exactly one correct string for each citation key, and that value should be predictable; the Journal_Abbr values pulled from metadata are not predictable and more-often-than-not imperfect).
Zotero is wonderful software and I am very grateful to be able to use it. This issue is perhaps very minor (and maybe only I care about it), so I greatly appreciate any feedback.
———
(Note: I posted a similar discussion years ago; the BBT creator was kind enough to create a custom script that would allow me to right-click a selection of entries and choose a "Remove Journal Abbreviation" option which did exactly that. However, Zotero auto-upgraded to 6.0 and that "script" no longer works. So I am back again; I hope you don't mind.)
The problem I have with the auto-population of the Journal_Abbr field is that the abbreviation style is very inconsistent between journals (and even between papers from the same journal); often, it is simply populated with the unabbreviated journal title.
**Why this is a problem for me:** When generating a bibliography in Word, there is a wonderful feature to use MEDLINE abbreviations, but when the Journal_Abbr field is populated the MEDLINE abbreviation is not used (if I recall correctly)—I understand that this is desired behavior (it allows one to override autogeneration in special circumstances), but this setup requires that I prune out all of the bad Journal_Abbr values, and this is tedious. Additionally, I like to use BBT and to include the journal abbreviation in my citation key; unfortunately bad Journal_Abbr values make the keys inconsistent (ideally there should be exactly one correct string for each citation key, and that value should be predictable; the Journal_Abbr values pulled from metadata are not predictable and more-often-than-not imperfect).
Zotero is wonderful software and I am very grateful to be able to use it. This issue is perhaps very minor (and maybe only I care about it), so I greatly appreciate any feedback.
———
(Note: I posted a similar discussion years ago; the BBT creator was kind enough to create a custom script that would allow me to right-click a selection of entries and choose a "Remove Journal Abbreviation" option which did exactly that. However, Zotero auto-upgraded to 6.0 and that "script" no longer works. So I am back again; I hope you don't mind.)
You can't ignore journal_abbr on import, no. You should be able to get the BBT script back to work, though, to avoid exporting it. Simply open an issue on the BBT github describing what you need and Emiliano is all but certain to help you fix the script.