Can I add data from a csv file into Zotero?

kevinwilson

Hello, the institution I work for subscribes to a platform that indexes policy documents from NGOs/IGOs/think tanks, etc. Let's say I run a report of documents on a topic and I want to add them into a Zotero library. The only export option is csv - there are no options for RIS or BIBTEX (I've suggested they look into that).

The Zotero browser extension doesn't give me the folder icon that I'd get for library catalogues/databases, just the page icon, which would just give a single entry for search results.

Unfortunately because these are policy documents, they don't have ISBNs/DOIs that I could just easily paste in en masse into the Add Items By Identifier tool. The csv file only gives the URLs of the documents.

Are there options for what to do with URLs or with csv files to get the data into Zotero?

Thanks!

adamsmith

Would you be willing to say which platform? We might be able to take a look.

You can't directly import CSVs into Zotero, no, but you can use Excel to concatenate the fields into bibtex entries which you can import. Think
something like (untested)
=CONCATENATE('@book{author ="', C2, '", title = "', D2, '"}')

kevinwilson

Thanks @adamsmith. The platform is named Overton. It's a citations analysis tool primarily, but it allows one to search through and access those policy documents (as well as the metrics information within). It requires a subscription though, so not sure if that helps. I have a CSV file I can share if it helps. Thanks.

joycekwc

I do a similar thing using RIS - export to .csv then in Excel or Google Sheets, on another tab, I have formulas that add the RIS tags. I copy these into a text or code editor, save it as a .ris file and import. I just use RIS rather than Bibtex as it’s an easier format for me to understand. The RIS fields to Zotero fields are here: https://github.com/aurimasv/zotero-import-export-formats/blob/master/RIS.ris