Zotero not working in Hathitrust

LGAA320 · June 24, 2022

Hi all,

I've been using Zotero for a research project which involves rather heavy use of Hathitrust. While Zotero's integration with the site had previously worked, as of today it's failing. The connector registers that I'm reading (say) a book, but when I click on it, it appears blank (i.e. it says "saving to [folder]" but does not show any actual object being saved below, as it usually does).

Perhaps more worryingly, this issue seems to extend to the manual export of RIS files from hathitrust too. Upon attempting that workaround, Zotero gives me an error message stating that the file I'm trying to use is not a supported filetype.

Any suggestions? I would really like to avoid having to enter citations manually.

Thanks in advance!

adamsmith · June 25, 2022

Could we get a couple of sample URLs?

ednawalter · June 25, 2022

I have been having similar problems with Hathi. Always having to enter citations manually. Even going through the tedious matter of downloading items page by page when the whole item isn't available for download on Hathi, then saving as a pdf to attach to Zotero item in the library, this doesn't always work. Often end up with blank pages.

adamsmith · June 25, 2022

Same question -- could we get a couple of URLs where that happens?

ednawalter · June 30, 2022

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015080386165&view=1up&seq=276&skin=2021&q1=acme

Can download this page, then save as PDF and attach manually to ref I enter manually but Nothing happens if I try to save this direct to Zotero from website

adamsmith · June 30, 2022

This is a bug on the HathiTrust page -- you can test for yourself by going to the catalog page (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000554163/Home for this item) and the clicking Export Citation File: if you open the exported file with a text editor, you'll see that it contains error messages from Hathi rather than RIS.

I'd recommend reporting to them. I'd recommend reporting this without any mention of Zotero so they don't think this is a 3rd party software issue. The key part is that their RIS export is broken -- that this also breaks Zotero import is secondary for fixing it.

adamsmith · July 1, 2022

Hathi says they're working on it.

LGAA320 · July 1, 2022

Hi all,

Thanks so much for all this information and sorry for my delayed reply. Good to hear Hathi is working on this! Here are some more example links, in case it's at all helpful:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112064899013&view=1up&seq=23&skin=2021&q1=fitchburg

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036671090&view=1up&seq=154&skin=2021

adamsmith · July 20, 2022

@ednawalter @LGAA320 -- I haven't heard back from Hathi, but it looks from my end like this has been fixed.