No URL bar icon at JSTOR

mpfirnhaber
When visiting JSTOR, I see no Zotero icon in the URL bar to download articles. I can download PDFs fine by clicking the relevant links. Using Firefox plugin.

Two things to note:

First, I don't log into JSTOR directly - my university has its own landing page. http://rpucolo.colorado.edu/jstor/

Second, I'm accessing from home through a VPN. http://oit.colorado.edu/services/network-internet-services/vpn/help/desktop-applications/network-connect

I guess these two factors complicate matters?

So what steps do I need to take to easily import both PDFs and the relevant metadata into Zotero?

Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    The CU off-campus connect options are a total disaster.
    I tried to get the regular proxy or the network-connect working for my wife unsuccessfully - the only good part about that was that I felt really young, like I was back in 1999...

    The one thing that should work is to connect using Cisco VPN
    http://oit.colorado.edu/services/network-internet-services/vpn/help/desktop-applications/cisco-vpn

    and then directly access JSTOR through jstor.org instead of going through the research pro link. Unfortunately that'll be the only way to make Zotero & JSTOR work for you.
  • mpfirnhaber
    edited April 3, 2012
    Wow that's unfortunate. But thanks for the advice!

    Edit - the Cisco VPN is working fine. What a phenomenal tool this is!
  • Arvind
    resurrecting again:

    http://www.jstor.org/stable/2801395, which redirects to
    http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2801395?uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=56133071073

    doesn't show a URL icon for me. I'm not logged in to anything, and I'm not on a VPN.

    also verified with http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928817 - so it's not just that page.

    I'm using FF 12, Zotero 3.0.6 on OS X 10.7.3
  • Arvind
    a close look at the page source reveals that the metadata is embedded in a form.. twice:

    <form id="purchase_form" method="post" action=
    "http://purchase.jstor.org/checkout.php?addppv">
    <input type="hidden" value="issn-00251496-ppv" name="ppv-offer-code" /><input type=
    "hidden" value="ARTICLE" name="ppv-type" /><input type="hidden" value=
    "The Past as a Scarce Resource" name="ppv-title" /><input type="hidden" value=
    "Arjun Appadurai" name="ppv-authors" /><input type="hidden" value=
    "Man, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 201-219" name=
    "ppv-vol" /><input type="hidden" value="19" name="ppv-pages" /><input type="hidden"
    value="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2801395" name="ppv-url" /><input type="hidden"
    value="Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland" name=
    "ppv-publisher" /><input type="hidden" value=
    "offercode:issn-00251496-ppv; articleid:10.2307/2801395; sessionid:56133071073;originhost:www.jstor.org"
    name="ppv-order-reference" /><input type="hidden" value="" name=
    "ppv-order-note" /><input type="submit" value="ADD TO CART" name="ADD TO CART" class=
    "purchaseButton c7" />
    </form>
  • adamsmith
    that's not real metadata that I'd want to use, we'd have to puzzle this together from an unstructured piece like "Man, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 201-219" - and I don't even see the journal name in there.

    I don't know if JSTOR changed that across the board or just for that journal, but you don't have access to citation data without access to the journal article (i.e. JSTOR) anymore - so Zotero can't get it either. If you don't have access to JSTOR you're better of getting citation data from a different source.
    Once you're logged into JSTOR this work nicely.
  • Arvind
    @adamsmith: ah. no metadata for free? that would explain it. thanks for clearing that up.

    i have to say i am increasingly loving the academic journal/publication access experience, now that I'm no longer in university but still attempting to engage with scholarly work.

    in the previous paragraph, i use the word 'love' in a special sense: namely its very opposite.
  • adamsmith
    yeah, looks like JSTOR changed that across the board - that's really unfortunate, I wonder why they did that. JSTOR are supposed to be the good guys.
    I'd just go with google scholar - in many cases that may even point you to a free working paper version of an article (or a semi-legal copy somewhere on the interwebs).
  • csaunt
    I'm accessing JSTOR through a proxy (http://www.jstor.org.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/), using Zotero Desktop and Safari, and can't save any of the items, even though the Zotero icon is active. Is there a workaround?
  • adamsmith
    "can't save" means you get an error when you try?
  • csaunt
    Yes, get the following:

    Saving Item...
    An error occurred while saving this item. Check Known Translator Issues for more information.

    A related question: Am I supposed to be able to save a JSTOR PDF, viewed within Safari browser?
  • adamsmith
    The Safari connector (or Safari) seems buggier than Firefox and Chrome - if you have one of those installed, it'd be great if you could see if those save. In general, please provide an error report from both Safari and Zotero standalone after triggering this error
    http://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_bugs#provide_a_report_id
    I can try, but since I don't have a Mac it's hard for me to troubleshoot Safari-specific issues, so I'd hope someone else will take a look.

    You cannot directly save pdfs from Safari or Chrome to Zotero, no, though in most cases JSTOR pdfs will/should download together with the citation data.
  • csaunt
    Zotero Desktop does work with Chrome for OS X, using the URL (http://www.jstor.org.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/).

    Using Safari, however, I get the following error: [JavaScript Error: "'undefined' is not a function"]
  • adamsmith
    Simon should probably take a look at this - it sounds like there is a good number of Safari problems, would be nice to get to the bottom of that.
  • Simon
    It looks like Safari doesn't pass cookies when making HTTP requests from an extension, at least the way we are doing it now. I think I can implement a partial workaround for this that should at least get JSTOR to work.
  • sinophil
    Hi,

    I'm not sure whether I should create a new thread, but my problem seems to be very similar to mpfirnhaber's. Therefore, I'll try here.

    I have access to JSTOR via the remote access provided by local library. Still, when on the info page of an article it's not possible to save to Zotero (no icon in the address bar).

    When visiting JSTOR via this remote access, the link looks like this for example: http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/359218229/www.jstor.org/stable/301881.

    Is there anything I can do?

    Thanks!

    (I'm using Zotero for Firefox.)
  • adamsmith
    I'd suspect that Zotero doesn't recognize the proxy - i.e. the
    http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/359218229/ part of the URL and so doesn't see that this is a JSTOR URL.
    do you get automatic proxy redirection?
    i.e. if you try to go to www.jstor.org/stable/301881 , does Zotero automatically redirect you through the spk-berlin server?
  • sinophil
    edited August 17, 2012
    I guess I don't get automatic proxy redirection: When I go to www.jstor.org/stable/301881, I get redirected to the preview /get access page of the article (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/301881?uid=16779064&uid=3737864&uid=2&uid=16734048&uid=3&uid=67&uid=62&sid=21101148826187) with a notification that I am currently not logged in.

    Is there anything that can be done so that Zotero does recognize the proxy?
  • sinophil
    Is there really no solution out there?
  • adamsmith
    you could try manually adding your proxy - I have no idea if that will work with this type of proxy, but it's worth a try, if you're somewhat confident with technology. Start in the "proxy" tab of the Zotero preferences, click the + sign. www.jstor.org is your hostname, your scheme would be
    http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/359218229/%h/%p
    make sure proxy redirection is enabled. See if that works.
  • dontworryteach
    Click on "view citation" on the JStore page, copy stable URL, then the save icon for Zotero comes up. It will download the meta data, but not the PDF automatically - I just save the file to desktop & then import to Zotero.
  • sinophil
    @ dontworryteach:
    Thanks for your answer, but it didn't solve the problem. When using the stable URL the save-to-Zotero-icon does appear now. Still, saving the item does not work.

    @adamsmith: Thanks for your answer. After a little adjustment, this is working. When using the proxy settings described above and entering a JSTOR stable URL, I didn't get the expected results (E.g. when entering www.jstor.org/stable/301881, I did get redirected to http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/359218229/%h/stable/301881 and "Bad Request - Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand" popped up). I tried a little around, and with the scheme
    http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/359218229/%awww.jstor.org/%p saving the item now works perfectly. Thanks a lot!
  • aurimas
    When using the proxy settings described above and entering a JSTOR stable URL, I didn't get the expected results (E.g. when entering www.jstor.org/stable/301881, I did get redirected to http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/359218229/%h/stable/301881 and "Bad Request - Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand" popped up). I tried a little around, and with the scheme
    When entering the suggested proxy settings, did you click the Multi Site checkbox at the top of the dialog box that pops up?

    The settings that worked for you will be specific to JSTOR. With the Multi Site checked, the proxy will be detected on other websites as well.
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