Worldcat

aldo
Two problems I have detected:

1. Zotero does not allow to grab several references from a worldcat search, although if one clicks on an individual item it is possible to save the results of a search (one by one).

2. Zotero does not recognize the type of items properly. For instance in the case of Sound recordings it saves them as Books.
  • sean
    1. I'm not experiencing any problems saving multiple results. Could you please provide us with a search query that's failing?

    2. There does seem to be a problem with item type recognition. WorldCat tags its items with COinS, and they are not indicating any genre or format to tell us whether we're looking at a sound recording.
  • Simon
    Zotero does not currently have a translator for Open WorldCat. Instead, works via the standardized COinS metadata incorporated in the book entries, which is not present on the search results and is always encoded as a "book" type.

    Zotero has a translator for WorldCat FirstSearch that does support retrieving multiple references, and may be better at recognizing non-book types.
  • aldo
    Thank you Simon for your clarification. I mean Open World Cat. Scholars in the Thirld World don't always have access to paid databases and have to manage with open ones.

    Sean, when you said that you didn't have trouble with multiple references did you mean Firstsearch or open Worldcat? Any search in open Worldcat will not be translated by Zotero (at least in multiple form, it does work item by item, though, with the limitations I mentioned.
  • sean
    We have a new Open WorldCat translator in the works. It will be available within 24 hours.
  • PhDinHistory
    I think the WorldCat translator may need some tweaking. I captured the citation for a book in WorldCat. It is _The Tortured Americans_ by Bob Burnette. Here are the subject terms, with my numbering, that appear in WorldCat for this book:

    1. Indians of North America -- Government relations -- 1934-
    2. Dakota Indians -- Politics and government.
    3. Sioux (volk)
    4. Reservaten.
    5. Politieke situatie.

    Here is how Zotero captured the tags (with my numbering included):

    1. 1934-Dakota Indians
    2. Government relations
    3. Indians of North America
    4. Politics and government. Sioux (volk) Reservaten. Politieke situatie.

    Here is how I think Zotero is supposed to capture the tags (based on my understanding of hierarchies in LCSH):

    1. Indians of North America
    2. Government relations 1934-
    3. Dakota Indians
    4. Politics and government
    5. Sioux (volk)
    6. Reservaten.
    7. Politieke situatie.

    As you can see, Zotero is mixing the end of WorldCat subject term 1 with the beginning of subject term 2 when it creates tags. Zotero could apparently become better at parsing the terms and tags in WorldCat.
  • PhDinHistory
    The Zotero translator for WorldCat ran into one more problem when trying to capture the citation for the above-cited book. Here is what WorldCat displays the title and the two authors for this book:

    Title: The tortured Americans.
    Author(s): Burnette, Robert.
    Erdoes, Richard,; 1912- ; (Illustrator)

    Here is what Zotero captured:

    Title: The Tortured Americans. Erdoes, Richard,; 1912- ; (Illustrator)
    Author: Burnette, Robert

    As you can see, Zotero was unable to recognize that there were two authors for this book. Strangely, it picked up the title and then skipped over the first author's name to pick up what it thought was the remainder of the title (but which was actually another author's name). I have had this happen with a lot of books whose citations I have captured in WorldCat. Can you fix this?
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