problems with PICA2 translator in GBV catalogs

r2wagner
Hi

for a few weeks now there seems to be a problem with PICA translators in catalogs maintained by the GBV. I am not able to download metadata from the university libraries in Göttingen, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, TIB Hannover etc. using the PICA2 translator (try for example https://opac.sub.uni-goettingen.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=57161647X, http://opac.tib.uni-hannover.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=620088028 , http://lhclz.gbv.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=08727342X). It works with CoinS though.
To my surprise, there is no problem with the catalog of the Stabi in Berlin (see for example http://stabikat.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=57161647X ).
In the main GBV catalog there is no problem either, but here Zotero uses the "PICA" translator (and not "PICA2") (see for example http://gso.gbv.de/DB=2.1/PPNSET?PPN=57161647X ).

I had colleagues trying it out, and used Firefox 19 and 20 and Zotero 3.x and 4.0.3, but I don´t think the versions of the software have anything to do with it. Here is a report ID too, but I don´t think that it adds relevant information either:
Report ID 1135268122

Best
r2wagner
  • adamsmith
    we're aware of this and working on a fix
    (if you're curious about the details - Zotero tries to access bibtex for the records in the PICA2 translator. In my tests all "Pica2" catalogs, i.e. the ones with trapezoid tabs in the middle rather than rectangular ones to the left, had bibtex export, but that's clearly not the case.)
  • r2wagner
    thanks for the information - good to hear that you are working on it!
  • adamsmith
    This should work across the board now. I tested all catalogs mentioned in your post.
    Your version of Zotero will automatically update within 24hs, or you can update manually using the "Update Now" button in the "General" tab of the Zotero preferences. They'll all show up as PICA now.

    Any further problems let us know & thanks for reporting
  • r2wagner
    Yes, it works fine now - thanks for fixing it!
  • haugmark
    University library of Rostock does not accept entries into Zotero, also using PICA translator. Interface looks pretty much like the URLs zited above. try for ex:
    http://katalog.ub.uni-rostock.de/DB=1/PPNSET?PPN=254743781
  • adamsmith
    Short version - this isn't a general issue - other items in Rostock work - and we should be able to fix this, though I think this is either a mistake or, at a minimum, a poor implementation choice, on the part of the library.

    <technical details, feel free to skip> so the reason this breaks for Rostock is that they have %D1 in the COinS, which breaks Firefox's decodeURIComponent, because it's not a valid utf-8 encoding (I suspect it's ISO 8859). If I understand the COinS specs correctly that isn't recommended, but it isn't strictly illegal (non utf-8 values _are_ illegal for the decodeURIComponent function, so FF is doing the right thing here. So two things:
    1. We shouldn't have this break if the COinS throws an error
    2. Is this something we can deal with or is non-utf encoding definitely wrong in COinS? My reading of http://www.niso.org/apps/group_public/download.php/6640/The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services.pdf page 12 is that if they want to use non-utf they would need to specify that. <end technical details>
  • adamsmith
    OK, the translator should now work across the board for Rostock.
    I'd still be curious what Aurimas or Simon have to say about the error itself.
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