I assume when you say

Since they limit search results per page to 30, a list of over 300 results will take a while to import to zotero if I import each page separately.

you mean each search result page, not each article page, right? Zotero can import multiple items at once from the search results page, so that would mean only 10 search result pages that you have to go through. The bonus is that you get the PDF attachments and probably somewhat better metadata.

But here's a solution that I mention on Twitter. It has a few caveats, but here goes.

A bit of a WARNING: this involves using Zotero 4.0 alpha, which is not very well tested and the feature you're about to use is new, so it's even less tested, but I did what you're about to do myself and nothing broke per se.

Edit: I also suggest that you first try this with a smaller set of DOIs, so you can see if the results are acceptable.

Read through these instructions before you begin so you know what you're getting into.

1. Install the Zotero 4.0 dev branch XPI in Firefox (sorry, this is not yet available for Zotero Standalone). Do read the disclaimer and the paragraph at the top of that page. Once Zotero 4.0 comes out, you should update to the official Zotero release.


2. Download the CSV file from the SpringerLink search results. BTW, a sample URL is http://link.springer.com/search?query=health+and+adaptation&search-within=Journal&facet-publication-title="Climatic+Change"


3. Open the CSV in Excel or something similar, select all DOIs (5th column), and copy them to clipboard.


4. Open Zotero and click on the "magic wand tool"


5. Paste the DOIs. You should get a scrollable multi-line textbox


6. Click Search


7. Grab a coffee while Zotero imports the items. Took me about 5-10 minutes


8. Restart Firefox (Technical note: there seems to be some sort of memory leak here. We need to look into this). It might take a while for Firefox to really shut down, so if you try starting it and it complains that it's already running, give it a minute or so


9. You should now have most of the search results in. Unfortunately Zotero was not able to fetch all DOIs for me. I got 311/385 DOIs imported. I'll have to take a look at what happened to the rest.

As I said before, this is not a very well tested feature and you're probably one of the first people to use it on such a large scale. We'll work on speeding this up and improving the import altogether.

Thank you. Since I really need to make sure I get all search results into the reference managing software, I might have to re-do the searches online and import with the URL bar import as usual. But for a less rigorous search I will definitely try out the more experimental method.