MicroIsis Winisis Latinamerican libraries

aldo
Most library databases in Latin America use a software that the UNESCO delivers "free" to the Thirld World, called MicroIsis, and its windows offspring Winisis. It's a nightmare of a program, but anyway, that's all there is, you can't look a gift horse in the mouth.

For historians working on latin american subjects it would be useful if zotero could recognize those databases. As an example I cite the National Library of Brazil

http://www.bn.br/site/default.htm

and the National Academy of History of Argentina:

http://allytech.dnsalias.org/isiswww/biblio/index_e.html
  • aldo
    Sorry, I got mixed up with the libraries. I don't know what they use in Brazil (although Zotero doesn't talk to it either). I meant the National Library in Argentina:

    http://www.bibnal.edu.ar/paginas/principbusq.htm
  • eugenia
    I wish to second Aldo's request. The world of Hispanic studies is full of databases designed with Isis.

    I see this has elicited no response...
  • sean
    aldo and eugenia: I took a look at the ISIS system yesterday. Unfortunately ISIS doesn't appear to provide any neatly formatted metadata. Unless I am mistaken, a translator for ISIS OPACs will involve a text scraper, which is the most problematic and time-consuming type of translator to write. That said, Zotero community members have created such translators on their own (e.g. syma's SUDOC translator). We invite you to consult our developer documentation and begin work on a translator for ISIS.
  • aldo
    Thank you Sean for your suggestion but regrettably I am a historian of philosophy not a computer programmer. I thought that the forum encouraged people to point out gaps and glitches for the developers to take notice and did not expect the answer to my comment would be "go and fix it yourself".
  • sean
    edited March 25, 2007
    It may surprise you to learn that I'm also a historian. Anyway, I hardly was asking you to "fix it yourself" since a) it's not actually broken and b) there is a community of developers with a wide range of skills that would be willing to assist you.

    We would love to support ISIS -- especially since we're about to add Spanish and Portuguese interfaces -- but in the interest of serving your needs sooner rather than later, I thought it best to point you in the right direction in case you either had the skills, inclination, or even technically-minded friends to begin work on a translator.
  • patora
    There are many ways to hook up ISIS databases on the web. Most uses tools from Bireme (http://www.bireme.br), another nice function library is OpenIsis (http://sourceforge.net/projects/isis/).
    To use Zotero with an ISIS System it should be simple to include metadata, for example COinS, RDF or MODS. Unfortunately most ISIS-Database are unique and their formats needs to be coded separately.
    What you can do is to talk with your librarian (or write a formal letter to the library) and demand the inclusion of Zotero usable Metadata on their OPAC. I don´t know many librarians who knows about Zotero and many of them depends upon users to let them know which technological features are really important.
  • patora
    COinS was finally the option because it was very quick to add. Our CDS/ISIS catalog is now Zotero-compatible.
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