ScienceDirect Annual Serial :: Book Section v. journal article

DWL-SDCA
The item that is downloaded when reached by doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60250-6
is imported as a book section type.

However, items from this journal seem to be cited as journal articles.

The book section type import brings in the proper ISSN (0065-2601) as though this is a book section but doesn't bring in the ISBN. When I switch the Zotero item type to journal article, the ISSN is lost. More importantly, the DOI isn't imported because, I suppose, there isn't uniform support for book section DOIs.

I find this problem with essentially all of the annual serials on ScienceDirect.

The after-import editing isn't too tedious, so this is a minor annoyance. That said, if anything could be done, I would thanks for a fix.
  • bwiernik
    edited December 4, 2014
    To clarify some of the issues:

    When importing using the ScienceDirect Translator (the default):
    - The ISSN data is being stored in the ISBN field. It should be dropped, as the book section type does not currently have an ISSN field.
    - ISBN is being dropped, rather than stored in the ISBN field
    - DOI is dropped because the book section type doesn't currently have a DOI field

    When importing using DOI identifier:
    - The ISSN is dropped
    - ISBN is stored in the ISBN field
    - DOI is dropped
    - Editor is not supplied to import

    Ideally, all three fields should be stored (and likely will be once item fields are updated in Zotero 4.2).

    The publisher Elsevier describes the publication as a book series (which is consistent with each volume having its own ISBN)--the metadata supplied by the publisher reports it as a chapter in a volume in a book series, so that is what Zotero can import. Each volume has its own set of editors, so it seems more appropriate (in APA style) to cite these chapters as book chapters, rather than as journal articles.
  • aurimas
    - ISBN is being dropped, rather than stored in the ISBN field
    I don't see ISBN in their data. Otherwise, I think I agree. These are generally published as books (at least the ones I've seen) and they do have editors, so it seems to be more appropriate to cite them as book sections. We'll clean up the ISBN/ISSN on import though.
  • bwiernik
    Ah. That's weird on their part. The ISBN is included in the Text output format, but not in the RIS or the bibtex. Seems like an error in the metadata.
  • DWL-SDCA
    About 6 weeks ago, I reported this to Elsevier and heard back from ScienceDirect. Not a bug but a feature. As I said above, although this is a book series, Elsevier and their ScienceDirect service are treating this as a serial (periodical). I pointed out that their metadata is a jumble. They replied with comments about the journal's impact factor. I guess that they are trying to have it both ways.

    At least in most health journals, items from this publication are treated as journal articles. My preference is that this be treated as a journal but as the Elsevier folks are satisfied with the current ambiguity, Zotero should probably pick either format and follow that. (Their RIS export type is "CHAP" and they are providing editors' names.)
  • aurimas
    Well, I fixed the translator to drop ISSN/ISBN if those are invalid. Whether this should be imported as book section or journal article is up for debate I suppose (I don't feel strongly about either). It makes life a lot easier for us to import it as exported by ScienceDirect though.
  • DWL-SDCA
    Could the dropped ISSN/ISBN go into the Extra field?
  • adamsmith
    Having looked at this, I'm inclined to leave this as is. Contacting Elsevier and asking them to include ISBNs in the data (as they do already in the CrossRef deposit) would be good, though.
    I'm not convinced of adding the ISSN to the extra field for book sections.
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