COPAC Bug

johnlknight
I've just been using Zotero with COPAC. Everytime I downloaded a record the word 'creator' was added to the first name along the lines of:

Author: Clark, David John. creator
Author: Courtney, Roger. creator

This happened for every file I downloaded.

Cheers,
John
  • sean
    John: I'm not encountering this problem. Could you provide us with a specific search query or record that's misbehaving? Odds are there's something wrong with COPAC's COinS tagging, but I would like to confirm. Thanks.
  • drrayl
    I also find this problem with Copac.
    An example Copac record is as follows. (I searched for "Wiles, David" as author.


    Main author: Wiles, David.
    Title details: Early plays of Robin Hood / David Wiles.
    Published: Woodbridge : D.S. Brewer, 1981.
    Physical desc.: 97p.
    Identifier: ISBN: 0859910822
    etc

    In the Zotero Info, Author is shown as : Wiles, David. creator

    This record inserted into a Word footnote (under Windows) gives:
    David. creator Wiles, Early plays of Robin Hood (Woodbridge :: D.S. Brewer,, 1981).
  • johnlknight
    The first example that came in to my head, had the same error:-

    Author 'Horne'
    Title: 'Job Well Done'

    Selected the first record to appear (a British library copy), and the same error appeared as indicated by the below record:-

    Horne, Edward. creator. 1982. Job well done (being a history of the Palestine Police Force 1920-1948. Leigh-on-Sea :: Palestine Police Old Comrades Benevolent Association,
  • scot
    (1) I get the problem as well. It seems like it is a COinS problem. Here's a snippet from a sample entry (the first one listed in a search for 'bovon'):

    rft.au=Bovon,+Franc¸ois.+creator&
    rft.place=Gene`ve+:&
    rft.pub=Labor+et+Fides,&
    rft.date=1996

    The '.+creator' is superfluous.

    (2) Note that there are 2 other problems with the above COinS tags: a space-and-colon appears at the end of the place name, (shown above as +:) and a comma appears at the end of the publisher. This is of course standard punctuation for certain bibliography styles (and is presumably in their database like this), but it doesn't belong in the data fields. This results in the following import into zotero:

    Place: Genève :
    Publisher: Labor et Fides,

    I have emailed about (2), and they said. "We will be reviewing all the record
    displays in the newly released Copac database and I'll add this to that
    process." Perhaps someone could ask them to add this new one to their list of things to review, even pointing them to this discussion. They're very helpful there.
  • kkraus
    I've emailed the Copac folks, pointed them to this forum thread, and asked if they'd mind editing their COinS tags to remove the '.+creator'. I've also asked if they would consider including instructions for importing Copac citations into Zotero on their FAQ page, where they already provide information on using Copac in conjunction with Endnote.
  • scot
    Very good. Hopefully they'll be able to take care of the [ :] at the end of the place name and the [,] at the end of the publisher name at the same time.
  • Jon Rubin
    "Very good. Hopefully they'll be able to take care of the [ :] at the end of the place name and the [,] at the end of the publisher name at the same time."

    This doesn't ever seem to have happened.
    Would it be possible to alter the translator so these aren't included?

    Regards, Jon.
  • scot
    You're right, all three bugs still exist. I just sent off another email to the (generally responsive) people at, copac@mimas.ac.uk, the COPAC help desk. Unfortunately, though the COPAC help desk is responsive to users, their development seems to go in --presumably funding related-- spurts. Hopefully they can have a look at this in the near future.

    For reference the three problems are:

    1) '. creator' appended to the author's name
    2) a space-and-colon appears at the end of the place name,
    3) a comma appears at the end of the publisher's name

    These occur (always together, if I recall) with many--but apparently not all--COPAC database entries. In my experience, I get the three artifacts on most items.

    Tweaking the Zotero translator would be a bit of a hack, since it's not a COPAC-specific translator, but a general COinS mechanism within Zotero. Please, COPAC....?
  • scot
    Bug (1) ". creator" in Author field is now fixed, by Shirley at copac. She fixed it in the single record display a year ago, but forgot to change the multiple record display until now. She intends to attempt a fix to the others soon. Thanks.
  • scot
    Stray punctuation bugs (2) and (3) still not fixed.
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