Citing machine-readable databases

lizackert
Hello,
I am wondering what type of "Item" I should use to identify a machine-readable database.

For example, I need to add the following citation for data from the Integrated Public-Use Microdata Series (IPUMS):

Steven Ruggles, Katie Genadek, Ronald Goeken, Josiah Grover, and Matthew Sobek. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 6.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2015.

Source website recommending that data are cited in this way:
https://usa.ipums.org/usa/cite.shtml

I have not seen an Item description for a database. Any thoughts? Would it be possible to add a "Database" item?

Thanks!
  • bwiernik
    Report is probably best, especially if you give a URL. The CSL language that Zotero uses has a 'dataset' type that Zotero doesn't yet support. You can force an item to be treated as a dataset by adding this:

    type: dataset

    to the top of the Extra field. If the style you are using supports datasets, it will be picked up and formatted correctly.
  • lizackert
    Thanks! I labeled it as a Report item and then added type:dataset to the Extra field.

  • isaferrall
    As the importance of data sharing and citing databases and datasets has grown in the past 3 years, have there been updates to Zotero's support for citing them properly? Dataverse https://dataverse.org/about is an excellent example of something that should integrate better into Zotero.
  • adamsmith
    Have you tried importing from Dataverse to Zotero? It does what bwiernik recommends above and produces correct citations.

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