Is it possible to add extra metadata fields?

I am using the "extra" field, and I need one more extra field. Can I add another?
  • No, sorry. You can use as many notes as you want, if that helps. Same with tags, but you can't currently add or change metadata fields.
  • Also, you can have multiple lines in the Extra field or co-opt a largely unused field like Call Number, if one of those meets your purposes.
  • Thanks.
    I might do either (use notes or "Call Number").

    But if I do:
    - Can I somehow tell Zotero to not put call numbers in the "Call Number" field from now on when saving references to the library? Hmm.. :) I'm guessing the answer is no (I'm new to Zotero).

    - Is there an easy way to delete all notes in my library (or all information from "Call Number")?

    - Also, I am worried that the new info I want to add might somehow be overwritten with a call number or something. If, say, the information I delete returns - like tags seem to do sometimes (I delete a tag in the editor, and the next day it is back).


    Background info: We are a group of people sharing a library in Zotero with a very large number of references (and duplicates). We are using the "Extra" field for our own translations of titles, and need one more field for translated abstracts.
  • 1) You can't control the import behavior like that easily, sorry.

    2) You can use the javacript API to batch-edit a field, but given what you want to store in them and your concerns about import not entering other information, I would recommend not using Call Number.

    3) The information in a field won't change like that unless the item is explicitly modified by a user. What you are probably seeing with the tags is that different users of the library weren't quite in sync. Zotero 4.0 can sometimes run into sync conflicts with tag changes in multi-user libraries. To avoid data loss, all tags are included when that occurs. Zotero 5.0 (in beta) handles this much better.

    Given that you want to store translate titles and abstracts, I would recommend storing them on 2 lines in Extra or 1 in Extra and 1 in an attached note.

    Do you need to be able to cite the abstract? If not, storing it as an attached note to the item would probably be easiest.

    If you are doing a lot of multilingual work, you might want to Juris-M (http://juris-m.github.io), a Zotero variant designed for work with multilingual item data.
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