Batch import by ISBN
Hello. I am a zotero user in Japan. I just started using zotero and found it very helpful, so I am trying to import my book list from another web application.
The web application is not for academic purposes, so the current records of books are not comprehensive. I tried the magic wand feature in zotero and am happy to see that using ISBN as a key to import books works pretty good. Since the data retrieved from databases is better than the one in my book list, I want to make use of only ISBNs in the current book list to import the books.
However, it seems that batch import feature by ISBN has not been implemented. Am I right? If so, I hope to have this in future, for it is a very nice feature for users like me.
And also, it seems to be unavailable to prioritize the order of databases. But this is also important for me, because some databases store the information of Japanese books by romanized characters while others not. I just want to share how this feature is preferable for those who use some minor languages.
Thanks for providing such a useful tool!
The web application is not for academic purposes, so the current records of books are not comprehensive. I tried the magic wand feature in zotero and am happy to see that using ISBN as a key to import books works pretty good. Since the data retrieved from databases is better than the one in my book list, I want to make use of only ISBNs in the current book list to import the books.
However, it seems that batch import feature by ISBN has not been implemented. Am I right? If so, I hope to have this in future, for it is a very nice feature for users like me.
And also, it seems to be unavailable to prioritize the order of databases. But this is also important for me, because some databases store the information of Japanese books by romanized characters while others not. I just want to share how this feature is preferable for those who use some minor languages.
Thanks for providing such a useful tool!
However, the behavior of the feature is not very stable. It seems many (more than 10) ISBN numbers at once won't work good, and in some tests I performed the behavior seemed to be dependent on the linefeed characters. I think there still is a need for the batch import feature, for number of ISBNs could be quite much.
Thanks!
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3091524/what-are-carriage-return-linefeed-and-form-feed
http://www.theasciicode.com.ar/ascii-control-characters/line-feed-ascii-code-10.html
I assumed so, as gurdas figured out. But I have no evidence for that, sorry. I just observed those two trials brought different behaviors. Anyway, it seems to me that the feature does not work with many ISBNs at once.
Zotero seems to consult databases from bottom to up of the items listed in the magic wand input box, and if Zotero failed to find a record during the repetition of the consultation, it stops the action without any caution which is provided when only one record is given ("Zotero could not find a record for the specified identifier.")
The following case may illustrate: you have 10 DOIs, which you import. After import, only 9 items show up in your library. It is possible to re-export the 9 items (e.g. to a csv), but since Zotero seems not to retain all DOIs (some DOIs missing in the re-export for cases where there is an ISBN for a book chapter), it is not trivial to match the 9 DOIs back to the original 10 to find the missing one.
For my use case that is sufficient, but I agree it would be ideal to have a notification of what happend in terms of errors when importing DOIs.