IdeaMason import

michael-keizer
I used to be a happy IdeaMason user until they closed their doors earlier this year (which I still think is a crying shame -- IM was by far the best fit with my work flow). Anyway, after trying out several other options, I have now switched to Zotero, and would like to get my sources across from IM to Zotero. IM cannot export in any of the formats that Zotero imports, so I wondered if anybody found a way to bring materials across.

Any solution, however tortuous, would be appreciated, as I am definitely not looking forward to having to move everyrhing over manually.

Thanks,
Michael
  • adamsmith
    that's probably going to be hard - but for a start:
    In which formats can IdeaMason export?

    One option would likely be to go through endnote - provided you have access to endnote through some friend or even your library. Endnote has more import options than zotero. (It also has a buggy output, but in comparison that would be a minor drag it seems).
  • michael-keizer
    edited September 19, 2009
    Hah, stupid me, never to have thought of Endnote. In fact, I have a licence for version X2 through my university. I will see later today whether I can do something there.

    In the mean time: IdeaMason can export in the following formats: Word, RTF, HTML, and XML.

    Thanks for the input, Adam -- any further support will be highly appreciated!
  • adamsmith
    yeah - xml to endnote might be your best guess if you go that way.

    But maybe, if you are a little tech savy - you may want to read this read which includes stragies for getting xml data into Zotero
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8879/data-import-from-endnote-via-bibutils-to-zotero/#Item_7
  • michael-keizer
    Well, if that is your idea of "a little tech savy", then I would hate to see what you think is full-on geekiness. ;)

    I don't think I will be installing UNIX on my computer just to get this going, and though I would probably be able to translate it into something similar using Windows apps, I think that I will try the Endnote route first. Although for some reason Endnote refuses to be installed on my shiny new desktop box... so next stop is the uni ICT help-desk.

    Thanks again!
  • adamsmith
    bibutils is UNIX like and commandline, but it runs on windows, too:
    http://www.scripps.edu/~cdputnam/software/bibutils/bibutils_4.2_win.zip

    and ben gives you a step-by-step guide - I don't find that super intimidating but obviously that's up to you.
  • michael-keizer
    Hah, that was a challenge if I ever saw one! ;)

    Not to worry, I am old enough to have programmed on a bleeping PDP-11/44 (strictly for students, of course -- faculty never even got close to such outdated stuff), so I am not easily intimidated by command lines and the like.

    With your link I was able to download bibutils, but... sadly, it isn't able to translate the IdeaMason XML file into RIS nor into BibTeX: I get a status back saying "Processed 0 references", and an empty output file. I suspect that IdeaMason does not exactly follow the MODS specifications in its XML files; in fact, when I open an IM XML file, there is very little in common with the MODS schema at http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-3.xsd. It does seem to follow the standard W3 XML schema (validated at http://www.w3.org/2001/03/webdata/xsv). So probably Endnote would not be able to deal with this either... or does it have options to read non-MODS XML?

    Again, thanks for your input and support; one of the reasons why I like working with Zotero so much is the supportive user community.
  • dstillman
    It may just be a proprietary XML format of theirs (as EndNote XML is). Post a short sample here?
  • komrade
    Hi Michael, I've found less export bugs and easier install with Version 9 of endnote (instead of X2), if your uni still has that available somewhere.
    It can import XML and Tab-delimited.
  • komrade
    Though yes Dan, it does call it "Endnote generated XML"
  • dstillman
    OK. Unfortunately as far as I know EndNote has changed their XML format quite a bit between versions, so there's not really such a thing as generic EndNote XML. But, also because of this, you may have luck with a different version—if you have access to it—as komrade suggests.
  • michael-keizer
    Thanks again, Dan & komrade. I will see what the ICT helpdesk comes up with tomorrow (I doubt that they will respond to my query on a Sunday).

    @Dan: sample follows below the line. I have included the header, the first two records, and the footer from the XML export file.

    Thanks again to everybody for the great support!

    -------------------------------------------------------------
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16" ?>
    - <IdeaMason_Data xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    - <IdeaMason_Items>
    - <IdeaMason_Item OTID="10" TypeCode="L">
    <IdeaMasonID>113</IdeaMasonID>
    <Type>Source</Type>
    <SubType>Book</SubType>
    <ItemName>New testament in Hebrew</ItemName>
    <Status />
    <CreatedTime>9/04/2008 11:46:11 AM</CreatedTime>
    <ModifiedTime>9/04/2008 11:46:11 AM</ModifiedTime>
    <CreatedBy />
    <ModifiedBy />
    <DocPath />
    <MainText />
    <CommentText />
    <NoteText />
    <Abstract />
    <NoDefaultCitation>false</NoDefaultCitation>
    <Citation>The new testament in Hebrew and Dutch n.d., The Trinitarian Bible Society, London.</Citation>
    <Cit_TitleCodes>\I The new testament in Hebrew and Dutch\i0 n.d., The Trinitarian Bible Society, London.</Cit_TitleCodes>
    - <SourceData>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Item ID</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>113</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Object Sub Type</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>0</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Location</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>My Collection</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Call Number</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>11.31 ANON NEWT ND</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Title</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>The new testament in Hebrew and Dutch</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Subtitle</FieldName>
    <FieldValue />
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Publisher</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>The Trinitarian Bible Society</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Publication Location</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>London</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Publication Year</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>n.d.</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>ISBN</FieldName>
    <FieldValue />
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>No. of Pages</FieldName>
    <FieldValue />
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Electronic Document Path</FieldName>
    <FieldValue />
    </Source_Field>
    </SourceData>
    <Categories />
    <Activities />
    </IdeaMason_Item>
    - <IdeaMason_Item OTID="10" TypeCode="L">
    <IdeaMasonID>34</IdeaMasonID>
    <Type>Source</Type>
    <SubType>Book</SubType>
    <ItemName>De ramp</ItemName>
    <Status />
    <CreatedTime>9/09/2007 2:47:15 PM</CreatedTime>
    <ModifiedTime>9/09/2007 2:47:15 PM</ModifiedTime>
    <CreatedBy />
    <ModifiedBy />
    <DocPath />
    <MainText />
    <CommentText />
    <NoteText />
    <Abstract />
    <NoDefaultCitation>false</NoDefaultCitation>
    <Citation>De ramp: Met een voorwoord van HM de Koningin 1953, Vereeniging ter Bevordering van de Belangen des Boekhandels, Amsterdam.</Citation>
    <Cit_TitleCodes>\I De ramp: Met een voorwoord van HM de Koningin\i0 1953, Vereeniging ter Bevordering van de Belangen des Boekhandels, Amsterdam.</Cit_TitleCodes>
    - <SourceData>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Item ID</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>34</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Object Sub Type</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>0</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Location</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>My Collection</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Call Number</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>15.70 VERE0 RAMP 1953</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Title</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>De ramp</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Subtitle</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>Met een voorwoord van HM de Koningin</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Publisher</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>Vereeniging ter Bevordering van de Belangen des Boekhandels</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Publication Location</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>Amsterdam</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Publication Year</FieldName>
    <FieldValue>1953</FieldValue>
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>ISBN</FieldName>
    <FieldValue />
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>No. of Pages</FieldName>
    <FieldValue />
    </Source_Field>
    - <Source_Field>
    <FieldName>Electronic Document Path</FieldName>
    <FieldValue />
    </Source_Field>
    </SourceData>
    - <Categories>
    <Category>15.70 Europe (post-Roman)</Category>
    </Categories>
    <Activities />
    </IdeaMason_Item>
    [A lot more records]
    </IdeaMason_Items>
    <BibliographyStyle>Harvard (Australia)</BibliographyStyle>
    </IdeaMason_Data>
  • komrade
    Another slightly tortuous method occured to me:
    It might be possible to get the html output from IdeaMason into a spreadsheet or something? Then mangle that into the tab-delimited format that endnote likes (there's some fairly clear instructions in the Endnote help).
    If that works, then it's easy to get it into Zotero via RIS.
  • dstillman
    That doesn't look like EndNote XML to me (particularly since it says "IdeaMason" in it).

    Where is that referred to as "Endnote generated XML"?
  • komrade
    Hey - sorry Dan what I meant was that Endnote only imports "Endnote generated XML".
    I don't know much about IdeaMason.
  • dstillman
    Er, sorry. Lost the thread and thought that Michael said that. So, yeah—this is a proprietary XML format of IdeaMason's and probably won't be particularly helpful for getting data out of it (without custom scripting, at least).
  • michael-keizer
    Thanks again! Hopefully I will be able to install a version of Endnote by tomorrow or Tuesday (helpdesk gods willing) and then I will see what we can do with spreadsheets and HTML. You might be on to something there -- the HTML output looks as if I should be able to use Excel to tease the information into an interesting format, although it will not be easy (but still considerably easier than doing everything manually).

    I will post here when I know more.
  • Entunombre
    Hello from Rome (Italy). There is a new version of IdeaMason (version 4.O) for only $24.95.

    Kind regards.
  • rpagesp
    edited January 28, 2015
    Hi all, and specially Entunombre,

    Is there someone still using Ideamason (v 4.0)? After the closure of the company I cannot find the downloader of the latest version, which I purchased on 2013 but apparently only saved the license document, not the downloader.

    Now I'm having to change computers and have all my PhD data (years worth!) locked in Ideamason.

    Any help or hint would be appreciated.
  • karthik2k2
    Rpagesp and Entunombre... Did you have any luck? Please let me know if you could get hold of version 4. I am trying to get
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