citations database IMports: RIS or BibTex? Or some other?

Hello again Zotero,

I have what I hope is a simple question. Ahem.

We have a journal articles citation database that numbers more than 2 million entries. We want to build an import mechanism that vacuums up metadata from citation mgmt exporters and imports it into our bespoke db.

The question is: Should we build that vacuum based on RIS or BibTex file format?

Is there any appreciable difference between the two?

Our context is animal science journal articles from major publishers out of scope for PubMed.

Any help most appreciated.

Thanks,
Susan
  • For journal articles it shouldn't matter much, but I'd expect RIS to work slightly better because it's more standardized. The biggest downside is that is can't handle rich text -- i.e. wouldn't get italics in titles.

    I'm not quite sure how Zotero figures in your workflow, but just so you're aware: a 2million entry database won't work in Zotero. Upper limit is probably somewhere between 100k and 500k.
  • Great, Adam. RIS is looking more and more like our go-to, getting that response from multiple sources.

    We have a dedicated SQL db for journal article citations but vastly appreciate Zotero on other projects. Thank you!!

    Susan
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