elibrary.ru author's name

konstantin_litovko
Hello, Zotero connector has stopped retrieving the author’s name from metadata at https://elibrary.ru/defaultx.asp. I can’t understand, is it just me having such a problem or is it for everyone after the update?
  • konstantin_litovko
    ?
  • dstillman
    https://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines#be_patient
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited October 18, 2019
    Please provide specific URLs for items that do not provide Zotero metadata that you believe includes author names. You linked to the site's homepage. I am minimally skilled in Russian (I had a course in how to properly pronounce Russian words from the time I was a voice major in college in the late 1960s -- only skilled enough to know that I need Google translate).

    From what part of this site are you trying to download metadata? I looked at several records in the "Russian citation index" and I could find few items that included any metadata other than the article title. For example: https://elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=22208210. The webpage header has embedded metadata for the article title and summary. Although all of the useful metadata is on the article record webpage, there are inconsistencies in the way that the title, journal name, volume, issue, pagination, etc. are presented from record to record. This last problem will make it very difficult for a volunteer to develop a translator that scrapes the material from the webpage.

    I could find no way to download metadata in one of the standard formats (BibTeX, RIS, etc.). Many or most databases offer this download option to their users.

    The database includes records of articles that have DOIs assigned but the Russian Citation Index does not include the DOI for those articles.

    It is clear that this database offers added value. The publisher's site (Scott-Townsend) doesn't provide complete metadata for their journal articles and elibrary.ru has metadata (in this case pagination) that is not on the publisher's webpage available without a subscription.

  • dstillman
    We have an eLibrary.ru translator (which you can see by hovering over the save button on the page you linked to, @DWL-SDCA, and in any case you should always check existing translators before doing anything else). There was likely a site change that prevented the current version from working, so someone will need to update it.
  • DWL-SDCA
    @dstillman I thought that it was obviously a given that there was an existing translator for eLibrary.ru. It used to work well. In the past I have used it rather a lot. In the past the database had both excellent embedded metadata and the ability to download in RIS. The database no longer has those benefits. They made major changes to the structure of their website and eliminated the English language pages.

    In the past I had a formal working agreement / license to use part of their metadata in my (not Zotero) online database precisely because they have a practice of providing excellent metadata especially a full pagination of articles that are otherwise behind a paywall with at most a first page number available.

    I apologize if you feel that I exceeded my role. I thought that I was explaining why the existing translator is no longer functioning and that it could be difficult to produce another working translator. I could explain further but I guess that you think that I have already said enough.
  • dstillman
    I apologize if you feel that I exceeded my role.
    No — it just wasn't at all clear from your post that you were aware there was an existing translator, and spelunking through the site code without reviewing what the existing translator does isn't usually a good use of time. The existing translator was updated as recently as June, doesn't use RIS, and doesn't rely on English-language pages. Given that it's already a scraper, it's entirely possible it just requires minor changes to keep up with site tweaks.
  • dstillman
    I've created an issue for this. We'll see if the person who updated the translator the last time is willing to do it again.
  • konstantin_litovko
    Thanks for the answers, unfortunately, I do not really understand how this works on the technical side. I can only note that in mid-September the names of the authors were saved automatically. Now, from all the page information, it is possible to automatically save only the title of the article.
  • dstillman
    This is now fixed, thanks to @zuphilip. Your Zotero Connector should auto-update within 24 hours, or you can update manually by clicking Update Translators in the Advanced pane of the Zotero Connector preferences.
  • konstantin_litovko
    The problem is solved, thank you very much!
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