Feature request: Update or force recheck of metadata
I switched from Mendeley, and one handy feature they have is for a given item, I can force recheck the metadata from the DOI/PMID.
Would it be possible to implement the same feature in Zotero to force recheck or update metadata of an item from DOI, PMID, etc?
The current work around I have found in Zotero is using the "Add Items(s) by Identifiers" feature to create a new item using DOI. Then I have merge the newly created item with updated metadata with an existing item with missing or out of date metadata.
Would it be possible to implement the same feature in Zotero to force recheck or update metadata of an item from DOI, PMID, etc?
The current work around I have found in Zotero is using the "Add Items(s) by Identifiers" feature to create a new item using DOI. Then I have merge the newly created item with updated metadata with an existing item with missing or out of date metadata.
Another option is to automatically look up the DOI using the DOI Manager plugin, then copy the DOI and use the Magic Wand tool to add an item using the DOI, then merge the two items.
Currently using the solution mentioned by bwiernik, which is not too bad when dealing with one-offs. The problem with that is trying to select the two entries (one created by the imported PDF, and one created by either the Magic Wand DOI or from importing the item from the publisher website) so that you can merge them. They may or may not appear as duplicates depending on what has been extracted from the original PDF. And you'll have to hunt down both entries before selecting and merging them. This is a particularly painful for literature dumps.
For now I will probably MacGyver something with import to calibre, download Metadata, export to a csv somehow, manipulate it all and create a Bibtex file with everything to import into Zotero.
I moved to zotero by importing my old bibtex files, and it worked great but so many of the old entries did not have DOI numbers or full metadata. It would be nice if a can batch und just update those files.
Does anyone else have a better process for updating records?
Beyond this, no need to ask for updates -- this is clearly on devs radar and there'll be plenty of posts when it arrives - you won't miss it.
https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1515
I respectfully disagree about the advantages. "Add Item by Identifier + Merge Items" requires a copy/paste plus about 8 clicks per item, including a lot of hand-eye movement. A single click, command key or contextual menu item would be much faster, especially if it could be applied to multiple items.
One possible solution is to present a warning dialog if metadata will be replaced, with the option to show the Conflict Resolution window, continue or cancel. This dialog could include a checkbox to suppress all future warnings. I should note that Mendeley updates the metadata silently, and that is my personal preference.
I like the solution with the warning dialog, scbarton! Although I would prefer that metadata is never updated silently (or at least not without my consent): Mendeley has screwed up many of my references that way. It should always also give an option to confirm and undo auto-updates, since sometimes this results in error (e.g. the DOI had a typo, and after update every other piece of info about the file that could be used to hunt it down is overwritten).
Sometimes on first auto update there's no DOI but you can manually add it later and then force recheck to complete the rest of the metadata.
Just to add regarding the 'undo'. The some issue exists when merging two items: Once you've merged, the metadata of the other item is gone - so if you made a mistake, that's it. This plugin https://github.com/edtechhub/zotero-edtechhub implements (among other things) an 'item history' where the metadata for both items (prior to merge) is written to a note in the merged item (as RIS). Clearly, there are many usability issues with that too, and it's clearly not as simple as an undo - but if you very occasionally lose some data this way, and don't mind the the extra child notes appearing, then it works well. I've found it useful.
In any case, +1 to metadata rechecking!
With this, there could be a new Item Review menu next to the existing Locate menu. If the item has been updated, the button could, e.g., show an exclamation mark. The menu would then allow to call the existing merging tool. This Item Review menu could also suggest merging an item with possible duplicate items in the database.
Updating an item could then be independent of the review and merge step, which might happen at some later time. There could be an Updated Items collection for this task, similar to the Duplicate Items collection.
(Some of this might be along the lines of https://github.com/zotero/zotero/pull/1582.)