No author or journal information from Project Muse

dstillman Zotero Team
This discussion was created from comments split from: Add/Remove Fields.
  • mattizelin
    When citing items in Project Muse, the citation created when I capture the article or book often does not include the author, the journal information, etc. Is there any way to add these to the Zotero fields.
  • adamsmith
    (generally better to start a new thread for new issues).
    We'd need sample URLs for problems on import.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited November 28, 2020
    Many, perhaps most, book webpages with Project Muse no longer have headers with relevant metadata. Publisher, author, and chapter titles and pagination are "randomly" distributed throughout the webpage -- there isn't a standard book templet. Book chapter headers don't include chapter name. [At least, not in a format I recognize.] edit: Some time ago the book and book section metadata was exemplary. I've already written to complain and ask for them to revert to the old headers. You should too.

    For example:

    https://muse.jhu.edu/book/79294

    I still am able to get journal article metadata via Zotero but author names are *sometimes* single field or reversed. Sometimes some authors' names are omitted from page headers -- even the final author's name. DOI metadata is always complete. I've written to comment about that also.

  • adamsmith
    I can replicate this for books, thanks, we'll take a look. Would still like to see example URLs for journal articles.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited November 30, 2020
    @mattizelin may be able to find journal articles that reliably fail. I track about 35 Muse journals and generally get good article metadata. About one in ten articles have a problem author names in the page header. Just enough to cause me to routinely get Muse metadata and abstracts via Zotero and to also capture authors from the DOI via the Wand to be sure the authors are complete. DOI metadata always matches the PDF versions.

    I'll soon come across faulty journal examples and I'll list them here.
  • teo.w
    Project Muse translator is not working for journal articles for me, either.
    Example: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/433346

    gets saved as webpage with webpage title and url as only information
    looks like the page is only indicating metadata in the class of and
    tags
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited December 20, 2020
    @teo.w Curious. That item imports as a journal article for me with the title, author, vol/iss/pagination, DOI, and ISSN.

    I'm using the 5.0.76 Firefox connector and Zoero 5.0.94-beta.5+2b5a22c13 on Mac 10.15.7 (19H2)
  • adamsmith
    Yeah, this was fixed more generally a couple of days ago, including for books (e.g. the link in DWL's post above now works).
    If it doesn't work for you on https://muse.jhu.edu/article/433346 please run through https://www.zotero.org/support/troubleshooting_translator_issues
  • teo.w
    wow very curious! thanks @DWL-SDCA and @adamsmith

    i went through the steps listed on the troubleshooting page and everything seems like it *should* work.
    i am on chrome (86.0.4240.198), mac os 10.15.6
    with current versions of zotero (5.0.93) and translator (5.0.76)

    here is what happens on https://muse.jhu.edu/article/433346 :
    - page loads normally
    - zotero translator icon shows journal article icon
    - hovering over translator says "save to zotero (project muse)"
    - (this is where it gets weird) clicking translator saves as web page, not as journal article
    - zotero saves as web page with only page title and url, plus downloads/attaches pdf

    i went ahead and did a debug log: D805600163
  • adamsmith
    So you do have access to the article full text when you click Save to Zotero, right? (it should work either way, just making sure I understand what you should be looking at)

    What does the pop-up say when you're click the Save to Zotero icon?

    Did you try restarting your browser and trying the same thing again?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Parsing code for Project MUSE (c54d1932-73ce-dfd4-a943-109380e06574, 2020-03-09 20:00:00)
    @teo.w: It looks like you don't have the latest Project MUSE translator version for some reason. Go to the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences and click Reset Translators. Then go to the Advanced pane of the Zotero Connector preferences and click Reset Translators there as well.
  • Bruce Rusk
    A related issue: chapters downloaded as PDF from books in Project Muse are not parsed correctly when retrieving metadata. They are parsed as journal articles, but with the title and author (actually editor) of the book as a whole, and assigned the DOI of the book. At least in this case: https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/book/25312. But in this case at least Muse's metadata is incomplete, it doesn't list the authors of the individual chapters anywhere.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited July 7, 2021
    You will need to provide a URL that doesn't include the Athens proxy or provide enough information about the book and chapter that one can find it by searching Project Muse. There are several things that could lead to your problem. Some problems may be fixable through Zotero but the quality of the imported metadata is dependent on the quality of the metadata provided by Muse.

    The earlier problems with some Muse journals' metadata have been resolved.

    I tested a couple of books' metadata tonight and wasn't able to download these as book-sections with chapter authors. The metadata was formatted in a way that Zotero could grab all of the appropriate book fields. Some Muse metadata can be incomplete but the items I tested were fine [edit: except for the chapter name, author and pagination].

    Some other publishers, such as Emerald Group, publish book series that -- depending upon the publisher's webpage -- can be presented as a stand-alone book chapter with isbn or as a journal article with a volume number and issn. I've not seen this with Muse as I regularly see with Emerald publications.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    That's a clear, static URL. We don't need an unproxied version.
  • Bruce Rusk
    Thanks--I thought I'd stripped the proxy from the URL. Here it is again: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/25312
    It's a University of Michigan Press book, an edited volume with a single editor and individual chapter authors.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited July 7, 2021
    For the book you want to cite, the Muse metadata that is available to Zotero is inadequate unless you download the MARC record and import that record into Zotero. Even if you use the MARC record data that only contains book information without any chapter metadata. Although your example is labeled as an edited book the editor seems to be the author of every chapter.

    It may be remotely possible for the Zotero developers or other experts to find a way to collect useful chapter-specific metadata but I suspect that witchcraft would need to be involved because only some of the chapter information isn't even included on the chapter webpage. I couldn't find pagination. The best long-term answer to your problem is to write to Muse and request that they improve their book metadata. Muse did respond to multiple requests to improve their journal article metadata.

    This is one of the rare times when you will probably need to import what you can into Zotero and hand enter the rest.

    As with many Muse-listed edited books your problem isn't unique.

    See also this edited book:

    https://muse.jhu.edu/book/77696
    and a chapter in the above edited book that is authored by someone other than the editor:

    https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2703127

    The embedded metadata that is available to Zotero will download to Book item type and not a book section type. There is no chapter information available to Zotero that contains the chapter title, author, pagination, or summary/abstract. As is the case for your example above, the MARC record is for the book itself and not the more granular chapter metadata.

    Getting book-chapter metadata can be difficult the situation isn't really better with books from Elsevier, Springer, or Wiley. The book metadata is available but not the chapter information. Some of these publishers do not even list any details about their edited-book chapters -- even chapter author names.
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