problems syncing records from Ovid Medline

kate.nyhan
Hi folks, I just noticed some problems syncing records downloaded for Ovid Medline (ris format, complete reference). Some of the references have an "editor" as well as "authors." The editor field has many names smooshed together in the Zotero field that should be the editor's first name. As a result, there's an error message about a too-long name. Many of the same records had a very long chunk of text in the Zotero "extra" field.
For what it's worth, the papers in this set (which did not all suffer from this problem) all came from four journals: JAMA, NEJM, Lancet, BMJ.
Thank you very much to whoever decided to include in the error message a "go to the problematic record so that you can fix it" link. Super helpful!
My institution's contact at Ovid is very responsive, so if it would make sense to raise something about the export data structure with them, I could give that a shot.
  • dstillman
    Do you get this behavior when using the Save to Zotero button, or only when trying to import RIS manually? If the former, what's an example URL?
  • kate.nyhan
    This was with the manual RIS import. My use case might be different from many people's -- I'm a medical librarian and I often want to import big sets of records from bibliographic databases.
  • dstillman
    Can you provide steps to reproduce on Ovid, with a single example entry?
  • kate.nyhan
    Sure. You will need an Ovid license obviously.... Or if you want examples of the RIS files, I can share by email.

    Database
    Ovid MEDLINE(R) ALL 1946 to June 24, 2021

    Query
    "Comparative Effectiveness of Aspirin Dosing in Cardiovascular Disease".ti.

    When I use the browser plugin, I get a nice record.

    If I export with the settings format RIS, fields complete reference, I get an error message about a too-long creator name.

    Very strange and interesting: I imported two copies of the record for this one article with the title above. The Zotero plugin version shows up with 5 authors visible in the preview/editing pane, and 66 more which I can show by toggling. The RIS export version shows up with 5 authors visible and *67* more. The extra is an "editor" field. The content of the editor field is, as the putative editor family name, the actual family name plus initials of one of the authors (neither first nor last), then as the putative editor first name, many or maybe all of the other authors' family name plus initials.

    I also tried exporting as RIS with the fields citation, abstract, subject headings (instead of complete reference). This one also has the "extra" editor field with the many names. So it's not just an Ovid "complete reference" RIS format problem, I think.

    Thank you for your help, even (especially) after I dropped this for two weeks!
  • dstillman
    Can you upload the RIS file somewhere (e.g., Dropbox or Google Drive) and provide a link here?
  • kate.nyhan
    Hi:
    https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HNh3-7HeJvFBZnbtPNiRubacVuPWS6fr?usp=sharing
    Three files
    ris (23) is a single record, exported from Ovid Medline with the bulk export as RIS tools, "complete record"
    ris (24) is the same, except it's not the "complete record" but the "citation/abstract/subject headings" format. Still RIS.
    2021-06-10 second round of searching.ris is a file with more records -- some, but not all, of which show the same problem.
    Thanks
Sign In or Register to comment.