Hi, I know this is an ancient thread, but what has been the status for the support of the NASA/ADS? I don't think this is supported feature at the moment.

Thank you for pointing that out. What I wondered is not about the extension Zotero Connector, but in the Zotero window itself, via "Add item(s) by identifier". It specifically says it accepts ISBN, DOI, PMID, or arXiv ID, but not ADS bibcode. If the extension could do that, I think the main application should also be able to do that. Judging from the thread I tried to revive, I thought that was once a feature.

@hcho.astro, do you frequently have ADS bibcodes that you'd like to add to your library but don't have catalog links for? Is it common in astrophysics to cite ADS articles with only the bibcode, no link?

We have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to what we support in "Add item(s) by identifier" - there are just too many domain-specific paper ID systems in the world - but if importing via bibcode is a common workflow, I'd be happy to support it.

Part of the issue is that lookup box behavior is hardwired in the client: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/blob/cdef45d6c3d4297ae0ab4d256410d478f5b26a69/chrome/content/zotero/lookup.js#L45

(And separately in the translation server.)

If you enter an ISBN in the box, it'll run each search translator that supports searching for ISBNs, so adding a new ISBN translator wouldn't require any change to client code. Adding a new identifier form altogether would.

Astronomers use Latex, Bibtex, and NASA ADS almost exclusively. The ADS Bibcodes are thus very commonly used because it is literally the Bibtex cite key for a particular publication. And the Bibcode is actually human-readable, as it is the year, journal, volume, and page -- thus it is not unheard of to memorize Bibcodes for particular publications that you cite often.

Take this publication as an example:
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ASPC..382..495K/abstract

When I'm typing my paper in Latex I would write "\cite{2007ASPC..382..495K}" and thus easily link the citation and bibliography in my Latex document from ADS giving the following entry in my Bibtex:

"@INPROCEEDINGS{2007ASPC..382..495K,
author = {{Kent}, B.~R.},
title = "{Chapter 46: How to Use Cone Search Client Applications}",
booktitle = {The National Virtual Observatory: Tools and Techniques for Astronomical Research},
year = 2007,
editor = {{Graham}, Matthew J. and {Fitzpatrick}, Michael J. and {McGlynn}, Thomas A.},
series = {Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series},
volume = {382},
month = jan,
pages = {495},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ASPC..382..495K},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
"

using tools such as adstex (https://github.com/yymao/adstex) that create the .bib file from the .tex file using just the ADS Bibcode.

Therefore if Zotero could also support ADS Bibcodes it would make life easier for a lot of astronomers! Thank you.

@katiemmm: This is available now in the latest Zotero beta.

Another astronomer here - I think this update may have broken the way that Zotero interfaces with some extensions, specifically Better BibTeX. Not all astronomers use the ADS bibcodes as the citation keys in our references. Many (most?) of us use more typical lastnameYY formats, because who can remember all the bibcodes you'd want to?

Disclaimer: I don't know exactly what changes were made in response to this thread. However in recent Zotero versions when I add a new reference from ADS with the Firefox connector, all entries are auto-populated with text in the "Extra" field. The extra text consists of two lines that list the ADS bibcode, for example:
Citation Key: 1965ApJ...142..419P
ADS Bibcode: 1965ApJ...142..419P
from this paper: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1965ApJ...142..419P

The issue is that BBT uses that same "Citation Key: usertext" format to override the citation keys that it generates by default according to the user's preferences. Therefore in recent versions of Zotero you now have to delete that Citation Key line from the Extra field manually every time you add a new ADS reference. This seems not ideal - after all, the bibcode is already being added to Extra, so why add it twice? People that do use the bibcode for cite keys can still access them with BBT through the "ADS Bibcode:" line in Extra, while the rest of us won't have our default preferred cite key format overridden.

To be concrete, my suggestion is that when importing from ADS, the Extra field should contain only the "ADS Bibcode: bibcode" line, and the "Citation Key: bibcode" line should be removed.

Like I say, I don't know exactly what updates were made in response to this thread, so apologies if this is a red herring. But I think I've isolated the issue to be within Zotero itself, not BBT.

I think there's virtually no scenario where the citekey should be imported from the web

Oh, OK. This was done on purpose, with the idea being that some astronomers might want to use a different citation key but that this would be a reasonable default.

If you were an astronomer who wanted to use ADS Bibcodes when available and otherwise use a different citation key format, and this wasn't added, it seems like you would need BBT (or built-in functionality from Zotero for this) to know about the "ADS Bibcode" field and use that when available? But the alternative is that any citation key set by a translator would take precedence, with no good way for BBT/Zotero to decide whether to keep it, so I guess that's worse and justifies the removal…

I would assume BBT could be scripted to set the bibcode as cite key where it exists?

^ Yes, this is exactly what I assumed could be done.

We've pushed out this change. 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.

I didn't account for spaces in the key field; the current version of BBT would have picked up keys without spaces like [extra=ADSBibcode], the next version of BBT will also support [extra=ADS\ Bibcode]