Keep earlier "date added" when merging duplicate items

alex.rind
I often get aware of publications (e.g. on Scholar) some time before I find their complete bibliographic information (e.g. in SpringerLink). In such situation I save both items from the webpage as I find them and merge the duplicate. This works fine.

However, when I base the merged item on the newer, more complete version, I lose the "date added" of when I first got aware of this work (which I find quite insightful in retrospection).

I would find it logical, if after merging the "date added" is the date of the earlier item.

Alternatively, I could base the merged item on the earlier version, but (1) I would need to change many other fields to be taken from the newer version, (2) I cannot choose authors and editors from the newer version.

Alex
  • SaskiaP
    This!
    Would it be an option to adjust the merge function in such a way that you can choose which authors you want to keep?
  • dstillman
    I think doing creator selection any other way would be quite complicated in terms of UI, but keeping the earliest Date Added makes sense to me. Issue created.
  • Zhoclzo
    This issue reappears in Zotero 6.0.2.
  • Zhoclzo
    @dstillman Could you please reopen the Issue for Zotero 6.0.2?
  • Zhoclzo
    This issue also occurs in beta version 6.0.4. I think keeping the earlier “date added” after a merge is very important. Hope this issue could be fixed.
  • Zhoclzo
    This issue is a little bit complicated. It happens only when you use Zotero 6.0 with a database file upgraded from version 5.0. For example, when merging an old item (in the library before the upgrade) with a newly added item, the earlier ‘data added’ information won’t be kept if you choose the new item as the master item. If the two merged items are both added after the upgrade, this issue won’t occur.
  • AbeJellinek
    Do the items have notes and/or attachments? Is there anything that differentiates them besides the version they were created in?
  • Zhoclzo
    Yes, these old items have notes and attachments. However, even if the notes and attachments are deleted before the merge, this issue will still occur.
    I didn’t find any differences between an old item and the newly added item for testing (re-creating from Zotero connector), except for the fields of “Journal Abbr” (which I have deleted in the old item), “Date Added”, “Modified” and “Extra”.
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