Zotero connector

NoamS1 · 2026-01-29T13:53:58+00:00

Swiss (and German) lawyers often access literature through digital libraries (like legalis.ch, swisslex.ch; beck-online.de). Although this is similar for STEM literature - which is accessed through Pubmed or sci-hub -, the Zotero connectors do not recognise journal articles or legal commentary accessed through legalis.ch as "journal article" or "legal commentary", but save it as a webpage and only get the title right, author(s), date etc. are just omitted; with Swisslex, not even that works.

aborel · 2026-01-30T05:29:55+00:00

Could you list some specific examples on each platform?

NoamS1 · 2026-01-30T10:52:29+00:00

Examples of what? How the connector transforms the entry? Or of an article I accessed through Swisslex or legalis. For the former, here a screenshot
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u18337405/b73u7qznw0qyw3c4ck6m.png. I don't have currently access to legalis but it looks the same.

aborel · 2026-01-30T10:54:51+00:00

Sorry for the lack of precision: I meant URL examples (so that we can go and take closer look).

NoamS1 · 2026-01-30T10:58:55+00:00

Here is URL of a book I tried to access:
https://lexcampus.swisslex.ch/de/biblio/book/single-book/0a1bbf03-1254-4680-809b-9d88afe97a31

Legalis: https://app.legalis.ch/legalis/chapterview-document.seam?documentId=pjpxu43sl5vdembsgvpws2k7om2dmny&dynamic-toc=zsr

Both are hidden behind a paywall.

aborel · 2026-01-30T14:16:56+00:00

Thanks!

The first one is accessible to me, maybe my institution is allowed by some national licence (although law is not one of our topics).

As far as I can see, there is no information that Zotero can currently recognize, the web page doesn't seem to implement an accepted standard. It feels possible to write a custom web translator to retrieve better metadata from swisslex, I could take a closer look and propose a prototype in the near future.

I can't really comment on legalis.ch without any access. If you can share a snapshot of the page, it might provide sufficient information for a first evaluation.

noamschank · 2026-01-31T07:54:52+00:00

Here is (I'm NoamS1 me from a different account) a screenshot from legalis.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u11172591/dkz5lwc913kev0hwtrm1.png
The URL is this: https://app.legalis.ch/legalis/document-view.seam?documentId=nnpwe43ll5rhmxzsgazdkx3cozpwc4tugm2q

aborel · 2026-01-31T08:38:07+00:00

Once again, I should have been more specific, sorry about that.

I didn't mean a screenshot... what I would like is a complete capture of the page (I suppose the attachment saved by Zotero would do, or the files saved by your browser through File/Save and then an option that probably depends on your browser and language - something like "Full web page"). Basically, something one could open in a browser and/or text editor in order to understand its underlying structure.

For completeness, I will also say that sending feedback to the platform owners to ask for a RIS export or good embedded metadata (for the benefit of all users of citation management tools, not just Zotero) is always a valid option. It might not be heard, or it might take time, but there is a better chance that something will happen than if no one asks and the owners remain unaware of this use case.

noamschank · 2026-02-01T07:54:17+00:00

I‘ll send you everything soon, I appreciate your help. I‘ll also write to Swisslex and legalis.

aborel · 2026-02-01T11:15:43+00:00

I have written a first script that retrieves basic metadata for the sample book listing on Swisslex. It wasn't too difficult, but I see that the platform presents several possible layouts - I need to explore it some more in order to determine how many variants should be supported. It is fortunate that I have access!

Legalis might be more challenging if the situation is similar. We'll see how it goes.

ETA: after digging deeper into the Swisslex platform, it appears that I don't have access to lots of content. I'll see how far I can get with that.