Thanks for your response, I did read that post prior to asking on this forum but I still was struggling to understand. I realised that the harpoon symbol can be clicked on and one can select the input/info you prefer to be kept. I think that's right?


My issue is around having a group library full of a mix draggged pdfs, some Zotero Connector imports, screenshots etc. and for our screening we need there to be text in the abstract field for each item. (This project has been growing for some time in a team and sources are all over the place and now we need to get all these sources together and write an emergent literature review using co-productive methods).

I've made a folder to show which items do not have anything in the 'abstract' field. (This was a struggle and I had to wrangle with Google to help me make one that eventually actually (seems) to have worked. I'm manually going through these and opening the websites and first adding with the zotero connector (just incase) but then copy and pasting abstracts to the abstract field (134 to go). With grey literature if it's like a website I make a summary of the website and insert it into the 'abstract' field.

My concern was with choosing master documents and the possibility of losing the abstract I worked so hard to get. But then Google eventually gave me this answer which helped directly outline what exactly is kept and what is changed in the merging/master process that I didn't manage to understand from your article.

My Question to Google: In de duplication/merge in Zotero you cant see field 'abstract'. If I choose item without abstract as master then merge, will I lose abstract info in item not chosen as master?

Google's answer:
No. You will not lose the abstract information.
Zotero handles merging safely to prevent data loss:
Non-Empty Fields Win: If the master item has an empty abstract field, and the duplicate item contains an abstract, Zotero automatically merges the abstract into the final saved item.
Master Only Settles Conflicts: The choice of "master" is only used to resolve direct conflicts, such as when both items have different text written in the same field.
All Extra Data Preserved: All tags, collections, notes, attachments (PDFs), and unique field data from both items are combined into the final merged item.
If you want to be completely sure before proceeding, you can manually toggle conflicting fields in the right-hand panel during the merge process to choose exactly which version of a field to keep.
If you are dealing with a large number of duplicates, tell me:
Approximately how many duplicates do you need to merge?
Are you looking for a way to bulk-merge items automatically?
I can provide steps or plugin recommendations to speed up your library cleanup.

I have tried some plugins that are popular on the internet for importing metadata but it seems that Zotero 9 doesn't manage them as well as 7/8 did. So manual is the way to go.

I'm an absolute newby to Zotero and have been trying to figure out a workflow with this mess of sources all over the place in our team and it's been just a tad confusing looking for videos to help with the basics (sometimes videos are easier than Zotero documentation) and then the versions keep changing rapidly. Or you search for answers but the answers are based on older versions and layouts are just slightly different etc. But I'm learning multiple tools all at the same time and that's why it becomes a bit much.

PS: Why can't one add the 'abstract' field to see it in the middle panel? Also, I'm not 100% sure that the Zotero Connector always reliably captures the abstract on a journal article even where one has access to the pdf. Am I wrong?

Anyway. Thanks for the work on Zotero!

Hi. Noted about AI.

Thanks for your response. I appreciate it. The problem is, when I am de-duplicating I can't seem to find a way to figure out which one of the blocks with different time stamps in it is the one that has the abstract. There's no way to view this?

One answer is to de-duplicate before going in and fixing metadata. But I am working from a 'saved search' that I created with all the docs that don't have abstracts. This means that as soon a I add the abstract it goes to duplicates as there are now two versions...

I don't know what to do right now.

Block with most recent time stamp is hopefully one you last worked on and added to abstract so choose that one as master?

I still don't really understand master versions in de-duplication and what is lost and what isn't etc.

Any ideas on how to make this process smoother and less chaotic would be appreciated, I am working with a lot of grey lit and screen shots here so it's all a bit tricky.

There' s nothing great (that's why I think the abstract issue needs to get fix pretty urgently) but two things that might help in the meantime:
1. You can select individual items in the duplicate view using ctrl+click and you can then see the whole right-hand panel, including abstract
2. You can show the "Date Added" column in the middle panel which is the information shown in the toggle at the top of the merge dialog.

To be very clear, this is far from ideal, but that's what I'd currently do.

Sorry, adamsmith, only saw your response right now after I posted my comment...can't think about it right now, will think about it, might have another question, have to dash now.

In the latest Zotero beta, we've made Abstract available in the merge pane, with its own field picker when the values differ.

@AdeleEff: The above thread was specifically about the Abstract field, and as I say, in the Zotero 10 beta we've restored the display of that when merging items.

For other fields, you can just click between the different items using the list at the top.

To de-duplicate, I have to toggle between Duplicate Items view and My Library so I can see the fields associated with each of the duplicates.

An icon highlights the differing field between duplicates, so you can select the field version directly—no need to navigate to the library or collection.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u7294073/vmr6f84lzzm197bzo33u.png

Hello @AdeleEff

I am just a user. The person who started this board. Not an expert. So excuse me for not being proficient. I made duplicates in my duplicates section by re-storing to library from my trash. To be able to look at this again. I have an Item Type: Book. And an Item type: Journal article.

This might not be useful to you at all, apologies if so, @dstillman says that all tags are kept - that's useful to know and solves that for you.

-On navigating the view:
In the Merge Column to the far right, the blocks show: date and time MODIFIED.

-So in 'Duplicate Items' I always have selected and displayed in the middle for me the field DATE MODIFIED.

-Make a colour tag called, for instance, 'duplicates'

-Go back to duplicates folder and apply the tag to all the items in the display in one go.

-Now they all have a coloured dot on them. (I'm sure you know this stuff but going through it procedurally)

-Go into the group library that you're cleaning.

-For the middle display choose the fields you want displayed: Title DATE MODIFIED, Notes, Added By
(Title and DATE MODIFIED are nb - notes could be useful for you, Added by is useful to me to see if it was me or someone else who added it - some people check the that connector is working properly when they are using it, some people just indiscriminately go on a key-word rampage and don't check what's happening, and as much as I love Zotero, at the moment the connector seems a bit unreliable, last worked with it last week again, I think - dragging and dropping pdfs into Zotero seems to work best right now)

-Then select the tag 'Duplicates' and it will display all your duplicates.

-Order by Title in middle display.

-If what you are doing when you're merging is choosing just the most complete one to be the Master, and I understand you correctly, then now you have them all together (with the duplicates tag) and you can make another defining mark that will show up in 'Duplicate Items'.

-For the item you choose is best you add another coloured tag, for instance 'Merge to this one'.

-So you go through the whole list and select most complete one's by adding the other coloured tag.
(the other thing that shows up in Duplicates if you select it to display in the middle view is whether a note is attached or not, but this is only useful if you don't use notes typically in your library - you make a note on the one you want to keep with any detail you want to remember and then in duplicate you'll see which item has a note and which not - more detailed approach, but doesn't really help if you or entire team are making notes all over the place cos the display in duplicates will show amount of notes attached to the item)

-Then when in duplicate items maybe just select for display "Title", "Date Modified" (also maybe: "Notes", "Added by")

-Your items that are the same thing all go blue when you click on them.

-Now what you have is all the duplicates and one of them has two coloured tags and you can see which one is the one to pick to USE AS MASTER.

-Look at DATE MODIFIED for the one you want to keep and pick that in the Merge Column to the right as the master.

-The pickers, or tritans, pick up where there are doubles/triples etc. of data of a meta data field are and allow you to pick what meta-data you prefer to be in the Master. (If a title for an item is long that doesn't help cos you can't see the whole title displayed.)

Thanks to @dstillman who mentioned colour tagging in one of his responses to me that helped me create a whole workflow of tags to get abstracts into a massive, messy, group library.

I saw the message about the beta, but am a bit nervous to switch over right now as if anything else I make breaks in a big way I might have a meltdown :D

I would love to have an explanation (or a pointer to an explanation) of what can potentially get lost and what is definitely kept in a merge. And what is the difference between just selecting 'merge' and selecting a master?

@AdeleEff, if this is not what you're looking for I am so sorry about all the text.