Proquest, EBSCOHost broken?

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  • eamoone
    Hi I just now tried to export items (using the "export to Endnote/procite, etc" option" from Ebscohost Psycinfo database. It did not work and I got the "known translator issues" message popup. Just FYI.
  • brekhusr
    I also hope this Ebsco problem can be solved. I'm not sure I'd count on Ebsco to be helpful, or wait for them to provide the needed fixes. Ebsco is fairly ruthless in its dealings with journals; it has recently become notorious for exclusive deals with journal publishers, for instance. Colleges are unlikely to give up Ebsco if it does not work with Zotero; rather, we will (sadly in my case at least) either go back to EndNote or forward to Mendeley...or whatever other product works with the #1 most-used database for our undergraduate population. Given that, I'm not sure I see much motive for Ebsco to devote staff time to making its database work with a 3rd-party product.

    My university has EndNote, but I've been pushing Zotero with undergraduates, and increasingly with grad students and faculty. I'm to be teaching Zotero tomorrow night to a group of McNair Scholars, and I've been opening Firefox daily, hoping for the update to Zotero that will give me working icons in Academic Search Premier. If the export-to-Endnote option doesn't even work....that's just really bad. I wish I had the skills to pitch in on this, but unfortunately, I don't.

    A lot of database interfaces are changing right about now- sympathies for all the work that is surely involved in all those translator issues. I just hope you realize how important it is to those of us working at the many places with Ebsco databases on which huge numbers of undergraduates rely that Zotero work with those databases in particular.
  • dstillman
    brekhusr: I don't think anyone who actually works on Zotero translators has reproduced the export-to-EndNote-not-working issue. Unless EBSCO is exporting something other than a valid RIS/Refer file, it should work. (It may not work as well as a Zotero translator, because Zotero translators often clean up less-than-ideal output from sites, but it should still import something.) If you (or others) want to provide sample search terms to reproduce the issue, someone can look at it. Even more helpful would be to follow these steps to isolate exported records that aren't working.
  • eamoone
    Well I just tried the export to endnote option again and it worked. It did not work on Saturday when I last tried. I'm not sure why that happened but I'm glad it's working.
  • brekhusr
    YAAAY, Zotero! Ebsco's working, with icons! Just in time for my instruction session tonight - must be part of the 2.0.8 upgrade.

    Anyone "inside" know if Ebsco did finally do its bit of tweaking to make this work, or whether Zotero had to do all the heavy lifting?
  • dstillman
    We didn't fix this on our end, and I still get a failure on at least one test query on EBSCO. What's the translator being used when you hover over the address bar icon?
  • brekhusr
    It just says "Save to Zotero (DOI)" and in the (perfectly formed) Zotero record, I see that the Library Catalog is listed as CrossRef, in case that matters. But...uh oh...I tried testing a different record in Ebsco, and that article did NOT produce the icon! How bizarre - I've never seen Zotero give me an icon for one item in a db, but not another item in the same db! On the good side, at least the item that gives me no icon can be downloaded through Ebsco's export menu.

    For what it's worth, the DOI of the item that did produce an icon for me is 10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.08.004 and the one with no icon had no DOI. Its URL (with my institution's proxy prefix) is:
    http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=46812447&site=ehost-live&scope=site
  • dstillman
    Right. DOI is a generic translator that will show up on any page with a DOI in it (if there's not a more specific translator for the page). So the other item likely didn't list a DOI on the page.
  • brekhusr
    Dan, thanks for the clarification. That at least makes things more predictable.

    I do continue to hope Zotero is able to get icons going again for Ebsco databases, especially Academic Search Premier, since one of Zotero's biggest strengths has always been the simplicity of having that icon there, no matter what interface one is using.
  • lax4rugby
    Been forum browsing, trying possible fixes on this end, but none are working for the following problem. If there are any recommendations I might have missed, please post a link.

    A few snags on some EBSCOhost -PsychINFO searches that I thought had been fixed last month:

    1. Search Folder icon in address bar nonfunctional.

    2. Some articles get the address bar and citation information, but cannot use the drag-and-drop PDF link from the citation page to Zotero citation. Example:

    http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/ehost/detail?vid=22&hid=8&sid=ccb80629-c1b6-42e8-b9a5-d05195398cf3%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=psyh&AN=1998-10801-007

    3. big issue: MANY sites no longer have the address bar icon (typically DOI). Example:

    http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.txstate.edu/ehost/detail?vid=22&hid=8&sid=ccb80629-c1b6-42e8-b9a5-d05195398cf3%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=psyh&AN=2008-03149-007

    Working on a meta-analysis. Love Zotero for everything it does and stands for, and I recommend it to many other researchers in my field, but the instability with EBSCO is definitely a holdback.
  • dstillman
    lax4rugby: As noted above, the EBSCOhost translator is currently broken, and the DOI translator is a generic translator that will only show up when there's a DOI on the page and won't save PDFs.

    Use the export workaround.
  • dstillman
    Also, EBSCO URLs aren't static, so they don't help for troubleshooting. You'd have to provide search terms for specific databases. But there's no need to provide those for the address bar icon, which doesn't work right now.
  • lax4rugby
    Thanks for the response.
    Definitely Appreciated to get a confirm on the workaround.
    Keep up the good work over there.
  • dstillman
    EBSCO has provided an updated version of the EBSCOhost translator, which has been pushed to clients. Your copy of Zotero should auto-update within 24 hours, or you can update manually by clicking Update Now in the General pane of the Zotero prefs.

    Please let us know if you run into any problems saving from EBSCOhost with the updated translator, and thanks to EBSCO for providing a patch.

    EBSCO is also working with the Zotero developer community on a more reliable method of providing metadata so that site changes don't cause problems in the future.
  • Cary424
    Excellent news! I manually updated the translators in my Zotero, and the folder icon in the EBSCO database I tried worked perfectly.
  • arggem
    The icon is there and generally works, but I still have some issues. If they aren't related to the translator, let me know and I'll start a new thread.

    1. I get "double dates." E.g. "Ja 2009 Enero 01, 2009" Yes, the second one is always in Spanish. I do work in Spanish, and live in Argentina, but my OS (WinXP) and Firefox are in English. I have Spanish bibliography enabled, but that shouldn't affect this, should it?

    2. PDF's are not downloaded automagically.

    3. #2 would be quite as annoying, except that it takes two click to get to the PDF. When I click on "PDF Full Text." I don't really get a PDF file. It seems to be some sort of PDF viewer. (When I click on "Show File" it shows "pdfviewer.html"). So now I need to click on the "Download PDF" link at the top of the page. Why two clicks? Why can't we have the option of having both links on the same page? (Now, I realize this is probably more an EBSCOhost issue, than Zotero, but someone here might have some suggestions, and the EBSCOhost people seem to be reading these thread! :))

    Other than that.. it works great!
  • brekhusr
    It is great to have working icons for Academic Search Premier again, and even better news that Ebsco is expressing interest in working with Zotero long term, to avoid future issues like this in the wake of future interface changes. This researcher-friendly behavior is improving Ebsco's image with this librarian!
  • brekhusr
    That double dates issue that arggem mentions above is also happening to me, though not in Spanish.

    Stewart, J. (2009). Real to Reel: Filmic Constructions of Hip Hop Cultures and Hip Hop Identities. Interdisciplinary Humanities, 26(2), 49-67.

    For instance, the above citation imports into Zotero with the date listed as Fall2009 2009.

    Another item: when I export a book chapter using the export-to-EndNote etc. function in Academic Search Premier, it detects correctly in Zotero as "book section." However, when I use the Zotero icon next to the URL, it detects incorrectly in Zotero as "article."

    Example: South, N. (2002). 25: Drugs, Alcohol, and Crime. In Oxford Handbook of Criminology (pp. 914-944).

    Also, it seems like the item type from Ebsco (e.g., Book Chapter, Article) usually gets dumped into Zotero's DOI field. At least, it did in these two cases.
  • tania.alekson
    We are still unable to download from EbscoHost. It's trying, then giving the "Known Translator Issues" message. We have the latest version of Zotero installed...why won't it work??
  • adamsmith
    http://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_bugs
    especially 2 and 3
  • igw
    @brekhusr
    Stewart, J. (2009). Real to Reel: Filmic Constructions of Hip Hop Cultures and Hip Hop Identities. Interdisciplinary Humanities, 26(2), 49-67.
    For instance, the above citation imports into Zotero with the date listed as Fall2009 2009.
    In this case the ebsco data itself seems to be wrong/wrongly formatted. Their own "cite" function produces this error as well.

    However, a problem with the translator not previously mentioned in this thread is that the translator attaches a strange note to the item (instead of attaching the pdf)
  • rjkati
    I'm also experiencing a translator issue while using Zotero in EBSCO. This issue occurs in the Business Source Complete Business Searching Interface.

    If I try to save any article or citation in the Business Searching Interface to Zotero, I get the following error message:

    "Could not save item
    An error occurred while saving this item. Check Known Translator Issues for more information"

    However, if I repeat the exact same search in the regular Business Source Complete interface and download the exact same articles, I am successful.

    I'm using Zotero 2.0.8 on Firefox 3.6.10. Report ID is 782429529.

    Any help that you can provide is greatly appreciated.
  • zackvr
    Report ID: 1932410935
    Using Zotero 2.0.8 with Firefox 3.6.10

    I'm having trouble with Proquest. The folder and file icon appears, but when I click to download the citation I get a Translator Error message. I've tried to troubleshoot as much as possible, disabling all add-ons, restarting, etc. Nothing helps.

    Other databases, like JSTOR, are working fine.
  • tania.alekson
    I am still unable to download data from Ebsco (have tried Academic Search Premier, ERIC, CINAHL).

    Firefox 3.5.5, Zotero 2.0.9, Report ID 372823747

    Error message (after clicking on folder or item icon and seeing blank Zotero box on screen for a few seconds) is "Could not save item
    An error occurred while saving this item. Check Known Translator Issues for more information"

    I have no problem downloading from ProQuest (CBCA and Canadian Newstand) or our OPAC (Millenium), etc.
  • Mishkafofer
    I am having an issue with ProQuest, i don't get Zotero button in URL bar.
    Bummer.
  • ajlyon
    Mishkakofer:
    Please create a new thread for your issue, including URL that doesn't work, your Zotero and Firefox version, and operating system.

    Forum mods: This thread is full of reports of largely unrelated issues-- can it be closed?

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