Problems importing from Scopus

sarahe
Hi

I'm having some small niggles when importing from scopus. I have selected a marked list, gone to the export tab, and then selected to export as bibtext in the abstract format. This saves a bibtex file to my pc. I then go to the import tool in zotero and it imports the list apparently fine, but on closer inspection, all of the references only get listed as having the first author - all the others are left off. I could go back and enter the additional authors by hand but this would be very time consuming. Is this a general problem or is there a way to fix this?
Thanks
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  • adamsmith
    well, if you look in the bibtex file - are the other authors there?
    If so the problem likely has a solution close to Zotero.
    If not, it's a Scopus issue - contact them
  • sarahe
    Yes, they are there in the bibtex file but they don't appear in the zotero record.
    For example, this is a copy of the authors listed for one paper from the bibtex file but only fletcher gets listed. There does appear to be something weird happening though with the a's and b's after the initials - ie Aebischer is just N.J, not N.J.b
    ,
    author={Fletcher, K.a , Aebischer, N.J.b , Baines, D.a , Foster, R.a , Hoodless, A.N.b },
  • noksagt
    That's does not look like valid BibTeX. Authors should be separated by 'and'. Contact scopus or use a different export format they offer.
  • sarahe
    I didn't think there were any other ways to export from scopus to zotero? I have used export to endnote in the past and then imported from there to zotero but i don't have endnote on my computor anymore. how would you suggest?
  • noksagt
    I don't think I have easy acceess to scopus. Are the endnote exports not RIS files that you can import into zotero?
  • adamsmith
    somehow SCOPUS doesn't appear to be very popular in the US - I (Northwestern and Notre Dame) don't have access and neither has ajlyon (UCLA), who does a lot of the troubleshooting on translators so I can't tell you for sure. But if you can export to Endnote you can usually use that format for Zotero - can you get an RIS file (i.e. .ris)?

    There is supposed to be a SCOPUS translator, too, which worked pretty recently (May this year) - you don't get an icon in the URL bar?
  • sarahe
    yes, i can output an RIS file and on my work computor i have endnote so i read this into there and then export that into zotero. The icon on the URL bar does appear but it doesn't work as it just comes up with an error message so not realyl sure what's happening.

    i don't seem to be able to directly import the ris format files into zotero
  • adamsmith
    what happens when you try to import RIS? In general Zotero can read those.
  • sarahe
    it comes up with an error message saying somethign like 'cannot save to zotero' and then the 'importing items' bar just runs for ages and ages and nothing happens
  • noksagt
    Open it in a text editor. If it looks like RIS (e.g. http://www.refman.com/support/risformat_sample_02.asp ), select all the text & copy it to the clipboard. Then import from the clipboard in Zotero.

    [Technical remark: there is a character set issue on importing files...again]
  • sarahe
    Genius!! I didn't know you could do that. thanks very much. All author names are there in the correct format, so that's great.
  • sarahe
    although, dammit, i've just noticed it now doesn't import the abstract!
  • adamsmith
    Is that in the RIS? If so, you might have to change the tag from AB to N1
  • sarahe
    Yep, it was in the RIS format. So i neet to go into the file and manually change AB to N1?
  • adamsmith
    yes - it's N2, though, sorry, I remembered that wrong.
    This is an unfortunate tension between the RIS-standard - which defines AB as a note and N2 as the abstract - and the actual practice, in which many databases put the abstract in the AB field. Not much Zotero can do about that - I think they're correct in sticking with the standard.
  • sarahe
    OK. Thanks. That works, when i change it to N2, so at least i can get them all in there now.
    Thank you
  • ajlyon
    It's possible that this is the error behind the Scopus translator not working -- can you determine what the file encoding is? You can also send me the RIS file at ajlyon@gmail.com, and I'll take a look and see what the encoding is.

    Before bothering with that, though, you could see if the Scopus translator works on an item that is all in English, with no accented characters or other special characters (well, special for English, and quite integral for many languages!). If the translator is being tripped up by encoding alone, it should work for such items.
  • ajlyon
    That RIS files imports into Zotero without any alterations for me, so it looks like the Scopus translator is broken in some other way.

    Unless someone is able to provide a translator developer (like, say, me) with access to Scopus, we won't be able to fix this. I encourage you to contact Scopus about developing a translator themselves (a la EBSCO and HW Wilson) or providing a Zotero developer with access so that we can support their site.

    (This is the hardest part of supporting the closed/paywalled web.)
  • Paddywhacker
    #ajlyon, I can save the source code from a couple of Scopus search results screens if that will help. The translator hasn't been able to scrape details for some time.
  • ajlyon
    Please save a couple of search result and item screens and send them my way; ZIP them and post them online or email them to me. I won't do this today, but I'll take a look and see what I can do.
  • Paddywhacker
    Done. See your email. With thanks.
  • jmurimbo
    Has anyone had success with importing from Scopus? The translator doesn't work, and importing from SCOPUS generated RIS, BibTex, and clipboard doesn't seem to be working either. Is there a special combination of fields that is required by zotero? I have the RIS and BibTex files if anyone cares to look at them.

    I am currently using Zotero 2.1b4

    The error I get is shown below:
    [JavaScript Error: "syntax error" {file: "moz-nullprincipal:{57a9f322-84f1-451c-bc3f-2e9db5546172}" line: 1 column: 1 source: "T1 - Ecotoxicological risk assessment of undisturbed metal contaminated soil at two remote lighthouse sites"}]
  • ajlyon
    You shouldn't be getting a syntax error like that-- can you try resetting translators in the Zotero preferences, restarting, and trying again? If it still doesn't work, try disabling other Firefox extensions and importing. If that doesn't fix it, post the RIS or BibTeX files somewhere and I'll try to import them myself.
  • jmurimbo
    ajlyon, i reset teh translators but the import still didn't work. i also tried with Zotoro standalone alpha. i sent you a few RIS and BibTex files by email if that's ok with you.
  • ajlyon
    The files you sent me import fine in my testing, albeit with the multilingual experimental version of Zotero.

    If they don't work for you, submit an error ID and debug output ID (http://www.zotero.org/support/debug_output) for your attempt to import them and we'll see what's happening here.
  • jmurimbo
    thanks for the info. btw, what version of zotero are you using?
  • ajlyon
    I'm was testing using the multilingual testing branch, but the version should correspond to 2.1b4.
  • john.murimboh
    edited January 22, 2011
    interesting... importing RIS files works fine in Zotero 2.0.9 but i can't import anything with Zotero 2.1b4 or Zotero standalone 2.1a2.
  • jmurimbo
    Import RIS file with Zotero 2.1b4
    Debug ID: D1868972483
  • jmurimbo
    Import BibTex file with Zotero 2.1b4
    Debug ID: D328419104
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