Proquest translator not recognising their new interface

milliken
Hi all,

I haven't seen a request for a site translator update to work with the new ProQuest interface yet (though I may have missed it). Many institutions began switching this fall to it from what is now called the ProQuest Legacy Platform but most Illumna (CSA) and Chadwyck-Healey databases have also moved to this new platform.

Thanks!
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  • milliken
    For a list of ProQuest/CSA-Illumina/Chadwyck-Healey databases that either have moved over to the new interface or will begin moving over this month, see:
    http://www.proquest.com/en-US/promos/platform/databases_supported.shtml
  • Thaiis Thei
    I'm not sure if this is the same problem, but I can't get zotero to work on any ProQuest pages - the icon just doesn't appear in the browser's location bar, e.g.: I searched for ProQuest Document ID 850509256. I'm using Firefox 3.5.16 on Windows XP.
  • milliken
    In case a URL that Zotero doesn't recognize would help: http://search.proquest.com/pqrl/docview/840967601/12D8BB89B2D385E7F96/1?accountid=10559

    I'm using Zotero 2.0.9 on FF3.6.13 on a Mac running 10.6.6.

    Often after things like this are reported I'll see a "we're working on it"/"we're swamped but we'll get to it someday" kind of reply come up on the forums but not in this case so far. Hopefully this will work its way onto a todo list since it applies to a ton of databases from a major academic vendor.
  • Thaiis Thei
    I didn't include URLs as I always access via a proxy and so it wouldn't help, which is why I put the Proquest Document ID. However today I noticed that for some reason you can't search Proquest by document ID. How odd. So here are some URLs.

    http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.utas.edu.au/docview/850509256/12D8C14EC0D44D9D055/2?accountid=14245

    http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.utas.edu.au/docview/198832667/12D8C174E6D53B15B76/3?accountid=14245

    I do note today that I did find some URLs on Proquest that did work. But they are in the minority. Almost every page I visit doesn't work.
  • adamsmith
    I don't think there's a working proquest translator - and there hasn't been for a while - the pages that do work are most likely because Zotero is picking up a DOI on the page.
  • ajlyon
    No, it's still broken. I would like to get to this, but I haven't yet.
  • yagoboy
    any news on when this might be fixed?
  • ajlyon
    I just looked into this, and it doesn't look like my institution (UCLA) has moved to the new interface at all, so I can't develop a translator for the new ProQuest.

    If someone can point me to a database that is certainly in the new interface, I can see if maybe UCLA has access, but I'm not too hopeful.
  • milliken
    Ajlyon, there is a list here: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/promos/platform/databases_supported.shtml of databases that could be switched over if UCLA chooses. If they haven't done it yet, maybe talk to your liaison librarian because they probably have at least trial access to the interface (or could get it easily) and would probably be happy to help you get access.

    If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll see if I can arrange something for you to see it.
  • ajlyon
    Email to my wonderful go-to librarian sent.

    I think ProQuest and the lot of them should send Zotero a big thank-you card and free access to all these databases, since we spend so much time making their unusable interfaces actually convenient for real research. So goes the world.
  • arlobee
    OK, well I developed a clumsy workaround for one of the ProQuest problems. It takes at least 11 steps, (plus 3 to clean up), but of course once your finger-muscles get down a pattern, this can go quickly. But I want my one-click capture back!!

    1) Export reference
    2) Download RIS file [only format I found to work so far]
    3) Save file
    4) OK
    5) Save
    6) Yes [replace previous]
    7) Zotero [if not open]
    8) Actions [Gear icon]
    9) Import...
    10+) Navigate in the menu to proquestcitations.txt
    11) Open

    This puts the citation into the Library, and in a Collection called "Imported [date/time]" which can be deleted:
    [3 more steps!! - 12) right-click; 13) Remove collection...; 14) OK]

    Whew! Fourteen-plus steps, but still a lot quicker than typing it all in (with errors), and ProQuest may be your only access to a particular document. But ProQuest citations seem to be pretty rich in their data-set, so that does save a lot of typing.
  • ajlyon
    And you can probably mark multiple results in Proquest and save them as a single RIS file. No word yet on getting access through UCLA-- offers of ways to get access through other libraries or Proquest directly are welcome.

    And for those of you who are librarians, note that EBSCO and WilsonWeb have actually done translator fixes and from-scratch development (respectively), so broken Zotero support is worth mentioning to your ProQuest reps. I would be glad to help ProQuest developers make their site more Zotero-friendly.
  • yagoboy
    I have had several UTexas profs suggest zotero. It has worked great up until now.

    I sent a plea to ProQuest Tech Support and Product Improvement.

    Maybe if enough of us complain we can get some resolution.

    Thanks for a great product in Zotero! It has saved me TONS of work over the last 18 months.
  • yagoboy
    Until then I'll use arlobee's method

    Thanks!
  • ajlyon
    Please note this:
    And you can probably mark multiple results in Proquest and save them as a single RIS file.
    There is probably a way to save references to a folder within the interface and save them all at once, making alobee's approach much more efficient. You certainly do not have to do 13 steps for every single citation.
  • milliken
    If your Zotero is set (as is the default I believe) to intercept RIS downloads, then choosing "Export" and then "Export directly to Endnote" should work without the extra steps.

    Btw, during the development of the interface I repeatedly asked ProQuest developers that helping to create Zotero translators would be very welcome and they seemed open to it but obviously that didn't happen. Of course ProQuest owns Refworks so that may not be hugely surprising.
  • arlobee
    milliken, your workaround is 6 or 7 times better than mine!! :-)

    2 clicks: Export ; Endnote format ---> happy arlobee

    THANK YOU !!!
  • ajlyon
    I've rewritten the translator from scratch to use the new interface.

    Please go to http://github.com/ajlyon/zotero-bits/raw/master/ProQuest 2.js and save the file to the translators directory of your Zotero data directory (http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data).

    Restart Firefox and it should start working again. If this works for you, please post here so that I can submit this change to be pushed to all users.

    Note that this does not work for old-style ProQuest databases, but this translator should work side-by-side with that translator, each operating on those databases it does support.

    In particular, please test this with a wide variety of databases-- I think I've covered them all, but I'm not sure. I'll need your help to uncover edge cases.
  • arlobee
    sorry to report, aj, that it made no difference - do I have to do any more than place that file in with the others in the translator directory?

    I'm OK for now - the Milliken Two Step is doing me fine. We've got lots of other ProQuest issues though (the worst is that the year/issue browse doesn't work), but they're trying to help. We use EZProxy and it might not be updated/configured correctly.
  • adamsmith
    after putting it into the translator directory you have to restart Firefox, but that is all.
  • ajlyon
    The translator requires at least Firefox 3.6, but otherwise I think it should work. You can delete the existing "ProQuest.js" as well, but I don't think it should cause a problem.

    Can anyone else with next-gen ProQuest access please test this?
  • milliken
    Some troubleshooting issues.

    I'm seeing that some individual items bring up the address bar zotero icon but others don't. And I can't quite figure out how the two are different.

    In browsing a publication, I don't see the icon http://search.proquest.com/publication/47510/citation/2010+-+2019,2011,01?accountid=10559

    Individual articles from those results don't have it either http://search.proquest.com/docview/840433348?accountid=10559

    This article works: http://search.proquest.com/docview/822816023?accountid=10559

    But the multiple items icons for the result set that got me to the above article doesn't have the icon, and adding results to My Research doesn't help either as no icon comes up on the My Research page.
  • ajlyon
    I'll look into these -- I'd missed some URL schemes in my initial testing.
  • ajlyon
    Try downloading again from the address at Github. These should start working for you.
  • milliken
    Thanks Avram! The updated translator now works with my example URLs, including the multiple import from the result set.

    The only problem I'm seeing now is that this one from above :http://search.proquest.com/docview/840433348?accountid=10559 is imported as a Newspaper article even though the source type in the Proquest record is "Scholarly Journal". Maybe because the publisher of Foreign Policy is the Washington Post Company?

    Subjects Economists, Foreign policy, Financial services; United States--US
    Locations United States--US
    Classification 9000: Short article, 9190: United States, 8100: Financial services industry
    Title THE WORLD THROUGH ROSE-COLORED GLASSES
    Authors Anonymous
    Publication title Foreign Policy
    Issue 184
    Pages 6
    Number of pages 1
    Publication year 2011
    Publication Date Jan/Feb 2011
    Year 2011
    Publisher Washington Post Newsweek Interactive Co.
    Place of Publication Washington
    Country of publication United States
    Journal Subjects Political Science--International Relations
    ISSN 00157228
    CODEN FRPLAC
    Source type Scholarly Journals
    Language of Publication English
    Document Type News
    Document Features Photographs
    ProQuest Document ID 840433348
    Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/840433348?accountid=10559
    Copyright Copyright Washington Post Newsweek Interactive Co. Jan/Feb 2011
    Last Updated 2011-01-17
    Database 2 databases
    View
  • ajlyon
    No, what's throwing me there is that the item is "Item Type: News", which I've been mapping to Newspaper Article. I'll stop mapping "Item Type" and use only "Source type", I suppose.

    The version on Github should work now.
  • milliken
    That seems to be working fine now.

    Should it be collecting the document URL too? May or may not be a problem as I don't know if it is meant to collect it. I've tried a copy of articles and didn't see URLs in the zotero info.
  • dstillman
    A ProQuest URL should not go in the URL field, which is meant for the canonical online version of an item.
  • milliken
    Then, as far as I can tell the new translator works well.

    Thanks Avram!
  • ajlyon
    I've committed this to the repository. Since there are still ProQuest Legacy users out there (like me!) and this is a wholly distinct translator, I've renamed the old one to "ProQuest Legacy.js" and committed this one as "ProQuest.js". milliken-- You should rename your copies the same way, so that they are properly updated by Zotero's auto-updater in the future.

    Dan -- If I should have handled the renaming in the repository differently, let me know.
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