importing and exporting to/from Delicious Library

seimodern
Hi,
I'm trying to decide if it would be worth it to purchase a Delicious Library, which only makes sense to me if I can import/export files with Zotero. Zotero has been a life-saver for research and it would be great if I could somehow sync info between apps. I'm trying a preview copy of Del. Lib. and have tried exporting as xls and txt, but couldn't get Zotero to import.

I'm a Mac (Leopard) user, but unfortunately I'm also one of those idiots who has absolutely no understanding of scripts, source code, etc. I found a connection to a google code that someone posted on the Zotero site (DeliciousLibrary2Zotero_v0.1.1). However, I couldn't get it to work--though that might be because I can't figure out to make the app work.

Since most of my materials are already on Zotero, it would be very helpful if I could export that information to Del. Lib.


If anybody has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

-cheers
I
  • noksagt
    Delicious Library (unfortunately) doesn't use any standard export format. Zotero does not import the app-specific formats that Delicious does export at this time.

    However, some other apps can import it & can then export to a file format that Zotero can import.

    If you don't mind installing ruby,
    http://kosmaczewski.net/projects/delicious-library-to-bibtex-converter/

    might be worth a try.
  • seimodern
    Thanks for the advice...I was completely clueless.
    In the meantime, I've re-evaluated and found that I prefer Book/Dvdpedia to Delicious Library, which seemed too commercially geared towards buying things from Amazon. I prefer Book/Dvdpedia's search engine, which searches a range of international databases (including but not limited to Amazon). There were still some difficulties with translation, but I was able to save my Zot bibliography to Bookpedia by the following steps:

    1)saving Zot bibliography as a Bibtex
    2)using a website to convert the Bibtex to a CSV
    3)using excel to save the CSV as an excel sheet
    4)clearing up the categories on the excel sheet to correspond with Bib

    I'm not sure how effective translation is, though--it required a lot of clean-up work. It's unfortunate that the interface between all of these librarying systems is so disconnected.

    In any case, your comments sent me in the right directions, so thanks!
    JL
  • JM
    Delicious Library 2 allows export to BibTex, which can be imported into Zotero.

    But I haven't been able to move items from Zotero to DL2. Any advice about a smooth or seamless way to do that would be much appreciated.
  • Tjowens
    If they let you export BibTeX do they let you import it?
  • JM
    Not easily anyway. I exported a small selection of 5 books from Zotero as Bibtex. The import option in DL2 is "Import from text file," and the import page then lets you specify the delimiter (tab, comma, custom). But strangely they don't allow imports from Bibtex. Would CSV format work?
  • JM
    Update: DL2 help documentation recommends importing from a tab-delimited file. Can I convert BibTex to tab delimited? Thanks!
  • Tjowens
    Tab Delimited/CSV files have been discussed before. If you do some searches you can find them. The short answer is that you can't import them into Zotero. The data is structured information but since it really does not conform to any spec there just is not much Zotero can do with it.
  • JM
    Thanks! In this case I'd need to export records from Zotero into tab-delimited or CSV files. But as I've read elsewhere on the forum, looks like this requires a little CSL manipulation. Along with others, I'll wait for more customizable reports.
  • Skibumtx
    Can anyone recommend a "website to convert the Bibtex to a CSV" ?

    I'm a bit desperate to make this work.

    Thanks,
    Ski
  • noksagt
    In this case I'd need to export records from Zotero into tab-delimited or CSV files.
    The same arguments about lack of standards apply, though.
    this requires a little CSL manipulation.
    That would be the best way to support this feature, I think. Other apps that use CSL would also be able to talk to DL2. So: how does DL handle field order? How do they handle fields such as 'author,' where there could be multiple entries? Export requests should be handled similar to CSL requests: try to provide as much information to people who have zero familiarity with the piece of software/guide that you are using as possible & make it as easy as feasible for them to try to give you a hand.

    OpenOffice.org uses a flat tabular bibliographic database & there are various ways to import RIS/BibTeX into it; both refbase and Zotero can accept a variety of input formats & export to a spreadsheet for use with OO.o. Perhaps you can start with such a spreadsheet & massage it to fit DL?
  • William Mangold
    Importing your Delicious Library (v2) into Zotero is pretty easy:

    1) In Delicious Library, select File-->Export-->Export to Another Application
    2) Select the BibTeX format and click "Export"
    3) Locate the file that you exported. It should be called "Library Export[Date].bib"
    4) Change the file extension from .bib to .rdf
    5) In Zotero, under the gear symbol, select Import... and locate the .rdf file you made
    6) It should import as a new Collection called "Library Export [Date]"
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