Quote from Ann C Gilchrest on April 9, 2019, 5:19 pm

When you use the connector it will only populate what is in the metadata on a specific website's page. Websites have various pieces of information in the metadata. For example, if I look up the same book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Internet Archive or HathiTrust they all will populate differently in Zotero depending on what is in the metadata and what the individual website has included in its description.

Depending on how you decide to use Zotero in your research there are several ways to capture all the information you need to write a citation. You may need to add additional information manually. Either by copy/paste into a note or typing it in.  You may need to rearrange the imported information. 

In the case of FamilySearch, it will capture different information based on where you are on the site. The Catalog will give different information than an actual digital image page. 

In the Forum "Citation Format Samples," there is a discussion "Parish Records Norway" that talks about different ways to use Zotero. Also, I would look at the General Discussion Forum and the post "Work Flow." Many of us are doing some trial and error playing with how we want to use Zotero. At first, I thought of it as a citation manager/creator. After several months using Zotero. The automated citation creation part has become mostly irrelevant to me. The other capabilities far outweigh an automated citation.

Quote from Donna Cox Baker on April 9, 2019, 10:24 pm

Very interesting, illinimom. I had not noticed that before--that FamilySearch's data is not being perceived as a catalog,  but simply as web pages. It's using a web page format, as CMOS interprets that. For the moment, I'd suggest grabbing the web format, just as you have, then copy and paste FamilySearch's citation into a note. Let that hold until we can see what can change in this situation. I don't know whether Zotero or FamilySearch (or both) will have to make an alteration. My guess is that FamilySearch is not using the metadata standards typical of libraries and book sites. But I hope it's something easier than that. May it be a switch that needs to be turned on, we can hope and pray.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Thanks for the heads up, illinimom!

Quote from illinimom on April 9, 2019, 10:43 pm

Thanks, Ann & Donna.

I think I will take your advice and just let Zotero pull in what it can, and make a note for the FamilySearch citation and any other info I want for myself. Other than an occassional blog post, I don't actually publish, so it's not like I really need to worry about formatting a citation correctly. More than anything, I'm hoping to use Zotero for organizing my sources.

Quote from Donna Cox Baker on April 10, 2019, 2:02 pm

I learned from the Zotero forum that two things have to happen at FamilySearch to get us more meaningful citations extracted. First, their catalog has to be "exposed"--an open content--and second, they have to have reasonably complete metadata in one of the standards library catalog formats. Here is a description of what's necessary:

https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/exposing_metadata

I have emailed FamilySearch to see if this compatibility might be built into new record development. I am guessing it will take ages to get metadata filled in on the old stuff and it might never happen.

Thanks again for pointing this out, illinimom!