Metadata Resolving & Incomplete Records
When it comes to resolving metadata, Papers handles this in slightly different ways, depending on how you import your references.
There are three ways you can import references to Papers and they will impact how the app fetches and resolves reference metadata.
The first way is by manually adding references to the library (by using the “Create Manual Entry” option) – in this case you manually input the metadata, including identifiers. The app does not check any data at this point and if the user does not manually trigger a metadata check, the data will remain as is.
Another way of importing references is by using our .bib, .ris or .csv import options – in this case, the app will run a metadata check for each imported reference. Those references that have identifiers will be processed, while those without identifiers will remain as imported (and metadata will remain unchanged).
When importing references through our browser extension or from a file, the app will run a metadata check for each imported reference unless there is no identifier. In that case the file will be imported as is and no metadata created (and you will need to input associated metadata manually by editing the reference).
For unresolved metadata and incomplete records, users can try to resolve it and fill in those records through two options: the “Update details” option and the “Match” feature.
The “Update details” option will only be available in case the reference already has an identifier, and can be done by right-clicking on the reference and selecting the option from the drop-down menu.
The “Match” option is available when a reference has a PDF attached – in this case right-clicking the reference will allow users to select the “Match” option. This will open a preview window with the contents of the PDF, as well as a sidebar that allows users to edit which information to use when trying to match the metadata to the reference. An important thing to note – an identifier is not necessary in this case as our app will check our internal database and offer a list of potential matches.
We cover this whole process in more detail in our matching article:
If either of the two options do not fill in incomplete records, users can edit the reference and input missing metadata manually.
Note: when references are imported to the library, Papers will always try to preserve fidelity of the user’s data. This won’t be the case for information such as authors/title/abstract/etc., but any data that was manually entered by the user, such as date/notes/other fields – will be preserved.
Note 2: Our main identifier is DOI and our application heavily relies on it. There are secondary identifiers, such as ISBN or PMID, which can help with matching functionality, but our main metadata check goes through the DOI. Using a correct DOI is a guaranteed way to ensure a positive metadata match when updating/matching references.
In case you have any questions about this process let us know, either through our support portal or directly via our support email.
