How to populate abstracts?

[alfureu]

JabRef version

5.3 (latest release)

Operating system

Windows

Details on version and operating system

Windows 10

Checked with the latest development build

• I made a backup of my libraries before testing the latest development version.
• I have tested the latest development version and the problem persists

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

I would like to mass-populate the abstracts of bibliography entries

1. Select entries
2. Right click > Get blibliographic data from DOI/ISBN/...
3. Data populates, but no abstract
4. Right click on the same entry > Open URL or DOI
5. Webpage loads - there is an abstract available

Appendix

N/A

[koppor]

We use external services. For DOI fetching, JabRef uses the crossref service (see also https://docs.jabref.org/faq#q-why-cant-jabref-find-any-doi-isbn-eprint-etc.)

One could try to implement fetching abstract functionality to the existing fetchers (https://devdocs.jabref.org/advanced-reading/fetchers) and then craft a composite fetcher first fetching the DOI and then fetching the abstract from the publisher where the paper belongs so.

[alfureu]

Thanks for the reply. This would be more than advisable, given the fact that there are all the "optional fields" and other fields (e.g. keywords) available on the websites, but are never populated. I need to do some analysis on a large set of literature, and it would be easier to analyse the abstracts as well.

Maybe introducing a switch e.g. minimal data/complete data in the settings for the user can enable this option, namely, whether to populate all available data (time consuming but complete), or necessary data (fast).

[Siedlerchr]

The JabRef browser extension is helpful for importing data, if often includes the abstract as well

[alfureu]

Thanks @Siedlerchr, this is certainly possibly, but what I had in mind is more the "Add new entry" option, when one searches for a single DOI, and then imports the additional entry infos.

This should also include the abstract, because currently it does not. One has to click on the links after import, and copy&paste the abstract manually (including all the other missing data, e.g. keywords).

[Siedlerchr]

Yes, I know this is unfortunate, but the doi.org response gives us only the BibTeX back without the abstract. I can only guess, but it may have been something to do with the fact that abstracts are copyrighted.

[alfureu]

just bumped into this, can we maybe use services like semanticscholar or similar to get the abstracts? it is really a pain not having them

[koppor]

When implementing, I think, a new AbstractFetcher needs to be created.

Hints on implementation at https://devdocs.jabref.org/code-howtos/fetchers.html

Note that we have an EntryBasedFetcher to complete an entry. However, I don't know how this is accessible in the UI.

Finally, some fetchers fetch the abstracts. We only remove them after fetching in test cases.