Zotero Kentridge

Kentridge is a Zotero plugin for fetching and applying bibliographic metadata by title.

The current build is intended for Zotero 8 and Zotero 9.0.x.

Release assets include both the installable .xpi package and update.json manifests used for plugin updates.

Why “Kentridge”?

Kentridge is the location of the National University of Singapore, where the project author is doing a PhD.

It also exists for a practical reason: Zotero's built-in metadata coverage is not always enough for many computer science venues, especially conference-heavy ecosystems (for example, parts of the USENIX series). Kentridge helps fill that gap by querying external scholarly sources and applying structured metadata back to your items.

Features

• Right-click menu in library items: Kentridge -> Fetch Metadata by Title
• Provider-based metadata fetching (currently DBLP)
• Batch mode for multiple selected items, with per-item candidate selection
• Candidate result dialog with readable multi-line cards
• Two update strategies:
  • Replace existing metadata
  • Supplement existing metadata
• Provider settings panel in Zotero Preferences

Current Provider

• DBLP (https://dblp.org/search/publ/api)

DBLP results are normalized before applying:

• HTML entities are decoded (e.g. ")
• trailing title period is removed when needed
• DBLP author suffixes like 0001 / 0002 are removed

Installation (Development)

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

2. Use Node.js 24 or newer.
3. Copy environment config:

cp .env.example .env

4. Set Zotero executable/profile in .env.
5. Start development mode:

npm start

Installation (Release)

1. Open the latest release page: Releases
2. Download the latest .xpi file (for example: zotero-kentridge.xpi).
3. In Zotero, open Tools -> Plugins.
4. Click the gear icon in the plugin manager, then choose Install Plugin From File....
5. Select the downloaded .xpi file and restart Zotero when prompted.
6. For self-hosted updates, keep the bundled update.json or update-beta.json release assets available at the configured release URLs.

Usage

1. Select one or more regular bibliography items in Zotero library.
2. Right click item(s): Kentridge -> Fetch Metadata by Title.
3. For each item, choose one returned metadata candidate and click Apply.
4. If some items fail to fetch metadata, a summary dialog is shown at the end.

Preferences

Open Zotero Preferences -> Kentridge.

Data Providers

• Enable/disable each provider.
• Enter API key for providers that require it (future providers).

Metadata Update Strategy

• Replace existing metadata: overwrite existing values with selected metadata.
• Supplement existing metadata: only fill empty fields.

Build

npm run build

Build artifacts are generated under .scaffold/build/.

Changelog

• See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Repository

• Source: https://github.com/brant-ruan/zotero-kentridge
• Issues: https://github.com/brant-ruan/zotero-kentridge/issues

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later