Ranking references by number of citations listed in Dimensions

[BobMitcham]

I love the new Dimensions.ai feature.

I have about 760 references in my Bookends library. I would like to rank these using the Dimensions citation number so I can prioritise my reading.

Is it possible to rank my references by the Dimensions citation number or perhaps search for those with a citation number greater than e.g. 20?

I could transfer the citation number into an unused field but I can't see how this would allow me to rank my references by citation number.

Perhaps a series of smart groups (10, 20, 50 etc) using SQL but the citation number is not static so I would need to update regularly especially with newly published references.

How would I design the SQL search?

Regards

Bob

[Jon]

Dimensions.ai restricts the number of queries to 1/second, so the live values can't be used for batch processing. You can enter the numbers yourself, but as you note for newer references they will change over time. And even if you did that, Bookends can't sort by numeric value, it does alphanumeric sorts. So the best way, I think, would be to do this via an AppleScript that searches the citation field you create, sorts by numeric value, and outputs the result (perhaps as formatted references, a list of unique ids, or whatever you prefer).

Jon
Sonny Software

[BobMitcham]

Jon,

Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately I am not able to write Applescript and would need some help.

What about a SmartGroup SQL search like this one to find those with 9 -24 citations, using user14 to store a static number= Dimensionai number for each reference?

((user14 REGEX >'9') AND (user14 REGEX <'25'))

Unfortunately when I do this search I get

SQL Error: line 1:39: unexpected token: user14

Regards

Bob

[Jon]

You have to tell the search engine to treat the user14 field (which is defined as a text field) as a whole number. This search should work

CAST(user14 as integer) > 9 AND CAST(user14 as integer) < 25

Jon
Sonny Software

[BobMitcham]

Thanks Jon.

A prompt reply as usual.

Just what I wanted

Regards

Bob

[Jon]

One more tip. You can select more than one group at a time to create a "virtual group". So if you have one from 0-9, and one 10-20, say, you could get refs with citations of 0-20 by selecting both groups at once. This assumes you have told Bookends to OR multiple selections (right-click in the groups pane to set that).

Jon
Sonny Software

[BobMitcham]

Hi Jon

Thanks for the multiple smart group selection tip which works well thanks

Add a column.

Rather than using multiple Smart Group SQL searches for citation ranges, I have added a column for user 14, where I have recorded the Dimension citation number, (with extra 0s in front so there are 4 digits for all, so they sort properly). I add this at the stage when I add the reference to my library.

This allows me to rank references by number of citations, and then prioritise my reading, which is what I wanted. If the actual value needs to be accurate I simply have to update user14 every few months.

Just to tidy up the column I have renamed user14 as Citations in settings.

This is major improvement to the functionality of Bookends for me and improves my efficiency immensely.

Regards

Bob

[BobMitcham]

Updating user14

It would be good to automate the process to have an Applescript? (Keyboard Maestro?) which could check the numerals in user14 to make sure there were 4 digits and add extra zeros to the front if needed. Anyone help?

Regards

Bob

[Jon]

You might post this request in the AppleScript subforum, too.

Jon
Sonny Software

[BobMitcham]

Hi Jon

I am using user14 ( renamed citations) to store the number of citations for each reference. While this works for some types of references eg journal, other types such as book lack the user14 field. I thought the other types were based on the journal field which has user14

How do I add user14 to other types of references.?

Regards

Bob

[Jon]

The labels are based on types, but the fields themselves are not.

If you don't use BibTeX, User1 is always available, as is, I believe, User20. Other fields with labels that are rarely used can be repurposed, such as Short Title (which is not used in the hard or biological sciences, for example).

You can use Global Change -> Move Field to shift your current User14 data into another field.

Jon
Sonny Software

[BobMitcham]

Thanks Jon. That solved the problem. Bob