Jasminum is a Zotero add-on that retrieves and processes Chinese-language metadata from academic sources.
The tool solves the problem of managing Chinese-language academic papers in Zotero, where metadata extraction and attachment handling often fail through standard channels. It works by providing metadata scrapers specifically designed for Chinese sources, particularly China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and includes utilities for matching manually downloaded PDF and CAJ files to existing metadata entries based on filename and journal title similarity. The add-on also supplies Chinese citation formats and offers Chinese name parsing and merging capabilities.
Jasminum is designed for researchers and academics working primarily with Chinese-language publications in Zotero. It suits projects involving Chinese scholarly articles where the standard Zotero Connector fails to capture metadata or download attachments automatically. The tool is particularly valuable when you have already downloaded papers manually and need to associate them with their metadata records. Currently the metadata scraping functionality supports only CNKI as a source, though the README indicates consideration of adding other Chinese data sources in the future.
The project maintains active development with regular updates addressing user-reported issues and feature requests. The codebase shows consistent refinement of core functionality, particularly around the metadata extraction workflow and attachment matching logic. Development activity demonstrates responsiveness to the specific needs of users working with Chinese academic materials in Zotero.
