This Dataview script provides a library-catalog interface in Obdisian to search literature notes, i.e. source metadata and PDF annotations imported via a plugin, for example, Zotero Integration.
View a demonstration below.
This is a version of a more elaborate script that I use to search my own research notes, incorporated in my starter vault for historians.
Search Features
keywordfinds text in the entire note text + note title.note-titlefinds text in the file name of your literature note (usually your source citekey).- For text fields, this is a case-insensitive phrase search.
- Enter dates as
YYYY-MM-DD,<YYYY-MM-DDand>YYYY-MM-DD. - Enter tags as
#tag1 #tag2. - Enter exact field title and
asc/descto sort by field. - Leave sort fields blank to sort by
note-title, desc.
Installation
Necessary plugins and settings in Obsidian:
- Live Preview: On
- Dataview (Community plugins; Settings: Enable Javascript Queries - On, Automatic View Refreshing - On)
- A plugin or script to import your source metadata from a reference manager or bibtex file
Your literature notes should reside in a separate folder in your vault.
Place files search.md and view.js in any folder in your vault outside of your literature notes folder. Search.md has search fields where you will enter search terms and calls the main script from view.js. The main script needs to be in a separate file because it is too long to work with Live Preview.
You will need to adapt the scripts to your file structure:
- search.md
- enter path in your vault to view.js instead of
your-folder/your-subfolder.
- enter path in your vault to view.js instead of
- view.js
- enter the path to your literature notes folder instead of
your-literature-notes-folder - make sure you use the search fields in the script (author, title, publication, date, comment) and rename field names in the script to match your own field names
- enter the path to your literature notes folder instead of
