Overview
Reference manager migrations fail when they are treated as export-import operations. Exporting from Mendeley and importing to Zotero does not preserve all metadata — attachment file paths break, custom tags disappear, notes are stripped of formatting, and PDFs lose their annotations. The migration that looks successful in the interface has silently corrupted the library.
The Reference Manager Migration Protocol Prompt builds a migration process that preserves data integrity — with pre-migration audits that document what must be preserved, field mapping that ensures metadata survives the transfer, and post-migration verification that catches data loss before the old library is deleted.
What you get: - Pre-migration audit: the inventory that documents what must be preserved - Platform compatibility matrix: which fields transfer cleanly and which require manual intervention - Export format selection: the file format that preserves the most metadata for each platform pair - Field mapping specifications: how to map custom fields and tags between platforms - Duplicate detection protocol: how to identify and merge duplicates created during migration - Post-migration verification: the checklist that confirms data integrity before deleting the source library
Built for: researchers migrating between Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, and other reference managers.