BibGenie DocsSemantic Index
Understand the local title-and-abstract index used by BibGenie semantic search.
Semantic Index powers BibGenie's semantic literature search. It indexes Zotero regular-item titles and abstracts locally, so you can describe a research topic in natural language instead of relying only on keywords.
What Does It Index?
The semantic index currently focuses on Zotero regular items:
- Title
- Abstract
- Selected metadata useful for search
Not PDF full-text search
Semantic Search is not the same as PDF full-text search. If a paper has no abstract or incomplete metadata, semantic matching may be less accurate.
Status Reference
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| bootstrapping | Indexing capability is initializing |
| indexing | The index is being built |
| updating | Existing index entries are being updated |
| idle | The index is ready |
| error | An indexing error occurred |
Metrics
| Metric | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Indexed Count | Number of items successfully indexed |
| Failed Count | Number of items that failed indexing |
| Message | Current status or error message |
When to Check Semantic Index
- Semantic search returns very few results.
- BibGenie reports that the semantic index is unavailable.
- Newly imported papers do not appear in semantic search.
- Failed Count keeps increasing.
- Zotero just started and the index is still bootstrapping or indexing.
Troubleshooting
Open Preferences and check the Semantic Index status.
If it is indexing or updating, wait for it to finish.
If there are failed items, retry failed indexing.
Check whether the relevant papers have titles and abstracts.
If failures continue, restart Zotero and check again.
Tips
- Complete abstracts improve semantic search quality.
- Use natural language descriptions instead of only keywords.
- Combine semantic search with year, tag, or collection filters.
- After finding candidate papers, add the PDFs or notes as context for deep reading.