Endnote

The University of Gloucestershire group met last Thursday morning for our final meeting prior to the Writing Project Retreat.

Endnote

I think this was a really useful meeting.  One of the things we did was to have a training session on Endnote from one of our Learning Centre colleagues towards the end of our meeting.  Once we got everyone back together in the room for this (via a coffee stop in the refectory for some!), I found this to be a  really useful session.

I did Endnote training about 5 years ago when I was at Kingston when they were about to introduce Endnote insitution-wide.  Shortly after the session  it transpired that until full deployment, each individual had to get their department to pay for the individual license costs and although it wasn’t much our HoD turned down my request for it and I never got around to ordering it for myself.  In the meantime as a Firefox user (that’s a web browser alternative to Internet Explorer), I discovered the Zotero Add-on which is in the browser and automatically downloads exported reference details from most sites to a database and can embed these in Word and other documents, which is pretty much what Endnote seemed to offer.  There is a video on their site that explains how it works.  I hav been using this for storing my references, but not in a particularly organised way.

However, both University of Gloucestershire and Brookes have Endnote licences.  Here is the Gloucestershire Endnote Page and here is the Brookes Endnote Page.  As you will see, you can search online databases from within Endnote itself and select entries that you want to save to your Endnote library.  The process of establishing an Endnote menu within your Word version so you can then link your Endnote Library to documents and papers is so easy and quick we almost missed it in our training session!

'La caverne aux livres' by gadl on flickr

You can order Endnote if at Gloucestershire, simply by logging your request with the ICT Helpdesk (by phone or website).  I requested Endnote to be installed yesterday and before the end of the day received a note to say that it would be installed next time I log in to my desktop PC.  Members of other institutions should contact their equivalent service for details.

At UoG you can purchase your own copy for home use for £66.  This is available through Adept Scientific and by selecting the Athens login and by following the on-screen information.  But Endnote Web is also freely available and does much the same as the desktop version including the ‘Cite while you write’ function that allows you to insert citations which automatically adds the details to your reference list – albeit a little more slowly (depending on connection).

It does take a bit of work to maintain your database, but I think the pay-off is trouble-free citation management.  If (heaven forbid!) at a late stage in the writing process, your co-author says: “I think we might have a better chance submitting it to the Journal of $*£^@ (using the Chicago system) as opposed to the International Annals of $%*@ (using the Harvard system)” You can smile and offer to take on changing the citations format, knowing that because you have Endnote and because you have kept up with maintaining your library, it can be done with a couple of clicks!

Incidentally, I stumbled across these Endnote video tutorials on YouTube:

These are provided by Endnote themselves.  There are a total of 32 videos available from the Endnote YouTube Channel.  These are available in normal and HQ versions, which makes a big difference if you prefer to watch in full-screen mode.

I hope this information is of use.  Is Endnote something you would use?  If you already use it, would you recommend it to colleagues and why?

Kenny