I have been updating a very large EndNote database (not online) and was looking for some advice with respect to the Journal Term lists:
Many of the bibliographic entries have been displaying incorrectly because imports from SciFinder, etc. leave the primary journal field with an abbreviation instead of the full name. The full name is reported in the Alternate Journal field. As a result, any entry like this appears in the biblo as full form (incorrect).
Since I’d rather not have ~5 different terms defined for the same journal (every time I get a slightly different abbreviation in the Journal field), what would be the most efficient way of making the program consistent? Additionally, are there any precautionary steps I can take with future Imports to ensure consistency? (I’d really rather not edit every import for this…)
The first thing to do, is to turn off the auto update of terms lists when you import or enter a new reference, as this messes up the terms list you have. This is in your Edit> Preferences> terms list (see attached gif)
Then delete the current terms list as it probably has things in the wrong columns. Then import a new terms list. I think endnote comes with some, or you can get one from the Queensland library website (google search for terms list, queensland, endnot and you should hit the right page along with detailed instructions) and they should now match your output style abbreviation choices correctly. Endnote will match an abbreviation in ANY column of the terms lists and replace with the column specified in the output style. So if there are one or two other variants, you can add them in the third or fourth column, or I have had to have two for some journals that do have multiple variants (PNAS comes to mind!).
Sounds elegant & simple - I like that! A follow up question though:
I’m assuming EndNote (X5) treats Chem. Mater. , Chem Mater , Chem. Mater , Chem Mater. as completely different abbreviations. Is there a way to auto-check this so I don’t have to inspect every imported entry?
Maybe I should be doing something on the SciFinder/WebofScience side…?
That being said, EndNote only has three abbreviation spots so if I “wanted to be lazy” I think I could only feed it, say, 3/4 of the above “incorectly spelled” abbreviations? (not my intention)
One way is that they should come up red in the record, if they aren’t in the terms list. And the variation in full stops do make a difference (I just tested), although the first time I tried it with a style that removes them, so it “looked like” it was working, but it wasn’t, when I switched to an output style that didn’t removed the full stops (this is a journal setting in the output style). And yes, you can only have 3 abbreviations, but I don’t find this kind of variation very often since I usually download from a limited number of resources, so it is usually constant.
Remember you have to import the terms list for each library independently too, so if you use more than one library(and I recommend against that for this and other reasons) you need to add the terms list to each one, and to remember to change each one! At least you don’t have to change the preferences for each library (but do need to change those on each computer!)
Thanks! The term list was quite helpful and cleaned a lot of things up!! Don’t know if I’ll turn off the autocomplete due to the author fields, but it is definitely eliminated many of the full-term (unwanted) journal names in the biblio! Best,
