For a quick overview of Endnote’s library sharing and syncing capabilities suggest you start at the Endnote website which has a page devoted to the topic and includes 2 short videos: http://endnote.com/product-details/library-sharing There’s also a 3rd video about “Sharing References” which you may find informative. Also, depending upon which version of Endnote you and your co-author are running, you may try doing a trial run to test and familiarize yourselves with the library sharing/syncing feature.
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Is the idea of mutually shared libraries consistent with how EndNote sharing is conceived, or are we on the wrong track?
Yes, but remember that only one library can be synced to your Endnote online account. You could, however, share multiple libraries simultaneously by setting up each library as a separate group within your desktop’s “primary” library. The primary library in turn would be synced (along with any PDFs or other file attachments) to your Endnote online account. You would then authorize your co-author to have access to the “primary” library which contains all the grouped libraries.
You can sync multiple libraries but may do so on an individual-library basis and requires resetting your Endnote online account each time prior to syncing the new library. -
When I tried using the web library (quite a while) I had to abandon it because it did not let use custom output formats. Has this been fixed? Can I now use custom formats while still using a [shared] web-based library?
If you’re accessing Endnote online through a departmental/organizational network, you can have your network administrator install the customized output style for you. Otherwise, you’ll need to use Endnote desktop to use the customized output style. -
What about the issue of overlap, including differences between (among) individual references?
Overlap/differences between references will be a big issue in 2 ways: 1) it promotes opportunities for inconsistent and incorrect in-text citations and bibliographies, and 2) increases the sync time to upload/update the library online by the increased number of duplicate or near-duplicate references and their file attachments. -
What about off-line access: are the contents of a shared library cached on the computer so they can be accessed without an Internet connection?
Yes. The person doing the syncing will have a copy, and the co-author will have a copy if he/she syncs the library to his/her computer. Refer to the knowledgebase article on syncing between multiple computers: http://endnote.com/kb/122170 -
What about the idea of creating a new combined library that we would both share by joining the two existing ones and fixing up incompatibilities and dupes?
Working from a single “clean” library seems optimal. If you opt to combine libraries note that: 1) you can use Endnote’s “Find Duplicates” feature to identify and cleanup entries; and 2) when adding references from the second library into the first library those references will be assigned new Endnote record numbers. (Endnote uses the record numbers to generate in-text citations/bibliographies. Since the new record numbers will not “match up” to citations used in prior papers strongly suggest you and your co-author make backup copies of your libraries for safekeeping before making any changes.) -
I understand that sharing can be done using either the web version or the desktop version of EndNote—is that correct?
Yes, you could share by: 1) syncing the library to Endnote online or 2) using Endnote desktop to save the references as a “Compressed Library” which can be emailed to your colleague and contains the .enl library file, and corresponding .DATA folder (containing the PDFs). There’s a 4-gigabyte size limit (on the library to be compressed) and the compressed library file can be restored by the recipient through the Endnote desktop program. -
How many shared libraries can you connect to and use in a manuscript at a time?
If you set up each library as a group within your primary Endnote desktop library then (per the manual) you can have up to 5000 groups and access all of your libraries as needed. (Although it’s unclear whether library file size may be an issue due to file attachments.)