searching for references for books

EndNote EndNote General
1

Hi,

I am helping someone create an EndNote library of about 3000 books. Does anyone have recommendations to make this easier?

The individual is using a Mac and I showed them the basic process using Safari. Later I realized that with so many books it will almost certainly be better to use Firefox. This is the process that we started with:

Start at the library subscription version of WorldCat through FirstSearch (the OCLC database). The data is probably much like http://worldcat.org however the interface is different.

I was having the person search with main title and the author’s last name. I mentioned including the year of publication, however, did not emphasize that, however now think I should.

We would often find over a hundred books with this kind of search and more than one listing for the book itself.

When we export from the database, it’s possible that there are 12 mouse clicks required (Firefox will probably be around 4). Maybe the main work was dealing with Safari not recognizing the data type of the exported file.

The clicks in Safari from memory are

Export

Export

maybe Windows menu + Download window

click to show in Finder

right click in Finder

Open with

Other

scroll to EndNote folder, click

click EndNote program

EndNote prompts to select the filter, search for Worldcat filter

click Choose

So, I just offer this in case anyone has recommendations to make the process a little quicker. There may be an easier database to try. I plan to recommend Firefox and adding the year of publication to the search. And I’ve talked with EndNote Technical support about WorldCat causing the prompt for the filter and was shown that Worldcat apparently is not sending part of the required data for EndNote to identify what filter to use, so I’m thinking about mentioning that to WorldCat.

Have a nice day
John

2

Hello John,

Yes, the Safari browser is not designed to handle direct export. See the following article for details:

http://help.thomson.com/default.asp?portalid=TSC&article=82609

If a user is searching for books rather than magazine articles, they can certainly try using the Online Search function within EndNote itself rather than using an export from an online database. EndNote has a connection file for the Library of Congress.

Jason Berman
Technical Sup Rep RS

Thomson Reuters

Phone: +1 800-336-4474
thomsonreuters.com

3

Yes, recommend  using the connection route instead, going to Library of Congress, or some of the public university libraries (which are often faster, but may not be as comprehesive).  Then once you do the search, in the online only (not integrated) search, from Endnote, you right click on the record you want and copy to your main library.  Much faster than filter retrieval.  alternatively from google scholar, you might export directly from there, into endnote itself (not using Safari obviously as noted in previous message)?