Bibliographic Software &
Keeping Up To Date
Resources for storing, manipulating and
handling references for post-graduate
scientists
Nov 2008
Gareth J Johnson
David Wilson Library

Today’s Session
 Aims to:
◦ Familiarise you with the two major
bibliographic databases supported at Leicester
◦ Contrast the differences and highlight the
similarities between the two
◦ Give you hands on experience with using
them both
◦ Familiarise you with the resources for keeping
up to date with the latest in research
publications

Session Outline
 Your experiences with referencing
 Why building your own bibliography?
 Contrasting EndNote & RefWorks
 Highlighting RefWorks
 Highlighting EndNote
 Keeping up to date with research alerts
 Locating open access research
publications

Your Experiences
1. How do you keep track of your
references?
2. How do you identify unique papers
when searching multiple resources?
3. Do you know how to easily produce a
correctly formatted bibliography
4. How do you keep yourself appraised of
new publications?

Why Are They Needed?
 Bibliographic databases aren’t essential
◦ But they will help a lot
◦ Can be tricky if you’ve not used them before
 The offer a variety of functions
◦ Keeping track of papers you find
◦ A record of all the searches on information
resources you perform
 They exist to save you time and effort
◦ Allowing you to focus on your research

Bibliographic Resources
 Exist to aid in managing your search results
◦ Build a personal bibliography
◦ Eliminate duplicate results from multiple
databases
◦ Citation insertion into Word documents
◦ Inserts custom bibliography formatted to house
or particular journal styles
 Two systems supported at Leicester
 RefWorks & EndNote XI
◦ Very similar in function
◦ Personal preference which to use

Similarities
 Store bibliographic records of many kinds
 Can import records from many different
databases
 Can search within certain information
resources
 Duplicate record elimination
 Boolean searching of results
◦ Variation in range of commands
 Create record indexes automatically
 Create bibliographies and in-text citations

RefWorks
 Website based
◦ Available on and off campus
◦ Need to set up personal profile
 Unlimited references & subfolders
 Wide range of standard reference types
 Supports Boolean and automatic
embedded term searching
◦ Search art to also find heart
 Display and sorting options easily used

RefWorks
 Duplicate detection and elimination
 Cite as you write
◦ Toolbar must installed first
 Create custom bibliographies
◦ Within pre-existing documents or as new files
 No customised references types
permitted
 Less than 200 predefined citation styles
◦ But can customise your own citation style

Hands on with RefWorks
 Using the RefWorks guide
1. Go to the RefWorks website
2. Set up your personal account
3. Work through sections 1-3
4. If there’s time try section 4
 Questions?

EndNote X1
 Available as CFS Software only
◦ No off campus access
◦ Purchase if want on non CFS PC
 Unlimited EndNote libraries
◦ Only 32Mb references per library
 Wide range of predefined reference types
◦ Can also create customisable reference types
 Supports Boolean operator searching
◦ Also comparative searching operators
◦ Can’t save search strategies

EndNote XI
 Can create customised reference types
 Over 1,000 citation styles
◦ New styles have to be implemented by the
Library
 Duplicate detection and elimination
 Cite as you write without other software
 Create custom bibliographies in Word
◦ Can create subject heading bases bibliographies
as well
◦ Can handle figure, table & chart lists
 Includes a spellchecker

Hands on Time Again!
 Using the EndNote guide
1. Go to the EndNote website
2. Download and install the software
3. Work through sections 1-3
4. If there’s time try section 4-5
 Questions?

The Verdict
Or
 Which do you like best?
 It’s a matter of personal taste!

Keeping up to Date
 New research is published everyday
◦ Keeping on top of it can be a challenge
◦ How do you get hold of pre-publication
research?
 Can repeat previous searches
◦ Time consuming
 Resources and tools exist to push new
information to you
◦ Rather than search pulling
◦ Can choose to follow up what you want

Saved Searches
 Many information resources allow
◦ But not all, see online help
◦ Notify when new papers indexed that match
 Web of Knowledge
◦ Save search strategy
◦ Requires you to create a personal ID
 Zetoc
◦ Zetoc alert covers 20,000 journals
◦ Saved search or nominated journals

RSS Feeds
 Used to regularly publish content
◦ E.g. Journal issues table of contents (TOC)
◦ Read in an RSS reader
 Zetoc has TOC RSS feeds
 Journal homepages often offer them
◦ Even if Leicester doesn’t subscribe
 Use a RSS Reader to read
◦ Google Reader is recommended

Open Access Research
 Researchers can make their publications
freely available
◦ Deposit papers in open access repositories
◦ Pre peer-review publication (preprints)
◦ Post peer-review publications & publisher
versions (post-prints)
 Many publishers allow
◦ But not all – only 66%
◦ Some research funders now mandate deposition
of research as Open Access

Who Allows It?
Data from www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php

Searching Open Access
 Research available months ahead of
traditional publication
 Research published in journals not
available at Leicester is accessible
 Can search with Google/Google Scholar
◦ But signal to noise using Google can be too
high
◦ Google Scholar doesn’t index all repositories

Searching Open Access
 Dedicated services available
◦ OpenDOAR Repository Content Search
◦ Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE)
 Search over 1,000 repositories
◦ Containing millions of items
 Majority full text
◦ Some metadata (summary) information only
◦ Excellent source for conference papers and
other publications

Other Resources
 New books on the library catalogue
 Register with publisher sites for new
publications emails
 Conference announcement sites
 Web 2.0 and social networking
◦ Community sites like Facebook & LinkedIn
◦ Blogging and Microblogging (Twitter)
◦ Social bookmarking – shared links (Delicious)

Hands on Time Again!
 Using the Keeping up to date guide
1. Log into Zetoc and set up a journal
TOC alert & a saved search
2. Log into the Web of Knowledge (WoK)
and set up a personal (private) account
3. Set up a saved search in WoK
4. Explore the OpenAccess search tools
 Questions?

It’s A Small World(z)
 If you haven’t already, join the Leicester
Science graduate online community
◦ smallworldz.wetpaint.com
 Interact with scientists, academics, fellow
students and research support staff
 Discover Twitter feeds, blogs and social
networking identities
 Share experiences and peer support
 Keep up to date on new developments

Contacts
 For searching/database support
◦ Gareth J Johnson
 Physical & Biological Sciences
 gareth.johnson@le.ac.uk
◦ Other Information librarians
 www.le.ac.uk/li/about/informationlibrarians.html
 General enquiries
◦ libdesk@le.ac.uk
◦ 0116-252-2043
 Any final questions?

Slides
Available online at:
SlideShare