Software Reviews
Andy Boze, Editor
ProCite 5.0
2141 Palomar Airport Rd., Ste. 350
Carlsbad, CA 92009
1-800-722-1227
info@isiresearchsoft.com
Price: Full retail version $395.95, students $109.95, single-use upgrade $99.95.
System requirements: Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT4/2000/XP. Word processor compatibility: Microsoft Word for Windows 7, 97, 2000; Corel WordPerfect 7, 8, 9.
Macintosh version system requirements: PowerPC/Mac with Macintosh operating system or compatible (120MHz recommended); Apple MacOS System 7.5.5 or later.
Reference Manager 9.5
2141 Palomar Airport Rd., Ste. 350
Carlsbad, CA 92009
1-800-722-1227
info@isiresearchsoft.com
Price: Full retail version $395.95, students $109.95, single-use upgrade $99.95
System requirements: Microsoft Windows 98/ME/XP/NT4/2000. Word processor compatibility: Microsoft Word for Windows; XP, 2000, 97 and 7; Corel WordPerfect 8, 2000, 2002.
Anyone who has ever published a scholarly book or paper knows that the most tedious aspect is generating the bibliography. Nor is any task associated with this so prone to avoidable error. ISI ResearchSoft has made this task a little less tedious with its suite of bibliographic management products. Bibliographic management software eliminates the need for writing citations on file cards for later use. Citations can be entered into the database manually; they often can be imported from a database on the Internet. Once the citations are in the bibliographic reference manager file, they can be retrieved by a variety of means and used for articles, books, and any other publication requiring a bibliography or citations. The reference manager software automatically reformats the citations according to any one of the hundreds of predefined output styles, which vary from journal to journal.
Two of these products, Reference Manager and ProCite, are reviewed here. Endnote was reviewed in the December 2000 issue of ITAL, but an updated version was recently released, and the differences between versions are addressed in these pages as well.
ProCite and Reference Manager can be used apart from a word processing application to search the Z39.50 databases, to search for references within a bibliographic file, or to generate a bibliography. Conversely, they have the capability to integrate themselves into Microsoft Word or WordPerfect via their Cite While You Write (CWYW) function. This allows the author to format citations and generate a bibliography with a few simple commands.
Installation on a Windows NT 4.0 machine running Microsoft Office 2000 was quick and straightforward. ProCite and Reference Manager both integrated seamlessly as add-ins with Word during installation and should do so with WordPerfect. Installation results in a new toolbar as well as a new pull-down menu item for Word. When you install either of these products, the installation software determines which versions of Word or WordPerfect are available and installs the CWYW function automatically. However, if Word or WordPerfect is installed after installing either of these products, the CWYW setup must be run for the function to appear in the word processor's Tools menu.
ProCite has a Macintosh version available, while Reference Manager only exists in a Windows version. The look and feel of both products is nearly identical. In fact, the toolbar is identical and only slight differences exist in the pull down menus. Of course, this means that they have many functions in common as well. Each can search Internet databases, organize references, and format bibliographies. A bibliographic file created by ProCite, Reference Manager, or EndNote can be easily converted to a form usable by any other of those three applications.
A primary function of a bibliographic manager is to create, manipulate, and format bibliographic references. This is a formidable task when the number of bibliographic references in a scholarly work can number in the hundreds or even thousands. Of the many capabilities of this type of application, managing references is one of the more mature functions. A particularly useful function is the ability to reformat citations to meet the demands of a particular journal. Both Reference Manager and ProCite allow more than six hundred output styles, such as MLA, Chicago, and APA. Another important function is to facilitate searching of Z39.50-compatible Internet databases for relevant bibliographic references, although this function is less sophisticated than the bibliographic management ability.
In terms of basic functionality, both products allow users to search Z39.50 databases, organize references, and format bibliographies. Each application allows unlimited references. Reference Manager allows thirty-five fields in each reference while the ProCite allows forty-five. In terms of reference type (monograph, journal, working paper), ProCite is the clear leader in this area with fifty predefined types and the ability to add more. Reference Manager has thirty-nine predefined types, but limited ability to add types.
Reference Manager and ProCite allow the user to enter citations manually, but their real convenience is the ability to import citations from databases. These two products will, via appropriate filters, import the results of these searches into the bibliographic reference manager. ProCite and Reference Manager have filters for more than three hundred Internet databases and online library catalogs. Additionally, the user can create filters manually. The search/import functions are not as mature as the formatting functions and require a significantly greater expertise and a steeper learning curve. However, a handful of selected data services allow direct export using a plug-in from ISI ResearchSoft. The Export Plug-in is a free download from the ISI Web site that installs a utility and import filter required to export references from ISI, Sea Change, and BioMetNet Web-based products into ProCite and Reference Manager. Most of these data services are within the ISI universe of products and exhibit a strong bias toward scientific literature.
Reference Manager is a feature-rich writer's tool for researchers, offering three research tools in one: a reference searcher, a database manager, and a bibliography builder. The reference searcher allows the user to retrieve references from existing Reference Manager databases, or from an Internet Z39.50 database using Boolean logic. Once references from an Internet database have been retrieved, they can be imported into an existing Reference Manager bibliographic file or saved to a new file. The database manager function allows the user to copy references within or between databases and to copy data from one reference to another. It also allows the user to edit, add, or delete authors and journal titles in the database. The bibliography builder function allows the user to insert citations into documents using the CWYW add-in. Once citations are inserted, Reference Manager can then generate a bibliography. Workgroups may benefit from multiuser read and write access capabilities of the network edition. Reference Manager is available as a true network application with multiple read/write access to the same database - down to the field level. This capability allows multiple users to make changes simultaneously to the bibliographic database.
As the same company publishes all three products, enough cross functionality exists between the products that it no longer makes any real sense to continue the product line with three separate and distinct titles. EndNote and ProCite differences are minimal. EndNote has multilingual spell check capability, while ProCite lacks any spell check function. On the other hand, ProCite has reference grouping and advanced searching capabilities that do not exist in EndNote. Each exists in both a Macintosh and Windows version, and each lacks true network capability. Reference Manager, on the other hand, lacks a Macintosh version but has true networking functionality.
The searching function is of limited utility. Most of the proprietary databases searchable via the Z39.50 standard require password authentication rather than the standard academic practice of using IP authentication. This is not an issue, however, with most online catalogs and free databases.
New in Reference Manager
As this review was being completed, ISI released version 10 of Reference Manager. Although this release was not reviewed, ISI announced the incorporation of several new features. Among the more interesting is CWYW with Instant Formatting. This feature, available to users of Microsoft Word, creates the bibliography as the author types. In previous versions, the bibliography was generated after the citations were entered into the document. Then, using the Generate Bibliography command on the Tools menu, the users clicked on a dialog box. Each of the citations entered was converted to the in-text citation format in the desired style (MLA, APA). The list containing cited references was then appended to the document. With this new feature, the only time the Generate Bibliography command is used is to change the selected output style or to modify layout options. Preformatted bibliographic styles now number more than seven hundred.
Other features include the enhanced ability for users of Microsoft Word to collaborate with colleagues using a traveling library. This library is created automatically as references are cited. When the document is sent to colleagues for editing, the library, containing all of the necessary bibliographic data, goes with it. Another new functionality is the ability to store links to other resources in each reference. Some examples of related resources might be full-text articles, image files on the Internet, or a network hard drive.
Users from institutions that subscribe to ISI Web of Science can now create searches with Reference Manager. Users with institutional access to Web of Science may purchase key reference data via ISI eSource on a pay-per-view basis.
New in ProCite
Just as with Reference Manager, ProCite gives Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect users CWYW ability. Some enhancements to CWYW are: the option to see the full record, including the abstract, when selecting from multiple matches; the ability to click sort on column headings to locate a reference when selecting from multiple matches; and the ability to select from any of the last ten citation searches to bring up quickly the results of a previous search.
The ability to define and modify citation formats in each workform to allow accurate footnote formatting is also a new feature. (Workforms are fill-in-the-blank forms used to help organize the information in each record.) When a source is cited more than once in a document, many style guides require an alternate format for the second and subsequent in-text citations. ProCite now allows users to define an alternate format to handle this issue. Rounding out the list of new formatting features is the ability to preview the current workform definition while creating or editing output styles.
Language enhancements also appear in this newest version. Languages vary in their rules for sorting characters, and ProCite has the capability to sort according to the current language setting. Czech, Polish, and Russian (Cyrillic) have been added to the international sort options.
What's New in EndNote?
There are several new features in EndNote 5, including enhanced word processor support for Microsoft Word 97/2000. It is now possible to locate and insert citations without leaving Microsoft Word. Users can instantly format citations as they are cited.
According to a press release dated February 1, 2002, users of OCLC FirstSearch can now also export information to EndNote:
Using ISI ResearchSoft's Direct Export feature, FirstSearch users may now export one or more bibliographic records directly from OCLC FirstSearch into EndNote software. This will facilitate the creation of a bibliography of material accessed in FirstSearch databases during the review of search results.1
However, the most interesting EndNote development is the traveling library that follows the document for easy collaboration. EndNote 5 automatically creates a reference list as you cite references in Microsoft Word, containing all of the bibliographic information for all of your citations. When sending this document to colleagues for editing, you will have provided them with all the necessary information to add, delete, and reformat citations.
Conclusion
Authors in scientific fields will benefit most of all from these three products, but even those who produce scholarly works in the arts and humanities will find a bibliographic manager to be a near necessity.
- Christian Poehlmann
Reference
1. OCLC, FirstSearch News, February 1, 2002, Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Accessed February 22, 2002, www.oclc.org/firstsearch/en/fsnews.htm#new.
Christian Poehlmann (poehlmann.1@ nd.edu) is Manager of the Business Information Center at Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
2101 Software