Our lab has been using EndNote as our bibiliographic database for the
past 6 months and are VERY pleased. One of the most positive aspects
(particularly from my perspective as the main computer resource person
in the lab) is that the interface is very good (i.e., standard
Macintosh), which makes the program easy to learn and use for almost
everyone that has ANY experience with a Mac. The price from mailorder
houses is quite reasonable (<$100 US).
As mentioned for Reference Manager, it will also reformat word
processing documents to include references and build the bibliography.
It comes with only a few journal formats (Science, Nature, and some more
general formats), but creating other formats is straightforward.
One area in which EndNote excels is that it can work with documents from
a wide variety of word processors, including WORD, WordPerfect, and
MacWrite. A friend in another lab has actually had to abandon Reference
Manager for EndNote because it could not deal with his word processor
(although this deficiency is supposed to be corrected in a future
update). This same person also felt that the interface to Reference
Manager was too close to its beginnings as an DOS-based program.
In terms of importing data from Reference Update, you can save your
references in Medline format and use the related product EndLink (also
<$100 US from mailorder) to import them into EndNote. EndLink also
allows importing references from on-line databases.
We have also tried some HyperCard-based bibliographic programs (and were
using one of them prior to EndNote). The biggest problem is that many
people who use the Macintosh only for wordprocessing and some simple
graphics seem to find it a barrier to deal with HyperCard. As a result,
only those people in the lab who were comfortable with HyperCard ended
up adding references to the database and then using it to format a
manuscript.
If you need more information, feel free to write me. NOTE: these
opinions are mine; my only relationship with Niles and Associates, who
make EndNote, is as a very satisfied user.
John Edward Hill Dept. of Biological Sciences
Internet: jh5f+ at andrew.cmu.edu Carnegie Mellon University
Bitnet: jh5f+ at andrew.bitnet 4400 Fifth Avenue
412-268-5122 Pittsburgh, PA. 15213-3890 USA
