New Button

You may have noticed a new feature that has just been added to RefWorks: Find @ BU.  This feature allows you to quickly find the fulltext of a referenced article from within RefWorks.

When you are viewing a list of references or an individual reference, you will now see the “Find @ BU” button next to each reference.  If you click on this button, the system will attempt to find an online copy of the article in one of Boston University Library’s many databases.

Find @ BU

Because there are so many different databases with articles, each with a different interface, exactly what happens when you click on the button can vary. In many cases, a new window will pop up with a PDF or HTML copy of the article. Other times, you will be taken to the table of contents of a journal, and you will need to scroll down the page to find the article you want. Or you may be taken to a list of issues of a journal, and you will need to use the citation information to find the exact volume and issue you need.

Although the library’s databases have the fulltext of a huge number of articles, they don’t include everything, so you may instead see a page like the following. This indicates that the system was unable to find an online copy of the article in the library’s databases.  Such a result is usually because the library doesn’t have the referenced issue of the journal, but it could also be because there is something wrong with the citation, such as a misspelled journal title or an incorrect volume number.

Find @ BU page

If you get this results page, you should double-check the citation, and you can use the links on the page (“Go”) to see if the library has the journal in question online or in print (note that it is possible that the journal is available online, but not for the year in which the article appeared).  If you need the article, and you have confirmed that the library does not have the article either online or in print, you can request a copy using interlibrary loan.

Once you have located a copy of an article’s fulltext, remember that you can attach it to the RefWorks reference to make it even easier to access next time.

Finding Books

If the reference is to a book rather than an article, you will almost always see this Find @ BU page, and you can find out if the library has a print copy of the book by clicking on the “Go” following Check for Print Holdings in Boston University Libraries Online Catalog.

There are a couple of ways of copying references between accounts. One way is to export the references from one account, and import then into the other. The other way is to share the references from one account (so even people who don’t have access to the account can view them), and then do a direct import into the other account.

Export/Import

Export

In this approach, you start exporting the references from the source account, the account containing the references. Log into the source account, and add the references you want to copy into a folder or list. Then choose Export from the References menu.

On the Export page, choose the folder containing the references, and select “RefWorks Tagged Format” as the Export Format. Click on the Export to Text File button.

Export Page

Depending upon what browser you are using, you will either be asked if you want to save or open a file, or a new window or tab will open with a bunch of text in it. (Or if your browser has a pop-up blocker turned on, it is possible that nothing will happen, and you will need to turn off the pop-up blocker and try again.) If asked, choose to save the file. If the file has opened in the browser, use the browser’s menu to save the page; the command will be something like File->Save As… or File->Save Page As….  The file will have a name such as “AccountName-Export.txt”. After saving the page to a file you can close the page.

Beginning of Export File

The file you just downloaded onto your computer contains copies of all of the references from the selected folder.  You can use it yourself to copy the references into another account, or you can send it other people so they can use it to copy the references into their own accounts.

Import

To import the references, start by logging out of the source RefWorks account (using the link in the top-right corner, assuming you are still logged in), and then log into the destination account, the account to which you are copying the references.

In the destination account, choose Import from the References menu.  On the Import page, select “RefWorks Tagged Format” from the Import Filter/Data Source pulldown, and “Tagged Format” from the Database pulldown.  Make sure the Import Data from the following Text File radio button is selected, and use the Browse… button to select the export file on your computer.  The click on the Import button.

Import Page

RefWorks will import the references into the destination account, just like importing references from a database; you can view them in the Last Imported folder.

Sharing

Another approach is to share the folder containing the references. When a folder is shared, a URL is generated that can be sent to anyone with whom you want to share the references.  Using the URL, they can view the references, but they can’t edit them or otherwise modify them.  One thing they can do is export the references directly into their own RefWork accounts, just like direct export from a database.  This approach is especially good when a professor wants to share a bibliography with a class; the students can then view the bibliography online and add any references they want into their own accounts.

Full details on setting up a shared folder will be discussed in a future post; but if you want to try it now you go to Tools->Share References in RefWorks, or read the RefWorks help pages on the subject.

A more serious drawback with the simple method is that it imports the publication information (publisher, place of publication, and year) in “Free form” (all mushed together in one field), and RefWorks is unable to create properly formatted citations using it. 

We are working on implementing an “Export to RefWorks” button in the catalog that will send correctly formatted records from the catalog to RefWorks with the click of a button.  Until that happens, this post describes how to avoid these problems by using a slightly more complicated method of getting citations from the catalog into RefWorks.  In this method, you download the data from the catalog into a file on your computer, and then upload the file into RefWorks.

Save Record button

Start in the BU Catalog, and “save” the records you want to import into RefWorks.  If you are viewing an individual record, you can save it by clicking on the Save Record button at the top of the screen.  If you are viewing the results of a search, select the records you want by clicking on the check boxes to the left of the titles, and then click on the small Save Marked Records button on the top left of the list.

View Saved button

Once you have saved all the references you want to import, click on the View Saved button on the top of the screen; you should see a list of your saved references at the bottom of the page, and some controls at the top:

Settings for saving catalog records

 In the Format Of List box on the left, select the “Full Display” radio button.  In the Send List To box on the right, select the “Local Disk” radio button.  Then click on the Submit button.

Exactly what happens next depends upon what web browser you are using, but you should see a dialog box asking if you want to open or save the file.  Choose to save the file, and make note of the file name and location (the file will probably be named “export.txt”).

References->Import menu item

If you haven’t already, now log into RefWorks (you are done with the catalog at this point, so you can use the same browser window or a different one).  Select References->Import from the RefWorks menu to bring up the References page.

From the Import Filter/Data Source drop-down, select “Innovative Interfaces INNOPAC” (Innovative is the brand of online catalog used by BU Libraries).   Then from the Database drop-down, select “Boston University (Full Display).” 

RefWorks import settings

Make sure the Import Data from the following Text File radio button is selected, and click on the Browse… button.  In the dialog box that comes up, navigate to the file you downloaded from the catalog (“export.txt”) and select it.

Click on the Import button on the bottom of the screen, and you should be taken to Import screen, where you can click on View Last Imported to view the new RefWorks records.  Clicking on the little View button next to a record shows all the information that was brought over from the catalog.

There are various ways to solve the problem of organizing your full text files, but if you are already using RefWorks to organize your references, one good solution is to use it to organize your full text files as well.  The idea is to add the full text file as an attachment to the RefWorks reference; you can then access the file anywhere you can log into RefWorks.  

The process for doing this isn’t automatic, but it only requires adding one more step to your routine when you important a reference to RefWorks and download an article. 

Start by downloading the full text document (PDF, HTML, DOC, or whatever) to your computer as normal, making sure you remember where you put it and what name you gave it.  Import the reference into RefWorks, again using your normal method (most library databases allow direct import).  Then go to the “Last Imported” folder, either by clicking on the View Last Imported button in the import results screen, or choosing View->Folder->Last Imported from the RefWorks menu.  Click on the small Edit link next to the new reference to go into edit mode.

A little way down the screen you will the reference’s attachments field:

Click on the Browse button to bring up a file selector, and navigate to the place on your computer where you saved the full text file and select it. This should fill in the box with the full path to the document (though only a bit of it will be visible). Then click on the Add attachment button, and after a bit of a delay the file will be uploaded to RefWorks, and you should see a little thumbnail version of it.

Click on the Save Reference button on the top to save your change.

From now on, when you view the reference in a list it will have a little paper clip symbol next to it to remind you it has an attachment, and you can view or download the attachment by viewing or editing the reference and clicking on the thumbnail.

These attachments will not be visible to others if you use RefShare to share your references.  And there are a few limits on file size.  An individual file can’t exceed 20MB, and the default total size limit for each user is 1 GB.  If you need additional space, you can contact BU’s RefWorks Administrator to request it.

Output styles tell RefWorks how to format citations and bibliographies.  You’ve probably already encountered some of the standard output styles that RefWorks provides, such as “APA – American Psychological Association, 5th Edition” or “MLA 6th Edition.”  But for complete control over the appearance of a bibliography (such as adding an annotation following each citation), you can create your own style, either starting from scratch or (more usually) creating your own variation on an existing style.

In this approach, you enter your annotation for each reference into one or more User fields.  User fields are the fields labeled “User 1″, “User 2″, that you see towards the bottom of the page when you edit a reference in RefWorks.  They are there to enter any kind of information you want about a reference, and using them for annotations is typical.  You can even change their names to something more meaningful (such as “Annotation”) by going to Tools->Customize.

Then, starting with an output style you like (such as “MLA 6th Edition”), you create a new output style (“MLA 6th Edition with Annotations”) that displays the contents of the User 1 field (or whatever you are using) after each citation in the bibliography.  Whenever you want to create an annotated bibliography, you can put all the references you want in a folder, choose the Bibliography menu item, and generate the bibliography using your new style.  And since you have only modified your special “with annotations” style, any bibliographies you create using the standard styles will be unaffected and will continue to ignore the user fields.

The advantages of this approach over the quick and easy one is that you can easily go back and change your annotations, or add new references with annotations, and regenerate the annotated bibliography.  So if your annotated bibliography is going to be a work in progress, this is the way to go.

The tricky part, of course, is exactly how to create your custom output style.  The good folks at the Stanford University Physics Library have created a PDF that gives step-by-step instructions, with pictures, on how to do it.

Many library databases allow you to directly import references into RefWorks with just a few mouse clicks.  Unfortunately, the BU Library Catalog is not one of these databases.  Work is underway to add direct RefWorks import to the catalog, but until that happens, here is one way to get references from the BU catalog into RefWorks with just a little extra work.

Start in the catalog, and “save” the records you want to import into RefWorks.  If you are viewing an individual record, you can save it by clicking on the Save Record button at the top of the screen.  If you are viewing the results of a search, select the records you want by clicking on the check boxes to the left of the titles, and then click on the small Save Marked Records button on the top left of the list.

Once you have saved all the references you want to import, click on the View Saved button on the top of the screen; you should see a list of your saved references at the bottom of the page, and some controls at the top:

In the Format Of List box on the left, select the “End-Note/RefWorks” radio button.  In the Send List To box on the right, select the “Screen” radio button.  Then click on the Submit button.

You should now see a list of your selected references with some odd-looking tags (%A, %T, etc.).  Using your mouse, select all the text on this page (but not the buttons at the top and bottom) and copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C).

If you haven’t already, now log into RefWorks (you are done with the catalog at this point, so you can use the same browser window or a different one).  Select References->Import from the RefWorks menu to bring up the References page.

From the Import Filter/Data Source drop-down, select “Innovative Interfaces (Endnote/RefWorks format)” (Innovative is the brand of online catalog used by BU Libraries).  Then from the Database drop-down, select “EndNote/RefWorks format” (Boston University will not be in the list).  These settings tell RefWorks how the references are formatted.

Click on the big box at the bottom of the screen (which should select the Import Data from the following Text radio button), and paste the text you copied from the catalog (Ctrl-V).

Click on the Import button, and you should see the Import page showing that all your references have been imported.  You can click on View Last Imported to see your new references.

In this approach, you use RefWorks to create a bibliography in a Microsoft Word document, and then use Word (or you favorite word processor that can import Word documents) to add the annotations.

In RefWorks, start by creating a folder, and put all the references for your bibliography into the new folder.  

Then, click on the Bibliography menu choice, and make the following selections:

1. From the Output Style drop-down, choose your favorite style for your bibliography (or whatever style your professor told you to use), such as APA or MLA.
2. Make sure the Format a Bibliography from a List of References radio button is selected.
3. From the File Type to Create drop-down,  choose “Word for Windows (2000 or later)” (or choose “Word for Mac” if that is what you are using).
4. For References to Include, make sure the References from Folder radio button is selected, and pick the folder you created from the drop-down list.

Your screen should look something like this:

Click on Create Bibliography.

At this point, exactly what happens will depend upon what browser you are using, but you should be asked if you want to save or open a .doc file.  (If this doesn’t happen, make sure the pop-up blocker in your browser is turned off.)  Either open the file directly in Word, or save it to your computer and then open it.

It will look something like this, though different citation styles will of course produce different results.

Since this is a standard Word document, you can now do anything you want with it.  In particular, you can edit it and add your annotations as separate paragraphs after each entry.  If you have particular requirements for how the annotation paragraphs should appear (indentation, spacing, etc.) you can use the standard Word tools to change these.  Don’t forget to save the file after you are done editing.

Here is how it can look:

The biggest drawback of this approach is that your annotations are only in the Word document, and not in RefWorks itself.  This is fine for a one-off project, but what if you decicide you want to add a few more references to your bibliography?  You will either need to manually add the new references to your Word document, or use RefWorks to generate a new bibliography and then copy and paste all your annotations to this new document.

Watch for an upcoming post showing another approach to creating an annotated bibliographyusing a custom output style.  It requires a bit more work up-front, but makes it easy to add new references.