Searching and sorting your library
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
search an EndNote library
sort an EndNote library.
Searching an EndNote Library
EndNote provides a sophisticated search function, which allows you to locate specific references or groups of references in your library. We will practise this using the Paleo library.
If Sample_Library is not open, open it by choosing the Open command from the File menu. The Paleo library should be in a list of recent libraries. Choose this library.
After Sample_Library opens, begin a search by choosing the Search Library command from the Tools menu.
Type the word sediment in the first search box. Leave the default options as they are (Figure 13).
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Figure 13: Searching an EndNote Library
Note that we have not checked the Match Words box. This means that we are searching for the string of letters "sediment-" and not just for sediment as a discrete word.
Click on the Search button, and you should see something Figure 14, with 22 references. Note that these include references containing words like sedimentary, sedimentology, synsedimentary.
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Let's do a slightly more complicated search. Assume we wish to find all references by the author Jones that were published after 1990. This means that we wish to find references which have jones in the Author field, and a number greater than 1990 in the Year field.
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Choose the Search library command to display the search dialogue box.
In the first row, type jones in the first box.
Click on the arrow to the right and select the Author field.
At the end of that row, make sure that And is selected as the Boolean operator.
Go to the next row and type 1990 as the search term in the first box.
Click on the arrow to select the Year field.
Click on the second arrow to select Is greater than. The screen should look like Figure 15.
Click on the Search button to retrieve the desired references.
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Figure 15: A complex EndNote search
Note that this search will retrieve all articles written by Jones, including those articles in which he was a second, third or even tenth author.
Note that there is a Quick search box on the EndNote toolbar that you can use if you don’t require a more complex search.
Sorting an EndNote Library
You can sort your references on any of the fields in the record, such as author, title, year, label.
Choose the Show All References command from the References menu.
Choose the Sort Library command from the Tools menu. The following screen (Figure 16) will appear.
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Figure 16: The Sort Options Dialogue Box
In the first box, click on the arrow to select Year.
At the end of the row is a button which indicates whether you wish to sort items from smallest to largest (A to Z) or from largest to smallest (Z-A). Click on this button to change the sort from largest to smallest, ie from most recent year to earliest year.
In the second box, click on the arrow to select Author and leave the default setting to sort from smallest to largest, ie from A to Z. This means that after EndNote has sorted the references by year, it will sort them within each year alphabetically by author.
The box should now look like Figure 17.
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Figure 17: Specifying the Sort Options
Click on the OK button and the references in the library will now be sorted with the most recent references first.
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Quick sort Another EndNote feature is Quick Sort. To sort your library according to one heading, click on the field headings displayed in library window (eg Author, Year, Title). Clicking again will reverse the order of the sort. |
Custom groups
The Group function in EndNote X2 is a great way to seee types of references. EndNote X2 comes with some automatic groups — All Refences, Imported Refences, Trash. You can create your own groups using Custom Groups.
To create a Custom Group:
Choose Create Group from the Groups menu on the toolbar.
Enter the name of your new group.
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Press the Enter key on your computer keyboard.
To add references to your new group, select a reference or group of references in your Library window and then choose the Add References to command from the Groups menu.
You are now ready to proceed to the next part of the module: Creating bibliographies using EndNote.