------------------------------------- WMLA Newsletter Online February 1998 (Volume 19, Issue 1) ------------------------------------------- A Note From the Presidents (Past & Present) ------------------------------------------- It's time to do some hard thinking about where WMLA is going as an organization. 1997 was a strange year which we attributed to hosting MLA in Seattle and PNC being out of state. We held no annual meeting in the spring, and no state meeting at PNC. I had hopes for improvement in 1998, but those have not materialized. We still do not have anyone who is willing to take on the position of President Elect for 1998, which means there is no one willing to be President in 1999. This is quite concerning to me and to Val, especially after last year's inactivity. We almost hate to ask these questions but think they need to be asked. Is it worth putting the effort into a spring meeting? We need to make some final commitments about dates in the next week or so and want to know that people will attend this meeting and not need to cancel at the last minute. IF we do go for it the meeting date would be late April or early May. What do we do about the lack of a President Elect for 1998 (hence no President for 1999)? Val is not planning to do this job past Dec 31, 1998 and unless someone volunteers to take this role on, there will be no one coming up behind her. Has WMLA outlived its usefulness in its present form? Should we consider a "virtual" organization (whatever that would mean)? Are folks just too busy to get away to attend meetings? I know my staffing levels (Cheryl) are down 50% in the past year and many of you have expressed similar time pressures. Does this mean that people cannot participate any longer? What about CE opportunities? Networking opportunities? Are those still useful to you? Have budgets been cut too much to afford the travel, etc. involved? Many folks have to use their own funds to travel and that means hard choices. These are just stream of consciousness questions, based on my own concerns. I'd really appreciate thoughts from the rest of the group. We really want to know what you see as the future of WMLA and what you want it to be for yourselves. It's been a valuable organization in the past and we would hope it could continue. Please give any input to Cheryl Goodwin or Valerie Lawrence. ----------------------------- From the Membership Secretary ----------------------------- Thanks to all of you who have renewed your membership in WMLA for 1998. If you have forgotten or been procrastinating, a membership form is available at http://www.wmla.org/member.html. Just print the form, add a check for $15.00, and send both to: Martha Means WMLA Membership Secretary Box 357155 Health Sciences Library University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-7155 ---------------------------- WMLA Annual Meeting '98 ---------------------------- MARK YOUR CALENDARS !!! The date and location for the annual meeting has been set. It will be: Friday, May 8th Bell Harbor Conference Center (Seattle Waterfront) Theme : Looking Forward : WMLA in the 21st Century Times : approx 9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. More details to follow as they are firmed up. I have 3 potential clinical speakers that I will be contacting but would be glad for any other ideas. Committee chairs should plan on giving a brief report at the business meeting - I can think of Resource Sharing, CE and the Internet Users Group. If there are others please let me know. Cheryl Goodwin ------------------------ Software Review: EndNote ------------------------ EndNote: Not Just For Researchers Lisa Oberg Health Sciences Libraries & Information Center University of Washington lisanne@u.washington.edu EndNote, developed by Niles & Associates (http://www.niles.com) in Palo Alto, California, is a bibliographic citation management software, available for both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. But wait a minute, what exactly is bibliographic citation management software? There are several synonyms including personal files management software, but in general it refers to computer software that allows you to enter bibliographic information into a database (or "library" as EndNote calls it) and then create formatted bibliographies from that database in a particular style such as Chicago or APA. That's it in a nutshell. However, the really power of EndNote is that you can take a bibliography you created in the APA style and with a few keystrokes reformat it into the style used by JAMA or some other standard format. EndNote can also be integrated as a "plug-in" into your word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, so that EndNote functions can be utilized while you are composing a document without having to switch back and forth between programs. Another useful aspect of EndNote is managing the database of citations itself. EndNote has a fairly sophisticated searching interface that allows for Boolean searching as well as limiting words or phrases to appearing in a particular field such as title or author. If you are interested in maintaining a database of reprints in your Library's collection or citations to articles about using Internet search engines you can easily search your EndNote library for citations published within the previous year or those that appeared in a particular journal. Each EndNote library can hold up to 32,000 records and each record contains fields that allow for customizing. Subject headings and abstracts can be included in addition to your own comments about a particular paper such as whether you have a copy or more importantly where that copy is! Manually entering citations into EndNote is as easy as filling out a form. You select the type of citation you want to add to your EndNote library, e.g. book, journal, article, newspaper citation, etc. and then you are prompted for the different bibliographic elements to add such as the authors, volume, issue, pages or publisher. It is also very easy to create new formats with EndNote, so if you wanted to compile a catalog of web sites you've reviewed you can create a new citation type including URL's, the date visited and your impressions or anything else you think is important. EndLink, a companion piece of software that is bundled with EndNote, makes importing citations downloaded from databases such as MEDLINE even easier. For example, by saving citations downloaded from Ovid MEDLINE to your computer's hard drive in the reprint format adding the citations to your EndNote library is as simple as selecting Import from the File menu, choosing the file containing your citations and selecting the filter that matches the databases the citations came from. Filters are available for PubMed, Ovid databases, SilverPlatter, Dialog and other major database vendors. For researchers, writing scholarly papers is an invaluable form of communication. Managing reprint files and creating bibliographies to accompany a manuscript is an important aspect of making writing as painless as possible. The ability to create EndNote libraries on a particular topic or to create a catalog of items in a small collection makes EndNote a useful tool for librarians as well, and not just those interested in publishing scholarly literature. ------------------------- The WMLA Newsletter Online is published by and for members of the Washington Medical Librarians Association. For information about WMLA, please view our Website at http://www.wmla.org/ -------------------------