This article was featured in Library Notes #62 (March 2010).

By: Pam Shaw, Biosciences Librarian

Is it possible to measure the impact factor for an author's body of work?  While not perfect, there is a simple statistic that comes close to measuring the publication productivity of an author and the impact of that author's work.  This statistic is the h-index.

The h-index is based on the distribution of an author's citations over total publications.  It was first proposed by J.E. Hirsch in 2005.  

There are a few sources that will calculate h-index for you.  Web of Science  and other citation databases have h-index statistics.  You can also download a Firefox add-on for h-index calculation from Google Scholar. 

The most reliable h-index statistics available to Northwestern users are in Web of Science.  You can access reports that have an author's h-index through the Citation Report feature in the Web of Science literature database.  Access Web of Science by clicking Web of Knowledge in the Popular Resources section on the Galter Library homepage.

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This article was featured in Library Notes #61 (February 2010).

The Galter Library subscribes to a number of applications for mobile devices, including several for the iPhone and iPod Touch. We have contracted with UCentral as a provider for several reference titles, including Harrison’s Manual of Medicine, Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, Davis’s Drug Guide and Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests. Additionally, because there are so many free medical apps available, we also recommend free quality ones you can trust such as PubMed for Handhelds and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Electronic Preventive Services Selector.

Access these resources and more on our new iPhone and iPod Touch Resources GalterList, which includes apps that are free to Galter users, either through Galter subscriptions or because they are freely available on the Web. If you have suggestions for additions to this list, please contact Stephanie Kerns through the contact link on the iPhone and iPod Touch Resources GalterList or by clicking the Email Stephanie link on my staff page.

Don't have an iPhone or an iPod Touch? Many of these applications and others like them are also available for other types of mobile devices. For a full list, including both free and Galter-subscribed resources, see our extensive PDA-Handheld GalterList.

This article was featured in Library Notes #61 (February 2010).

Essential Evidence Plus is an evidence-based collection of resources designed to be used by physicians at the point of care. It can be accessed via the web or on your PDA. Available resources and tools include:

• Essential Evidence--Critically appraised topics covering over 600 of the most common medical conditions. Each topic is structured to include the clinical bottom line, background, screening and prevention, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, references with links to PubMed, and links to clinical guidelines, if applicable.
• Abstracts of Cochrane Systematic Reviews including links to the full text reviews.
• EBM guidelines and evidence summaries produced by the Finnish Medical Society with more than 1,000 practice guidelines over 3,000 evidence-graded summaries.
• Practice guidelines from the National Guideline Clearinghouse.
• Daily Poems--POEMs are critical appraisals of medical studies which have been filtered for quality and validity. Each POEM contains a clinical question, a bottom line (answer to the question) which includes a level-of-evidence rating, an article reference, study design, setting, and a synopsis of the article. You can also subscribe to the daily POEMs email alert service to receive a new POEM each day.

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This problem affects EndNote X2 and earlier versions of the software. It does not affect EndNote X3.

When importing records from 2010 or later, the record may have a blank in the Year field. This is a known issue with EndNote versions X2 through 8.

EndNote X3 and later – records import the year data correctly.

EndNote X2.0.4 Windows and EndNote X2.0.2 Mac updates can be found at this link. The update will correct all future imports into EndNote. See this page on the EndNote website for steps on fixing records imported before the update was applied.

NU affiliates with a NetID are eligible to download the latest version of the EndNote software (currently X3). X3 users should not encounter the blank year field problem. X2 users should follow the update instructions on the EndNote website.

There is currently no solution for versions older than X2 (X1 through 8).

This article was featured in Library Notes #60 (January 2010).

One year ago, the Galter Library unveiled its newly-redesigned website which promised users greater control over their personalized library web pages and enabled users to find resources more quickly than ever before. Users were impressed with the quicker access to our most popular resources, the reorganized navigation and the more robust customization options offered by the new GalterLists. And while there were a few early glitches, we responded as promptly as we could and got any users with problems back on track quickly.

Rather than sit back and rest on our laurels, we've spent the last year working on improving every aspect of the website - from how the resources search works to how much information you see on your homepage. For a list of the major changes with the website redesign, check out the original article announcing the new website in January 2009. Read on to learn more about the improvements we have made since then.

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This article was featured in Library Notes #60 (January 2010).

GalterLists, the library's customizable lists and tagging tool, was recently featured in Library Journal, a publication of the American Library Association. The tool was chosen as one of seven inventive programs used by different U.S. academic libraries to attract newcomers on campus.

If you use the library website, you are probably already using GalterLists. Every time you sign into the Galter Library website and use your home page list of favorite resources, you are accessing your GalterList. Librarians have also created several subject-oriented lists to get users started on any number of topics. With GalterLists you can add resources (both Galter and non-Galter links) to your list of favorites, create as many lists as you want, and share those lists with your colleagues. It's a great option for reading lists and journal clubs.

The ins and outs of GalterLists, including a brief introduction video, are covered in our GalterLists guide. We've also recently released a GalterLists FAQs page. Got a question about GalterLists or a suggestion for an enhancement? Let us know.

EndNote version X3 is now available to all current faculty, staff, and students with a valid NetID. If you are off-campus, you will need to connect to NU using VPN (signing in to the Galter Library website is not sufficient). You can download EndNote from the NUIT software site. Both Windows and Mac versions are available.

Windows users: When downloading be sure to "Save File". A zipped folder will be downloaded to your computer. DO NOT double click on the zipped folder. Instead, right click and extract the contents of the folder to a convenient file folder on your computer.

The extracted folder contains several items including the ENX3 installer, a ReadMe file, and the NU toolkit folder.  After installing the software you should run the update to X3. From within EndNote, choose "EndNote Program Updates" from the "Help" menu and follow the on-screen prompts. After running the update, open the ReadMe file for instructions on installing the files in the NU ToolKit.

What's New in EndNote X3?

EndNote X3 has a faster start up than previous versions of EndNote. Some nice new features have been added such as the ability to create multiple bibliographies within the same document; improved groups functionality; compatibility with OpenOffice; and the addition of more journal and manuscript styles. For all the latest guides, FAQs and help with EndNote, see the EndNote Support page.

By: Mark Berendsen, Education Librarian

How can I get the full-text article? That's a very common question at every academic library. There are several different ways to retrieve full-text articles through Galter Library. You'll see different cues in different databases that will lead you to the full-text of an article. Here are two buttons to look for:

No matter which database you are searching, be sure to either sign in to the Galter Library website or the NU VPN if you are off campus. Here are some helpful hints for retrieving full-text articles from several different sources including PubMed, Google Scholar, the Galter Library website, and other biomedical literature databases.

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EndNote users are aware by now that the Galter Health Sciences Library is the go-to source for EndNote training and support.  With our regularly-scheduled classes and by request consultations, users can rely on the library for the help they need. But what if you can’t make an EndNote class or don’t have time to meet with a librarian? You can still get support with our online tutorials for EndNote!

All the library’s EndNote help materials can be found on the EndNote Support page. This page includes guides, FAQs and online video content.

The EndNote Basics guide includes brief (2-4 minute) video segments on the following topics (turn up your speaker volume):

• How to import a journal term list
• How to search databases such as PubMed using EndNote
• How to directly export citations from Ovid into EndNote
• How to import citations from a PubMed search into EndNote
• How to insert references into Word and create a bibliography

The Advanced EndNote guide includes a brief video segment on the following topic:

• How to find and link to full text articles directly from EndNote

We also have an EndNote Basics class recording available on our website. This one hour video will show you how to get started with EndNote. Turn up the volume on your speakers and maximize your browser window; screen images will appear about one minute into the recording.

Still need help with EndNote on a question that’s not covered in our guides or videos? Check out our EndNote FAQs or call the Reference Desk at 312-503-8109.

This article was featured in Library Notes #57 (October 2009).

Have you used one of the many alternative search interfaces for PubMed? If you have, then you probably know that the National Center for Biotechnology Information allows software developers to take the PubMed data and create their own search engines for it. Over the last few years, there has been an explosion in new tools for searching PubMed data. Some of these tools present the citation results in different ways such as more meaningful categories (GoPubMed), rankings by personal interest (MiSearch), or more immediate access to PDFs (PubGet). Others provide text mining for gene and protein-related literature (FABLE) or for microarray data analysis (CoPub). One of our favorites is HubMed which gives the user greater control over both the search and the results, including direct export into EndNote.

The Galter Library has compiled a GalterList of some of these search engines and has highlighted some of these resources in previous news postings (see related links below). Are you using one that’s not on the list? Tell us if you have a favorite or what your impressions are of any of the PubMed search engines you have used.