Product: EndNote for Macintosh 2.2 & 3.0
Author: Mary K. Greer
Independent
Teacher/Scholar/Writer
I used
EndNote while working on a six year project writing a scholarly biography
of four Victorian women called Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and
Priestesses. Keeping track of sources over many years can be a real
nightmare, as I found in graduate school and when I was a college professor.
For the biography I ordered books from interlibrary loan, contacted
my subject’s descendants by mail and phone, had friends look up
materials for me in Paris, and spent two months in Dublin and London
at both private and the national libraries. Without EndNote I would
have had an overwhelming jumble of little pieces of paper.
Having
EndNote on my laptop made it possible to easily list and later identify
letters, diaries, notebooks, and even drawings–especially since
I could take the laptop into manuscript rooms where nothing but a single
pencil and sheet of paper would otherwise be allowed.
By personalizing EndNote I entered long, complicated manuscript numbers and identified special collections, rooms, and even shelf locations. Since I had interlibrary loan books and articles arriving from all over the United States I kept track of originating libraries and the dates I had access to the works.
One reference
technique is to follow up on all the footnotes and bibliographies in
related subjects, many of which are out-of-print or only available in
museums and special library or newspaper collections. EndNote was the
perfect way for me record and sort through my "want-list,"
enabling me to look up the originals at a later date. When I went to
Europe I simply printed out all the materials that were only available
there from my "want-list" so when I was in the libraries I
could make the most efficient use of my time.
Because
I write in a variety of fields and share bibliographies with others
I especially appreciate being able to switch easily among bibliographic
styles–from the Modern Language Association to Chicago Manual of
Style to Modern Psychological to that for Organic Chemistry, and then
being able to create my own style for some of my more unusual and word-of-mouth resources.
As Vice
President of a local writer’s group and lecturer in New Age Writing
and Publishing I’ve presented EndNote as an invaluable tool for
the writer of "how-to" books, non-fiction, and historical
fiction. I encourage specialists in many of the "touchy-feely"
fields to not be fearful of intensive research when they can have this
heaven-sent program take care of all the details. In fact I consider
EndNote my best research assistant, and, with the ability to call up
data as needed or quickly identify a source out of thousands, I’ve
come to think of it as my magical familiar. I even used a modified list
to keep track of the dozens of sources for buying aromatherapy essential
oils while writing my book, The Essence of Magic. Every witch
should own and use EndNote.
I also
recommend EndNote to people who want to catalog their collections. Personally I’ve used it for my collection of over 400 Tarot decks from all over the world. I include title, artist, publisher, ISBN, number of
cards, packaging description, noting that it comes with or without a
book plus the book’s author, where and from whom I received it,
when, cover price, price paid or a review copy, and if I reviewed it,
where and when. Since many of these decks are antique reproductions
I also identify the original deck and its museum location.
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