If you are a regular reader of systematic reviews (SR), chances are that you have come across a database referred to as Cochrane CENTRAL listed among the databases often used in SR search methodology. This Cochrane resource contains the citation information and abstracts (not the full-text) of published and unpublished human studies reporting on a particular study design: randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials ONLY.

The published abstracts in CENTRAL are the controlled trials harvested from the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases using highly sensitive specialized search strategies. The rest of the content comes from Specialized Registries that are compiled and maintained by the various Cochrane Review Groups. This subgroup of unique content is derived in part by using hand-searching techniques and can include things like unpublished RCT studies reported on during scientific conference presentations. As this content may never end up appearing in the commercial databases (like EMBASE and MEDLINE), searching CENTRAL helps to combat the publication bias that may arise when searching only commercially published sources.

To access the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) database, first launch the Cochrane Library (Wiley) from the MSK Library’s A-Z list of databases. You can then perform a search by using the search box available to bring up some results from the various components of the Cochrane Library, among which you will find (listed in the menu on the left) “Trials”. The “Trials” search results are the records from CENTRAL. If you wish to limit your search to only the CENTRAL database, then click on “Search Limits” > select “Trials” > and click on “Apply” to continue your searching in only the CENTRAL database.

To learn more about CENTRAL, ask an MSK Librarian for an in-depth tutorial.

Writing a research paper often generates more electronic files than most authors bargain for – especially in the form of full-text article PDFs! Endnote (desktop version) has many features that can now help you get the most out of your PDFs and keep them in one tidy, well-organized, and fully-portable place.

Here are just some of things you can do with PDFs in Endnote X7:

• The “Find Full-Text” feature effortlessly harvests available full-text article PDFs and actually stores them as object (or “attachments”) in the corresponding Endnote record.
• If you have article PDFs already downloaded living in a folder on your computer but have not yet brought in the corresponding citation information from a bibliographic database, try importing the PDF by going to File>Import> File… and selecting “PDF” as your import file. If the article PDF is less than 10 years old or so, there is a good chance that the publisher has already embedded citation information on the PDF that Endnote will extract from and create a citation record.
• Your Endnote PDF attachments can also be edited and saved. For example, sections of the article PDF text can be highlighted and annotated with your personal notes…so that you can remember those important sections that you planned on discussing in your manuscript!
• Once annotated – you can use Endnote “Search Library” function to search on any field in the Endnote record – including “Any Field + PDF with Notes”. In other words, this search will allow you to search beyond the typical information available in an Endnote citation. It will allow you to mine the full-text of your PDFs and the annotations/notes you have added! (Please note, however, that only more recent PDFs whose text is machine-readable will be searchable. You will not be able to search on the full-text of those PDFs scanned as images that have not undergone optical character recognition (OCR) conversion.)
• To make your PDF-loaded Endnote library more portable, compressed versions of your Endnote libraries can be saved with or without the PDF attachments – you decide! If you need to email a file that is getting too big – simply exclude the PDF attachments.

To learn more about the great features mentioned above – be sure to attend one of the MSK Library’s upcoming Endnote workshops.

If you haven’t done so recently, it is time to take a new look at Endnote^TM Online, formerly Endnote Web. Endnote^TM Online, a cloud-based version of the Endnote bibliographic citation management program, can be used as a stand-alone product or – better yet – to expand the capabilities of the already super useful Endnote desktop program.

What can you do with Endnote^TM Online that you cannot do with Endnote desktop alone?

• Share Read/Write privileges to your Endnote^TM Online library with up to 15 others.
• Use Endnote^TM Online’s unlimited cloud storage to store your personal full-text article PDFs. (Please note that due to copyright, the PDF attachments cannot be shared with others; only the citation information in the Endnote^TM Online library may be shared.)
• Add citations to your Endnote library from anywhere you have Internet access – regardless of whether the device you are using has the Endnote desktop program loaded onto it or not.
• Create mirror versions of your Endnote library on your desktop and in the cloud simply by clicking on the sync button when you are in the Endnote desktop version.
• Use either version of Endnote to insert citations into your manuscript/paper. (Please note that you will need to download the “cite while you write” plug-in to computers that don’t already have the desktop version’s Endnote tab/macro in MS Word or set your preferences to either desktop or online on devices that do.

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