Category Archives: About Resources

New Preprint-related Developments at eLife

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Since the COVID pandemic, preprint servers have become increasingly accepted within the publishing landscape, with even literature databases (like PubMed and Scopus) taking on the task of selectively indexing some of this new type of “not-yet-confirmed by peer-review” content. No doubt, since preprint servers are outlets for “the distribution of preprints that are complete but unpublished manuscripts describing health research”, this has been a big step for scholarly research database providers.

The increased popularity of preprints has also inspired both scholarly publishers and other research stakeholders to start re-imagining how the scientific research peer-reviewed publishing process in general might be improved now that preprints are often in the mix. For example, the publishers of the open access journal eLife, who have been actively trying to bring on the evolution of publishing by experimenting with new publishing processes/models since their inception 10 years ago, have made some noteworthy changes related to preprints over the last two years that are worth paying attention to.

In a rather radical move, in July 2021, eLife began ONLY reviewing manuscripts that had already been posted as preprints (on bioRxiv or medRxiv), deciding to “focus its editorial process on producing public reviews to be posted alongside the preprints”. Fast-forward 18 months, and starting in January 2023, the eLife editorial process will altogether “eliminate accept/reject decisions after peer review and instead provide readers with richer and more nuanced assessments of articles”, which they will call “eLife assessments”. In short, every preprint that is sent out for review by eLife editors will be published as a “Reviewed Preprint”, after which the authors may choose to undertake revisions and will be involved in deciding which manuscript version will become the final version of record (ie. the final published version that will be indexed in scholarly databases).

Note: These are just the “headline” highlights – to learn more in-depth details about eLife’s new publishing process, be sure to read:

Questions? Ask Us at the MSK Library!

Using Online Search Function to Get Book Citations to EndNote

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It’s easy to bring the citation of a book into EndNote using EndNote’s Online Search function. This feature is best used for finding specific citations, not for doing literature searches.

Manual Entry
If you have a book at your disposal, you can manually create a record for it. It is the least effective but still an acceptable way of capturing the book information for your EndNote Library. To do that, on the top Menu in EndNote click References>New Reference and choose the right template for a Book, Edited book, Electronic Book, etc.

Still, manually creating a book record is not efficient – inevitably you will miss some bibliographic elements.

EndNote Online Search
Whether or not you have a book at your disposal you can use the same process for obtaining a good quality record of that book. EndNote’s Online Search will bring in the entire book record from the library catalog.

The best source to obtain a medical/biology book record would be NLM (the National Library of Medicine) and the best source for other books, especially in humanities, social sciences, fiction, etc., would be LC (Library of Congress).

To use this function, click on the plus sign next to Online Search link on the bottom of the left hand dark blue pane in your EndNote Library (also available under Tools on the top menu). It will open a Choose a Connection box with the alphabetical list of databases and library catalogs.

Select the catalog you would like to use: Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine and British Library are among the largest book collections. Once you make your selection click Choose and your selected catalog will appear under Online Search. EndNote will remember your selection and will stay under Online Search.

Enter your search terms in the drop down boxes of the search interface in the middle pane of your EndNote Library and click Search.

You will see multiple editions of the book you’re searching appearing under search boxes. Select the one you want to have in your EndNote Library and click the plus sign in the top right corner just above the search results.


EndNote Online Search can be used to find not just books but most other formats available via databases. But it is not an efficient tool for quality literature searching. It is recommended to use, especially when searching databases of biomedical literature, direct Export of references from a database to EndNote to ensure better quality of search.

Takeaways:
– Online Search in Endnote is an efficient tool for finding good quality book records
– Book records can be created manually in Endnote but this method does not ensure good quality of the created reference
– Online Search in Endnote can be used to find not just books, but also articles, yet it is not an efficient tool for finding journal literature; instead Direct Export from a journal literature database to Endnote is recommended in most cases

New eBook: Handbook of Interventional Radiologic Procedures

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The Library has recently acquired the 5th edition of the Handbook of Interventional Radiologic Procedures. This handbook covers indications, contraindications, preparation, technique, post-procedure management, and prevention and management of complications. This text is useful for interventional and general radiologists, but also for fellows and residents in training, IR nurses, and special procedure technologists.

Key concepts and features include how to perform all current interventional radiologic procedures, content on risk management, nursing management, and drugs and dosages, and information on vascular access and catheter-directed angiography, trans-arterial procedures, trans-venous procedures, non-vascular procedures, and intra-procedural patient management.