SASSKIDM@cms.am.cc.reading.ac.uk ("SASSKIDM") (06/09/89)
OPTIONS: NOACK LOG SHORT NOTEBOOK ALL X25 Message-id: <08 Jun 89 11:58:28 BST SASSKIDM@UK.AC.RDG.AM.CMS> Date: Thursday 8th June 1989 11:58:28 BST From: "SASSKIDM" <SASSKIDM@UK.AC.RDG.AM.CMS> To: BIO-SOFT @ UK.AC.DARESBURY Subject: Reference Update Kathy Cheah wrote recently: Has anyone tried REFERENCE UPDATE ,which is similar to te Current Contents facility described in Biobit 8? How do they compare ? We plan to buy a current awareness package something like one of the above and cannot decide which to get. End users opinions are much better than the marketing companies! ======================================================================== We have been using Reference Update at Reading now for about a year. Users seem very happy with it and even our undergraduate students seem to pick it up with only the minimum of instruction. Disks arrive once a week and are very simply loaded onto the hard disk. The program itself is menu driven and allows searching by phrase, authors name or journal title. Phrases can be connected by logical operators (AND OR and NOT). Both authors names and journal names can be scanned easily in a window and selected into the search strategy. Search strategies are easily saved on disc. With 512K and average issue can be searched in 5-10 sec, faster if larger RAM is available. The major disadvantage is that Reference Update contains only a subset of the journals available in Current Contents (approx 400, mainly baiassed towards medicine). Our users have not found this a major problem. A major advantage is that, as well as being able to print out marked references and export them to a word processing program, a reference database program called Reference Manager is also provided. This allows users to construct their own bibliographies using the same commands and menus as are available in Reference Update. Although the Current Contents updates sound interesting, we are very happy with Refence update and would recommend it to anybody. Chris Skidmore SASSKIDM@UK.AC.READING.AM.CMS
SASSKIDM@cms.am.cc.reading.ac.uk ("SASSKIDM") (06/09/89)
Kathy Cheah wrote recently: Has anyone tried REFERENCE UPDATE ,which is similar to te Current Contents facility described in Biobit 8? How do they compare ? We plan to buy a current awareness package something like one of the above and cannot decide which to get. End users opinions are much better than the marketing companies! ======================================================================== We have been using Reference Update at Reading now for about a year. Users seem very happy with it and even our undergraduate students seem to pick it up with only the minimum of instruction. Disks arrive once a week and are very simply loaded onto the hard disk. The program itself is menu driven and allows searching by phrase, authors name or journal title. Phrases can be connected by logical operators (AND OR and NOT). Both authors names and journal names can be scanned easily in a window and selected into the search strategy. Search strategies are easily saved on disc. With 512K and average issue can be searched in 5-10 sec, faster if larger RAM is available. The major disadvantage is that Reference Update contains only a subset of the journals available in Current Contents (approx 400, mainly baiassed towards medicine). Our users have not found this a major problem. A major advantage is that, as well as being able to print out marked references and export them to a word processing program, a reference database program called Reference Manager is also provided. This allows users to construct their own bibliographies using the same commands and menus as are available in Reference Update. Although the Current Contents updates sound interesting, we are very happy with Refence update and would recommend it to anybody. Chris Skidmore SASSKIDM@UK.AC.READING.AM.CMS ========================================================================
SHENRY.HILL@BIONET-20.BIO.NET (John Edward Hill) (06/09/89)
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SHENRY.HILL@BIONET-20.BIO.NET (John Edward Hill) (06/09/89)
Kathy Cheah writes in Wed, 7 Jun 89 14:34:26 pst BIOSCI Software Bulletin Board <BIO-SOFT%irlearn.bi tnet@NET.BIO.NET> : > Has anyone tried REFERENCE UPDATE ,which is similar to te Current > Contents facility described in Biobit 8? How do they compare ? We > plan to buy a current awareness package something like one of the > above and cannot decide which to get. End users opinions are much > better than the marketing companies! > Kathy Cheah thanks for replies Yes, we have been using REFERENCE UPDATE since the Macintosh version came out and are very pleased with it. It is relatively easy to use although it should be much better when the new version with a good Mac interface is released -- soon, I hope :-) . I have recommended it to friends around the country and in Europe, and all who have tried it have been pleased. Those people who have compared it to the computer version of Current Contents have found REFERENCE UPDATE to be better overall. Some were concerned about the lack of certain journals, but I think that the Deluxe version of REFERENCE UPDATE eliminates most of that problem. REF UPDATE is apparently faster although even REF UPDATE takes several minutes to search each week's database (with a search strategy of >50 terms) on a SE with no accelerator. One friend who has a SE/030 says that the time for searching drops to 10-15 sec on his machine. One caveat: my search strategy, which is admittedly eclectic AND substantial, generally pulls out ~350 references, and browsing through them still takes 30 min to an hour. The great advantage is that by using the same search strategy each week, I know that I'm not missing something just because my eyes are too tired to pick out the title from a page of small print. Furthermore, you can have multiple search strategies if you want to scan for different fields. If anyone would like to contact me for more details, I'll try to answer any questions. DISCLAIMER: I have no connection to Research Information Systems except for being a satisfied customer. John John Edward Hill Dept. of Biological Sciences jh5f+@andrew.cmu.edu Carnegie Mellon University shenry.hill@bionet-20.bio.net 4400 Fifth Avenue 412-268-5122 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213-3890 -------
SASSKIDM@cms.am.cc.reading.ac.uk ("SASSKIDM") (06/13/89)
Kathy Cheah wrote recently: Has anyone tried REFERENCE UPDATE ,which is similar to te Current Contents facility described in Biobit 8? How do they compare ? We plan to buy a current awareness package something like one of the above and cannot decide which to get. End users opinions are much better than the marketing companies! ======================================================================== We have been using Reference Update at Reading now for about a year. Users seem very happy with it and even our undergraduate students seem to pick it up with only the minimum of instruction. Disks arrive once a week and are very simply loaded onto the hard disk. The program itself is menu driven and allows searching by phrase, authors name or journal title. Phrases can be connected by logical operators (AND OR and NOT). Both authors names and journal names can be scanned easily in a window and selected into the search strategy. Search strategies are easily saved on disc. With 512K and average issue can be searched in 5-10 sec, faster if larger RAM is available. The major disadvantage is that Reference Update contains only a subset of the journals available in Current Contents (approx 400, mainly baiassed towards medicine). Our users have not found this a major problem. A major advantage is that, as well as being able to print out marked references and export them to a word processing program, a reference database program called Reference Manager is also provided. This allows users to construct their own bibliographies using the same commands and menus as are available in Reference Update. Although the Current Contents updates sound interesting, we are very happy with Refence update and would recommend it to anybody. Chris Skidmore SASSKIDM@UK.AC.READING.AM.CMS ======================================================================== ========================================================================