Software Review

ProCite5 : Software for Managing Professional and Personal Bibliography.

Bibliography is considered "as the technique of systematically produced descriptive lists of written or published records (especially books and similar materials)", and is defined "as such a list so produced". Strictly speaking, it is a complete and uncritical list and is not intended to include critical comments. Bibliographic work is certainly a vocation which demands a special attitude of mind and certain qualities which cannot always be acqui red at will or training . Therefore, everybody cannot possibly become a good bibliographer.

Due to the knowledge explosion in various fields, it has become almost impossible for a scholar to keep himself upto date and well informed on current literature in his field of interest. In absence of bibliography, the scholar would lose his way, wasting much time before he is able to read even a part of what he is required to study. Thus, bibliography plays a vital role in bringing out the relevant information to the attention of professionals, administrators and researchers who have urgent need of it. No modern library can function without bibliographical tools like 'bibliography, which has attained the fundamental importance and forms basic material in any reference collection. Experience shows that researchers do not always have enough knowledge about the bibliographic tools available in their field of specialisation. It is the responsibility of libraries to teach them the bibliographical apparatus, so that they can put library resources to better use. It is observed that it usually does not follow a standard code except when it is prepared by a librarian and as such a good bibliography is a work of scholarship.

Maintaining growing lists of reference information is among various tasks of researchers and writers in all disciplines and they have been struggling with managing these references. In addition to maintaining references , researchers must face the tedious, yet sometimes challenging task associated with generating and formatting bibliographic citations, footnotes , endnotes and creating bibliographies for publishing their articles, thesis, dissertations etc. This is complicated bY 'a large variety of citation styles required by different teachers and researchers for the various journals and research publications.

Until recently, the management of references has usually been carried out manually. The researchers carefully noted the references and generated citation later while completing their work. In most cases, the final citation formatting and bibliography generation was done entirely by hand, one citation at a time using the knowledge gained by the writer through some training or without following any specified standard. Many scholars depend for these steps on professional typists and librarians who are familiar with stylistic requirements of the field.

With the advent of Personal Computers, however, reference management has changed. The advantage of computers is that these can rapidly and effectively manipulate and retrieve any information/data which is stored in machine readable form. Their application for handling bibliographic work heralds new and diverse possibilities in terms of coverage, arrangement, promptness, consistency, accuracy and accessibility without needing much of the training. A number of software products have been developed to meet all these needs viz. ProCite, End Note Plus, Reference Manager, Papyrus etc. ProCite, from lSI ResearchSoft Company, is best among these. As a Reference Database ~anagement System, it provides a rich variety of features. Through its available and developing integration with many Word Processors, it offers much needed functionality in supporting the generation of in-text citations, endnotes, footnotes and bibliographies.

Vol 48 No 2 June 2001 85 lSI Research Soft Company was founded in 1999 when the Institute for Scientific Information (lSI), USA acquired Niles Software, makers of EndNote, and combined it with Research Information Systems (RIS) , the producers of ProCite and Reference Manager. Now 151 ResearchSoft brings together the three Bibliogra phic Software Programs under one umbrella, namely ProCite, Reference Manager and EndNote.

ProCite is produced alongwith a companion product 'BiblioLink II '. It lets the users produce a well­ formatted bibliography in just a couple of mouse clicks. ProCite seems to be a complete solution for everyone whether he is a researcher, a writer, a librarian , an information scientist, a student, a film critic or a consumer who wants to keep track of information from the Internet or video or CD collection . The software helps in controlling reference information with a wide variety of supplied workforms fo r data entry and formatted output. Reference information can be originated from such diverse sources as on -line databases, CD -ROM , lib ra ry automation systems, electronic-mail and many more. ProCite has unique database tools for grouping, sorting, a.nd viewing a reference database, making it an essential tool for those users with distinctive bibliographic management needs. It is especially beneficial to those who maintain special collections.

ProCite is available for MS WINDOWS and Appie - Macintosh in stand-alone and Network environments. The latest version of ProCite is 5.

System Requirements : To run different versions of ProCite, minimum system requirements are as follows:

WINDOWS Version Macintosh Version

Microsoft Windows 2000/98/95 or NT4 Power PC/Mac with Macintosh Operating or higher System, or compatible (120M HZ recommended)

80486DX or higher Apple Mac OS System 7.5 or later (Pentium recommended) (System 7.5.5 or later recommended)

8 MB of RAM (16 MB of RAM recommended) 16 MB RAM (32 MB RAM recommended)

Hard disk with at least 10MB available Hard disk with at least 15MB available

3.5 " floppy disk drive and Mouse 3.5" floppy disk drive and Mouse

Word Processor Compatibility

'Cite WhileYou Write' feature Microsoft Word for the Macintosh 98 compatible with MS Word and Corel and 6 Word Perfect (32 bit version)

86 An n Lib llll' Stu Network Versions

ProCite Netpacks is an economical choice for workgroups. Workstation and concurrent networking l i cens~s are available.

Windows Workstation requirements

486DX/33 or higher (Pentium recommended) Microsoft Windows 98/95 or NT Workstation 4.0 or higher 8 MB RAM (16MB recommended) Hard di sk and with at least 10MB available 3.5" high -density floppy disk drive and Mouse

Network Operating Systems Support

The network edition supports the following Network Operating Systems and peer-to-peer networking:

Novell NetWare 3.xx, 4.xx Intranet Ware 4.xx Microsoft NT Server 4 NT Workstation 4 peer-to-peer networking Windows95 peer-to-peer networking Other peer-to-peer networks

Database Capacity

One can create unlimited number of databases with ProCite. Each database can store unlimited records (limit is the memory available in your computer) and it has unlimited storage for abstracts and notes fields.

ProCite Applications:

The software allows the users to :

Easily format bibliographies for professional papers and course assignments Concentrate on the content as you develop your thesis/dissertation Create and maintain departmental research interest databases Keep track of their reprint collection Assimilate reference data for problem-based learning Reformat literature search results Create a bibliography in seconds to prepare a reading list for colleagues or students Manage current awareness services for research staff or library patrons Create faculty or employee publication lists Track government regulatory reports Create a course reserve list

Advantages:

The users of this software can :

Link to the World Wide Web or PubMed record. Edit Reference Globally with exclusive Append, Find/Replace, Replace/Clear and Move function.

Vol 48 No 2 June 2011 1 X7 Search Databases with advanced relational and logical operators (And, Or, Not, Contain) and unique special values (Empty, Not Empty) . Select Pre-designed Sort Con 'igurations or Create their own with upto 6 levels sorting. Create a Subject Index and Bibliography in an instant. User can even select specific terms within a field . Import comma-delimited and tab-delimited library records into ProCite. Apply group edits to a list newly marked references.

NEW FEATURES IN PROCITE 5 FOR WINDOWS

Search More than 200 Internet Databases

Users can choose from a list of over 200 Internet libraries (Z39.50 sites) and add new sites as the new program includes more than 200 Internet Host files that instantly link the user to Internet databases such as university card catalogs, the Library of Congress, and more specialized databases such as PubMed, PsycINFO, and ERIC from popular providers such as Ovid Technologies, SilverPiatter, and OCLC. Users simply connect to and search anyone of these Internet sources just as they would search their own ProCite databases. This new feature enables its users to standardize on one interface to search for bibliographic data in a broad selection of databases worldwide.

The New 'Cite While You Write' Feature Saves Time

ProCite 5 offers significant improvements to its 'Cite While You WriteTM ' technology, the most advanced bibliography generation capability available today. It allows users to:

view complete references and to click-sort on the column headings for easy access to their references without leaving the word processor. see the full record , including the abstract, when selecting from multiple matches click sort on column headings to locate a reference when selecting from multiple matches locate unlinked citations in their document select from any of last ten citation searches to quickly bring up the results of a previous search use it with Microsoft Word 2000, 97, and Corel WordPerfect 9, 8, and 7 create a subject listing by topic and produce an index. new footnote style formatting support

New Tabbed Look and More Output Styles

The new tabbed database window allows users to easily group and locate references. The latest version 5 includes more than 600 journals and publications bibliographic output styles. The output styles are now listed in discipline-specific folders for easy location of the style users need.

Use of Term Lists in Global Find and Replace

Lists of existing terms are available for users when they are making global changes to authors, keywords, journal names and titles.

Improved Sorting for Non-English Windows

ProCite's sorting options now extend to a variety of languages supported by Windows such as Polish.

Ann Lib Inl' Stu Import References with New BiblioLink

Users can import text files downloaded from commercial databases and other electronic sources directly into ProClte with the integrated Biblio-Link function for re ady-to-use references without retyping. There is no need to launch another application. New Biblio-Link supports importing different reference types e.g . journal article , book, book chapter from the same source database.

OTHER EXISTING FEATURES AVA ILAB LE

These new features have made ProCite best option for anybody interested in preparing a database or getting output in many desired formats or browsing IN TERNET databases. However, the facilities already available are also worth mentioning.

Bibliographies generation across multiple databases

Users can open multip le databases and produce bibliographies across them. This is a powe rf ul feature for grant app licati on s and co ll aborative research.

"Preview" and "Quick Search " panes for customised views

Users can customise thei r scree n to display their database th e way they want to look at it. They can even vi ew a highlighted record formatted to their preferred output style - all from the main ProCite screen . Use rs can Preview and Print formatted Bibliographies wi th in ProCite or Save as MS Word , Corel Word Pe rfe ct , HTML or Text Fi le .

Handling of duplicates during the import process

Users can define th e fie lds to compare for duplicate detection. In addition , it can detect duplicates wh en saving a file or du ri ng import . Im proved handling of duplicates helps users in maintai ni ng a cleaner database.

Links to chemical structure or graphic

There is a fil e path embed in a ProCite record to link to Object Lin ki ng Embedding (OLE)-compatible files in Windows such as a chemical structu re or graphics, th at a Windows or Macintosh application can open. By choosing "Open File/URL", it delivers the file or Web page to users desktop.

Advanced grouping options

Creating 'Reference Group' to identify a specific subset of a database is another feature of this software. Assigning records to groups is a useful way to work subsets of a database. One can create new groups or add highlighted records to existing groups from the new group menu. Drag and drop facility can be used to move records to or from a group. User can select groups to display, search or print.

Workforms

There are as many as 40 workforms in which the users can store their desired records, e.g. keeping track of electronic data, with two new workforms - Web Page E-mail. These reference types contain such as sender's and recipient's E-mail and Web URL.

Vol 48 No 2 Jun e 200 1 R9 Windows 2000/98/95/NT4 functionality

Designed for Windows 2000/98/95/r'-lT, ProCite gives the look and feel of a true Windows application, including 32-bit Operation, Property Sheets, Object Linking Embedding (OLE), Common Dialogs, Long Filenames, Right Mouse support, Toolbars and Drag & Drop.

Database Compatibility

Users can move databases between Windows and the Macintosh with complete cross-compatibility. It is possible to easily convert Refe rence Manager 8/9 and EndNote 2/3 databases into ProCite.

Pricing and Availability

The list price of ProCite is $395.95. Students can purchase ProCite for $99.95 with a valid student I.D. Special upgrade prices are available to owners of previous versions.

The detailed information about the lSI ResearchSoft products and Technical Support is available from different modes e.g. by phone, fax, e-mail etc. during the working hours at the following addresses:

lSI ResearchSoft lSI Europe

800JonesStreet Brunei Science Park, Bid . 1 Berkeley, CA 94710 Brunei University Telephone: 800.554.3049 Uxbridge, UB8 3 PO or 510.559.8592 Telephone:44.1895 270016 Fax : 510.559.8683 Fax: 44.1895.258859 E-mail: in fo @isiresearchsoft.com E-mail : uksales @i si net.co. uk Web site: www.procite.com

REFERENCES

1. GIRJA KUMAR and KRISHAN KUMAR . 1976; Biblio-graphy. New Delhi : Vikas, 3- 4.

2. PROCITE : A reference Manual. lSI ResearchSoft.

3. PROCITE : User's guide. lSI ResearchSoft.

4. RAVINDRAN (Sridevi). Bibliographic databases: Softwa re issues. DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology. 17; 5, 1999; 11-1 6.

5. UNESCO/Library of Cong ress Biblio-graphical survey, bibl iographical services, their present state and possibilities of improvement. Washington, 1950; P1 .

6. Web site: http://www.procite.com

Dinesh K Gupta Lecturer, Dept. of Lib . & Inf. Sc., Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra

90 An n Li b Int" Stu