Importing References from the ETOH Database into Endnote™ using Mozilla and WordPerfect™

When performing research, one can cull references from many different sources. Often it is advantageous to enter the references into bibliographic management software. Such software allows easy organization of the references and the ability to readily display them in a consistent format. This page outlines a procedure that allows one to import references from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's ETOH database into the reference management software (RMS) known as EndNote™.

There are a number of ways to place references into an RMS. One can type them in manually or cut and paste the text from a database into each record in the RMS. One can also save a number of records from a database in a form that is easily importable by a RMS. An easily importable form is a tagged format where each piece of data is preceded by a tag or code that identifies what type of data each piece is. The RMS then uses a filter to decode the tags and place each piece of data into the appropriate place.

The ETOH database, otherwise known as the Alcohol and Alcohol Problems Science Database, is a comprehensive online bibliographic database containing records on alcohol abuse and alcoholism. At the time of this writing ETOH does not offer a tagged display with which one can output references. One can however use ETOH's "Full" display while using the Mozilla browser, save the desired records, manually insert a few extra tags and import the references into EndNote™ by using the filter Etoh.enf. The procedure outlined on this page uses a macro to automaticly insert the needed tags.

Here are the new tags needed for the filter Etoh1.enf to work:

• Insert the text "Cite: " at the start of each new record.
• If the record is a journal article, insert a new line with the text "TY: article" into the record.
• If the record is a chapter or a book section, insert a new line with the text "TY: chapter" into the record.
• If the record is a report, insert a new line with the text "TY: report" into the record.

Below is a procedure and access to tools that can help you to download and convert references from ETOH to Endnote™. The following procedure is based on specific software applications and most probably will not work with other similar applications.

These are the applications that this procedure uses:

• Mozilla Browser
  The procedure capitalizes on the way Mozilla saves text versions of the ETOH results pages. The procedure was written for Mozilla version 1.7 Beta but may work with other versions. Neither MS Internet Explorer, any of Netscape's browsers, nor the Firefox browser save pages in the same way and therefore do not work for this prodedure. The Mozilla browser is freely available at http://www.mozilla.org.
• Wordperfect
  The macro ETOH1.wcm was written for WordPerfect™ 9 and may not work with earlier versions/releases.
• Endnote
  The import filter Etoh1.zip was written for EndNote™ 6.0 and may not work with earlier versions/releases.

Procedure:

1. Download and install the Mozilla browser
2. Download and save in an accessible place (WordPerfect's macro folder) the macro ETOH1.wcm
3. Download and save in Endnote's filters folder (c:\Program Files\EndNote\Filters) the import filter Etoh1.enf
4. Using the Mozilla browser, search the ETOH database
5. Display the results using ETOH's Full(Web) display.
6. Save the results as a text file using the browser's Save function
7. Open the saved file in WordPerfect™
8. Run the Macro ETOH1.wcm (Once the macro runs the file should close on its own. To view the changes, reopen the file)
9. In EndNote™, import the file into a new or previously established library using the import filter Etoh1.enf
10. Check the references. Citation information for references that did not fully import should show up in the Notes field.

Questions? Contact David McCandlish at dmccandlish@cesar.umd.edu.

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