Chapter 7:

Searching Remote Databases

With EndNote s Connect and Search commands, you can search online 

bibliographic databases just as easily as you can search an EndNote 

library on your own computer! And to make it even easier, the results 

of your searches appear as EndNote references ready for you to store 

in your own EndNote library. 

This chapter will guide you through these basic steps:

Connect to a remote database.

Search the database.

Copy the references that you want to keep into an EndNote library.

NOTE: In order to follow along with this exercise, you must be at a 

computer with access to the Internet (either dial up or a direct network 

connection).

How Does It Work? 

EndNote is able to provide access to these remote sources using an 

information retrieval protocol called  Z39.50.  Z39.50 is widely 

supported by libraries and information providers around the world as a 

convenient method to access their library catalogs and reference 

databases. 

EndNote stores the information necessary to connect to and search 

these online databases in individual connection files. Preconfigured 

connection files are provided for a number of these sources. If 

necessary, you can also customize or configure your own connections 

to Z39.50 compliant databases. 

What EndNote s Searching Offers 

EndNote s search interface provides a simple way to do basic searches 

on EndNote libraries and remote databases. The same Search window 

is used for both purposes. This removes the need to learn a separate 

program to access the online databases or go through the extra steps of 

saving the references to a text file and importing them into EndNote.

This search interface is not intended to replace the advanced search 

options that may be available using the search interface offered by your 

information provider. There may be times when you want to use the 

information provider s search interface (for example, to take advantage 

of a thesaurus of search terms) and then import those references into 

EndNote. This is still an option using EndNote s Import command (see 

Chapter 7: Searching Remote Databases

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