🚀 go-pugleaf

This is in continuation of a discussion about the advantages of
importing files from MELVYL directly into Endnote+ by using Taglink
versus cutting and pasting from the screen while communicating with
MELVYL via Microphone II.

I have now used Taglink (version Public Beta 0.4, from
magic.ucsb.edu) a little bit, and the result pretty much confirmed
what I thought: using Taglink to import records saved from a MELVYL
search directly into Endnote+ is fast indeed, but it creates its own
problems that require just as much time as does cutting and pasting
from the screen.

For an illustration, here is one example of the hundred or so records
that I found in MELVYL and imported into Endnote+ via Taglink. I have
added comments in brackets to the end of every line of the record
that gave me problems, and I have double spaced the whole thing for
clarity:

AN  4354937

DT  BOOK

PA  Hansen, Mogens Herman, 1940- [In this line I needed to remove the
year]

MT  The Athenian Assembly in the age of Demosthenes [Here I needed to
remove a space at the end of the line]

UT  Athenische Volksversammlung im Zeitalter des Demosthenes. English
[This line was lost in the process, and it contains information I
really want to keep, even though I dont' really need it in most
formatted citations.]

PL  Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York, NY, USA [This line requires
editing]

PU  B. Blackwell

DP  1987

PG  viii, 249 p. ; 24 cm [everything after "249" needs to be cut]

SE  Blackwell's classical studies [This line wound up in the tertiary
title field. Since I do not use that field in my "book" reference
type, it was invisible until I converted the "book" reference to a
"generic" reference type. I then cut it from the tertiary title
field, pasted it into the series title field, and changed the
reference type back to "book"]

IB  063115485X : $34.95 [This line got lost]

NT  Includes indexes. [This line got lost]

NT  Translation of: Die athenische Volksversammlung im Zeitalter des
Demosthenes. [This line got lost, and I certainly want it!]

NT  Bibliography: p. [198]-206. [This line got lost]

SU  Athens (Greece). Ekklesia

SU  Athens (Greece) -- Politics and government.

LO  UCB   Main      JC79.A8 H341 1987 [This and several more lines
about locations of this item were imported properly, but that is
information I don't need here in Chicago.]


Just in case you are wondering: the lines that got lost really did
get lost. I double-checked by re-exporting imported records to a text
file. I used ~Refer Export for the re-export to make sure that
everything in the Endnote record, whether visible or not, was
included. In the case of the example just given, the result was
considerably shorter than the original and looked like this:

%0 Generic
%A Hansen, Mogens Herman, 1940-
%D 1987
%T The Athenian Assembly in the age of Demosthenes
%C Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York, NY, USA
%I B. Blackwell
%P viii, 249 p. ; 24 cm
%S Blackwell's classical studies
%K Athens (Greece). Ekklesia
Athens (Greece) -- Politics and government.
%O UCB   Main      JC79.A8 H341 1987

Under the circumstances I think I'll continue cutting and pasting
directly from the screen for the time being -- which means until Niles
comes out with a version of Taglink or Endlink that gives me the
freedom to choose what lines of the record I really want to download
and to determine which fields they are supposed to go into, and that
won't forget any lines without telling me so.

If I did anything wrong: I am all ears, as Ross Perot said in the debates.

Constantin Fasolt                               internet: c-fasolt@uchicago.edu
Department of History                                     voice: (312) 702 7935
The University of Chicago                                   fax: (312) 702 7550
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