This must mark me as a girly swot, or an EndNote nerd of the highest order – see my bright red water bottle, courtesy of one of the major bibliographic management software companies.
Or maybe it just marks me as a librarian, for who else would get such arcane freebies? A reward for the years of supporting and training so many of the users of their software, troubleshooting, and sitting through two and a half hours of presentation on EndNote X and EndNote Web yesterday. This bottle is even more valuable because the company representative only had three to give away…
A major part of my job involves looking after EndNote users.
To be honest I find EndNote support quite tedious. EndNote training sessions in particular are very boring, despite the fact that I try and vary the routine from time to time, and the fact that I know the software so well I don’t need to follow any script or class plan. (When I first started, we were using version 4 of the software; next year it’s version 10.)
Still, the boredom is mitigated by the fact that students and academic staff really really appreciate having someone they can call on for help. Getting told you are a “guru, a “gem”, a “treasure”, and “just wonderful” is also good for the ego.
6 Comments
I still think it looks like a babies bottle 🙂
Hi CW! EndNotes would be a treasure for people writing their doctoral theses where the refs may go into the hundreds. Microsoft Word doesnt have that many features and control. How much?
Endnote training is a drag because it’s one of those “harder to explain than to do” things, like RSS. I spend a lot of the time saying stuff like “I know it’s confusing, but trust me it’ll be worth it.” I feel like I deserve a nerdy bottle myself.
M: To me it looks like a Coke bottle 🙂
Israd: I agree that EndNote (or any other bib management software) is a treasure for people writing theses – in fact I don’t understand those people writing a thesis at the moment who don’t use it – it saves so much time with the referencing!
I’d check with your university first before spending any money on it – they may have bought a site licence for it so students get it free!
Tom, I reckon you definitely deserve a bottle – all of us who provide training and support for this product do!
I agree, training people in Endnote is so boring.
Here they didn’t even give out handouts let alone water bottles…
Penny, wouldn’t it be grand if the vendors gave us librarians more recognition for the work we do to promote their products? 🙂