Objectives and Methods: Through liaison work and contact with faculty, we began to realize that there might be a greater need for instruction on collaborative tools in EndNote. To assess this need, we created a survey that targeted use patterns, comfort level, and knowledge of collaborative tools in EndNote. The survey population was composed of past attendees of Endnote workshops as well as selected departments. In addition, we analyzed use patterns and case scenarios with known researchers and librarians to determine where collaborative functions in EndNote might be useful. The results of that analysis highlighted a need for help choosing which function is most appropriate for a given task.
Conclusions and Next Steps: Responses to our survey clearly showed that EndNote is the preferred citation manager for our users. However, the majority of respondents were not using the available collaborative functions. Even among those who are using EndNote to collaborate, respondents felt that they could be doing so more successfully. The most widely cited barrier to collaborative use was lack of knowledge, and a high proportion of our respondents expressed a desire to attend a workshop on EndNote collaboration tools.
In order to help researchers and librarians identify which of the collaborative methods are most appropriate for a given task, we developed a decision tree that covers the most common uses for EndNote. This will be used as a supplement to our workshop handouts, which detail how to use each method. Both aids will be available on our subject guides and used in our EndNote Advanced workshops.