LibAnswers

There are six ways to build your database in RefWorks:

• Importing from Online Data Vendors

• Converting from another bibliographic management program such as EndNote

• Capturing Web Page data

• Retrieving and Importing information from RSS Feeds

• Using the online catalog or database search option within RefWorks

• Manually adding references

We recommend that before you even start creating your database, spend some time thinking about how you want to organize your data. The two most convenient ways to find references quickly are searching and viewing folders. You might want to organize the data by creating folders for specific topics, assigning descriptors (keywords) to references as you add them to the database, or some combination of both. For example, you could create a folder for each class you are taking; e.g., Child Psychology and Business Management. In the first instance you would select View Folder and then the folder name from the View menu to find all references for a particular class (or click on the hyper-linked folder name displayed with a reference from your search results or in the Standard View). If you do not want to set up folders, you could use Child Psychology and Business Management as descriptors to organize the data. In this, you would select By Descriptor from the Search menu option where you can search and locate all references organized by descriptors.  

How you organize, to a large extent, depends on how large you expect the database to be. Using the example above, if you believe that your database will contain many references in both areas and include descriptors such as "training requirements" or "motivation" it is best to set up separate folders. By doing this, you can use Advanced Search to search for the specific descriptor "motivation" in the Child Psychology folder, avoiding any references to Business Management.

You could accomplish similar results by adding all of the terms to the descriptor field and creating a search by using "Boolean" connectors. The use of folders, however, adds another level to your search strategy. For details, see Advanced Search.