Problem Solved: Can't retrieve Pubmed results on Endnote when off-campus

Many people use Endnote to generate reference lists for publications and other documents. I use it when I am on-campus without any problems. The other day I was off-campus trying to use it and couldn't retrieve any literature searches from Pubmed. I could visit Pubmed directly and search. However, if I wanted to retrieve items for my Endnote reference database, it came up empty.

I called Endnote technical support and they explained it was probably due to my PROXY settings.

When I am on-campus, I can visit Pubmed and when I find an article of interest I can click through to view the item. Many journal articles now can be seen by anyone with a computer anywhere but some items can only be seen if the webpage recognizes your institution. When I am on-campus, those webpages know I'm at UCLA and that our library has a license to view the article. When I am off-campus, those websites don't see my UCLA credentials and I can't see the item unless I configure my proxy settings. A proxy setting allows me to have my on-campus credentials even when I am off-campus accessing the internet.

The tech service representative said Endnote wants to connect to PubMed directly and the proxy settings could cause a connection problem. Thus, he said, I need to disable my proxy settings when I am off-campus to use the Endnote search and retrieve functions. If you know how to set the proxy setting then you will know how to disable them.

Briefly, follow your institution's guidelines for setting the proxy. Keep a file on your desktop describing that. When you need to disable it, in my case, I just unchecked the mark for "Automatic Proxy Configuration," hit okay, hit apply, and then reboot the computer.

I was able to search and retrieve via Endnote from off-campus.

When you want to restore your proxy settings, pull up that file and check the right box and enter the right information, hit okay, hit apply, and then reboot the computer.