Getting greener with Cites & Bytes

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 50, No. 9, November 2008, Page 524 College Library
By: Linda Clendenning Judy Neill Karen MacDonell, PhD, MLIS

We like to think of libraries as “good guys”: equal access to information for all users, no special fees, open and friendly attitudes. Naturally we reuse, recycle, and try to eliminate waste. Responsible consumerism and an environmental awareness are part of our ethic at the College Library.

It is a well-known fact, however, that libraries are traditionally users and repositories of paper. One of the most successful pieces of paper we generate each month is our newsletter, Cites & Bytes. Established over 12 years ago as a current awareness tool to keep our members up to date with new developments in medicine, Cites & Bytes now generates requests for almost 12 000 articles a year.

Our current policy is to include a paper copy in each mailout of the College Quarterly, reaching the entire membership with no extra postage charges. Other monthly issues are sent electronically or via bulk mail to physicians who have requested to be on the mailing list. As a convenience, users may access the full text of many of the featured articles by logging on to the College’s web site, navigating to the current issue, and clicking on the full-text links. Those articles may be read online or downloaded and printed for archiving or later reading. 

For the selections available only in print, you may request that the full text be sent via e-mail attachment. To help us save postage and paper, consider becoming an electronic subscriber to Cites & Bytes. You will have prompt notification of each issue and instant access to the available full text. 

—Linda Clendenning
—Karen MacDonell
—Judy Neill
Librarians/Co-Managers, CPSBC Library

 

Linda Clendenning, Judy Neill, Karen MacDonell, PhD, MLIS. Getting greener with Cites & Bytes. BCMJ, Vol. 50, No. 9, November, 2008, Page(s) 524 - College Library.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

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