Mendeley is a combination of a desktop application and a website which helps you manage, share and discover both research content and research contacts. Mendeley also allows you to drag & drop PDFs into your Mendeley account and then highlight and annotate those PDFs and share them with others.
Mendeley's free version has some space limitation (2 GB of web storage, 500 MB each for personal storage), 3 users and 1 shared collection. Premium accounts are available.
NOTE: Mendeley is hosted on a US server and does not comply with BC's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) which requires that the mandated use of systems located outside of Canada must be with prior written consent if the user has to provide personal information.
The Mac window is similar; with different icons at the top that perform the same functions.
TIP: There is an existing file titled ‘Getting Started with Mendeley’ that is in the ‘All Documents’ folder. This file has is a detailed introduction to using Mendeley.
Use the Web Importer bookmarklet to save references into your Mendeley account.
Drag one or more PDFs from a dedicated folder on your desktop, shared space or USB driver into your library on Mendeley Desktop. Mendeley extracts (as best it can) the relevant metadata: author, title, journal name, etc... to create a record.
NOTE: Keep a folder for Mendeley PDFs on each computer, network drive or USB that you use (it only need to have the PDFs that were uploaded from that computer, not all PDFs in Mendeley).
If Mendeley senses that there may be errors in the record, that record will be placed in a Needs Review folder until you correct the information or confirm that the information is correct.
NOTE: Mendeley's free version has some space limitation (2 GB of web storage, 500 MB each for personal storage), 3 users and 1 shared collection. Premium accounts are available. If you are needing a group of more than 3 additional users besides yourself, consider using Zotero (instructions coming soon).
Note: If you have attached files in RefWorks, they will NOT be imported. Save the files to your desktop and save tehm into Mendeley using Add Files. Mendeley will use the metadata to attach them to the correct record.