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If you mashed up Facebook and Outlook with some professional networking features, threw in a dash of scientific interaction (think Berkeley's BOINC) and pointed the business end at researchers, you'd probably end up with something very much like Mendeley Desktop, a Web-based interactive network for posting, editing, reviewing, and critiquing academic research. It indexes and organizes your research, papers, PDFs, and other tools into an easy-to-use interface, but its online features also make it easy to access work posted by other researchers as well as access scientific, medical, and technical databases and sites.
Mendeley Desktop requires a free Mendeley account that enables users to share and sync data across multiple computers and mobile devices. The setup wizard let us log in to an existing account or create a new one, which only required a name, e-mail address, and password, though users can enter their research field and status. Clicking the link in the verification email we received opened the main page, the Dashboard, in our browser. In addition to the Dashboard, tabs let us quickly access My Library, Papers, Groups, and People. The program's toolbar and navigation panel have the familiar feel of a full-featured e-mail client that can sync folders and data with servers and other accounts. For starters, only three toolbar buttons are active: Add Documents, Create Folder, and Sync Library. We clicked Add Documents and browsed to an archive, but it's just as easy to drag-and-drop documents directly into the program for organizing. Copious help is available for newbies, including video tutorials, local workshops (where available; you can always start one, too!) and even Facebook and Twitter accounts where you can ask questions of experienced users. Like other social networking tools, you can use Mendeley to invite colleagues as well as meet new ones and relocate old ones.
While we can't cite studies to back it up, we suspect that Mendeley is where a lot of intelligent, highly focused yet widely knowledgeable people (we'll call them "nerds") hang out and trade extremely esoteric jokes. But its main purpose is enabling and furthering scientific, academic, and intellectual interaction and cooperation. Like its participants, Mendeley seems more than capable of handling both.
Publisher's Description
From Mendeley:
Mendeley is a research management tool for desktop and Web. Organize your own research library. SHARE with other researchers. DISCOVER new research and trends. Mendeley Desktop is academic software that indexes and organizes all of your PDF documents and research papers into your own personal digital bibliography. It gathers document details from your PDFs allowing you to effortlessly search, organize and cite. It also looks up PubMed, CrossRef, DOIs, and other related document details automatically. Drag and drop functionality makes populating the library quick and easy. The Web Importer allows you to quickly and easily import papers from resources such as Google Scholar, ACM, IEEE and many more at the click of a button. Collaborate with fellow researchers and share information, resources and experiences with shared and public collections. Your research team will have easy access to each others papers. Just create a group, invite your colleagues and drag and drop documents in there. This way you can keep on top of what they're reading and discover more about what interests you.
Through the Mendeley research network you can connect with other researchers in your field. This opens up a whole new avenue for knowledge discovery. You can view the most read authors, journals and research papers in your field. You can explore by using tags associated with your research area. By navigating the Web of knowledge available to you, you make some useful contacts along the way too. In addition to that, you can also view interesting statistics about your own digital library.
What's new in this version: Version 1.8.4 has fixed a hang on some systems when opening PDFs in the internal viewer.
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All versions:
4.1 starsout of 9 votes
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Current version:
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Results 1-9 of 9
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"Good features, unreliable software"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.6.3
Pros
The tagging feature is excellent if you can figure out the syntax (I could find no examples online except for one, which turned out to be wrong). The automatic citation extraction is getting better, too.
Cons
Desktop software crashes a lot, difficult to figure out how to edit settings. Not a lot of online documentation or support. Email-based customer support is patchy. Lots of problems with syncing, especially annotations.
Summary
Wish I hadn't invested so much time tagging things, or else I would try a different product. The search features just aren't worth the hours I've spent fighting with the software. Don't believe the hype! Spend $100 one time and get EndNote.
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"If you only want to keep track of references, maybe"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 1.0.1
Pros
Free. Keeps track of things tidily.
Cons
Does a great job of storing information. Good luck if you want the OO plugin to work or want to just export your bibliography. Get EndNote.
Summary
Don't bother
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"Very good product"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.8.1
Pros
It is perfect for documents and academic preprints management
Cons
does not help so much for pictures
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"Great product"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.8.1
Pros
PDF metatada import, web storage/sharing of papers/citations
Cons
Lacks some functionality such as taking snapshots of figures, easily editable citation formats
Summary
The best citation/reference software I've ever used
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"Using a huge amounts of documents? Try this product"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.6.3
Pros
Easy importing of documents (I exported over 200 docs in under a minute!)
Well organized format...similar to many academic databases (i.e. Ebsco)
You can view list in many citation formats (I use APA)Cons
Not all information exports
Using the Google Scholar for correction does not seem to workSummary
If you have high volumes of documentation, including other than PDF, this product is great! It is a qualitative researcher's dream! I highly recommend!
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"An easy way to search for PDF articles on your computer"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.6.3
Pros
I have well over 3000 PDF articles, books, and papers on my computer. And Mendeley Desktop makes it easy to search for them using keywords. All I need to do is choose 'Watch Folder' and this program catalogues all PDF files in that folder.
Cons
None that I can think of.
Summary
Most of my PDF files aren't related to scientific research. And I have no intention of sharing them over the internet with others. But this program is good for organizing and searching any kind of PDF files on your computer. And it's a real help for anyone who has a lot of PDF files on various subjects.
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"Superb Product!"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.6.3
Pros
I'm a FT Ph.D. student with 250 articles archived. Keyword search scans whole article, including elec. sticky notes. Integrates w/Word. Free online access to list. Automatic file search. Auto data completion using online scholar databases.
Cons
By the time I found this product I had over 200 articles. Going through each record to ensure the information is correct was tedious but well worth it. Not for mind mapping. A little bland in appearance.
Summary
As a full-time Ph. D. student with full-time job and family, I've found this software to be a life-saver. I used to sit on the floor shuffling through papers and skimming for familiar phrases. I now have a complete electronic database that's a breeze to to use. I use it to keep track of ALL of my research articles. I don't share my library because I have personal notes on many of the articles, and I track have my unpublished articles with it too. However I discovered it's completely portable on my jump drive. So I take it where ever I go without having to download the software on the host computer. I do have to have the articles on the jump drive as well.
I would like to see mind mapping capabilities added.
This is a wonderful product and I strongly recommend it. -
"simple-yet-powerful!!"
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.6.3
Pros
it help to automatically arrange references in library, you can add pdf file manually or add watch folder. if you're working with hundreds of pdf such as journals, books or theses, the software is proven to be very beneficial through keyword search.
Cons
you cannot automatically export the library together with your offline reference collection, hope this feature will be there soon!!
Summary
did you have a problem in finding specific topic or statement from the journal you have read? and you will search each one of the journal, folder by folder. it's really tiring and time-consuming! but, with this software, offline searching will be very easy and fast!! the searching will include the whole body of your pdf collection.
add your pdf manually into library, or choose add watch folder for automatic update. you will see all your reference listed in order, with respective title, author, year of release, journal title, etc. citation and bibliography was well-supported with MS word 2010 by special plugin. -
"Unbelievably easy import from PDF's and online sources."
Version: Mendeley Desktop 0.9.6.3
Pros
The ability add an article by navigating to a PDF and have even scanned PDF's imported with all citation information is absolutely amazing. Very nice file management and viewer/annotator - similar to programs that catalog music, photos etc.
Cons
Sharing feature automatically uploaded my articles and I'm skiddish about sharing what I may be working on with the competition, so I don't share. Maybe there's an option not to upload I haven't found yet.
Summary
If you need to manage a literature collection you gotta have this! You will be amazed.
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