Mendeley

Mendeley is a reference management tool and academic social network that helps researchers collect and organize references, read and annotate PDFs, and create bibliographies. The core library allows importing documents, automatically extracting metadata, and supports tagging, folders, and notes. It also provides integration with word processors to insert citations and generate formatted bibliographies in various styles.

In addition to personal libraries, Mendeley offers collaborative features such as groups for sharing references and documents, enabling joint annotation and discussion among researchers. Mendeley Data is a related platform for sharing and citing research data sets, linking data to user profiles and libraries.

Platforms and access are broad: Mendeley is available as a desktop application for Windows, macOS, and Linux, a web interface, and mobile apps for iOS and Android, with cloud syncing to keep libraries accessible across devices.

History and ownership: Mendeley was launched in 2007 and was acquired by Elsevier in 2013 for a reported sum around $69 million. Since then, it has operated as part of Elsevier’s research ecosystem, integrating with other scholarly tools and services.

Licensing: there is a free version of Mendeley with optional paid storage and feature plans for users who need larger libraries or additional capabilities.

Impact and reception: Mendeley is widely used in academia for literature management and collaboration. As with any large commercial ecosystem, its association with a major publisher has spurred discussions about privacy and data usage among some researchers.