Mendeley is a

reference manager Reference Manager was the first commercial reference management software package sold by Thomson Reuters. It was the first commercial software of its kind, originally developed by Ernest Beutler and his son, Earl B. Beutler, Earl Beutler, in 198 ...

software founded in 2007 by

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch

academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes Research, academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or Thesis, theses. The part of academic written output that is n ...

company

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

in 2013. It is used to manage and share research papers and to generate

bibliographies Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliograph ...

for scholarly articles.

History

The company Mendeley, named after the Austrian biologist

Gregor Mendel Gregor Johann Mendel Order of Saint Augustine, OSA (; ; ; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian Empire, Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinians, Augustinian friar and abbot of St Thomas's Abbey, Brno, St. Thom ...

and the Russian chemist

Dmitri Mendeleev Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev ( ; ) was a Russian chemist known for formulating the periodic law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the periodic law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known ele ...

, was founded in London in November 2007 by three German

students. The first public

beta version The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

of the software was released in August 2008. The company's investors included some people previously involved with Last.fm,

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

, and

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...

, as well as academicians from

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

and

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

. In 2009, Mendeley won several awards including Plugg.eu "European Start-up of the Year 2009", TechCrunch Europas "Best Social Innovation Which Benefits Society 2009", and

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

ranked it #6 in "Top 100 tech media companies". In 2012, Mendeley was one of the repositories for

green Open Access Self-archiving is the act of (the author's) depositing a free copy of an electronic document online in order to provide open access to it. The term usually refers to the self-archiving of peer-reviewed research journal and conference articles, as ...

recommended by the American philosopher

Peter Suber Peter Dain Suber (born November 8, 1951) is an American philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office fo ...

, a leading voice in the

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

movement. This recommendation was revoked after Elsevier bought Mendeley and

license A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

d it as a

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

. Mendeley was purchased by the

academic publisher Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publi ...

in early 2013. The deal price was speculated to be €50 million (US$65 million). The sale led to debate on scientific networks and in the media interested in

Open Access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

, and upset members of the scientific community who felt that the Mendeley's acquisition by Elsevier was antithetical to Mendeley's open sharing model."When the Rebel Alliance Sells Out"
David Dobbs, ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', April 12, 2013 David Dobbs, in ''

'', suggested Elsevier's reasons for buying Mendeley could have been to acquire its user data and/or to "destroy or co opt an open-science icon that threatens its

business model A business model describes how a Company, business organization creates, delivers, and captures value creation, value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-pub ...

." This was contrasted to a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

service like

Unpaywall OurResearch, formerly known as ImpactStory, is a nonprofit organization that creates and distributes tools and services for libraries, institutions and researchers. The organization follows open practices with their data (to the extent allowed b ...

, which marketed itself as not susceptible to a sell-out to Elsevier.

Products evolution

After the acquisition, the Mendeley team extended its product line while continuing to iterate on its core reference manager application (Mendeley Desktop). On 23 September 2013, Mendeley announced

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

and

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

apps. An Android app followed shortly after. On 12 January 2015, Mendeley announced the acquisition of Newsflo, a service which provided links to press coverage of researchers' work. The functionality was subsequently incorporated into Mendeley Feed and Mendeley Profile. In April 2016, Mendeley Data, a platform for sharing citable research datasets online, was promoted out of beta. In October 2016, Mendeley Careers was launched. The service is intended to help researchers locate job opportunities. On 24 May 2019, Elsevier announced two new products: Mendeley Reference Manager and Mendeley Cite. On 15 March 2021, the Mendeley mobile app was removed from the

Apple App Store The App Store is an app marketplace developed and maintained by Apple, for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS SDK. Apps can be download ...

and

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

, leaving the only way to access the services via the web site, or using Mendeley Reference Manager (desktop app). The literature search function in the desktop application had also been removed. In September 2022, Elsevier discontinued the downloads of the legacy "Mendeley Desktop" application as part of a transition to the new

web-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

solution (still accessible from the desktop with the more recent "Mendeley Reference Manager"). The company plans to permanently stop the signs-in to "Mendeley Desktop" in a longer term.

Mendeley components

Mendeley is based on a web service requiring to first create a personal account on the Mendeley site. On the local computer side, it works in conjunction with a word processor plug-in, or

add-in In computing, a plug-in (also spelled plugin) or add-in (also addin, add-on, or addon) is a software component that extends the functionality of an existing software system without requiring the system to be re-built. A plug-in feature is one ...

(mandatory), and a desktop application (now facultative for the latest current version). The new "Mendeley Reference Manager library" is

cloud-based Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

. On 7 September 2020, it replaced the former "Mendeley Web Library". This guarantees that the latest changes are always saved in the

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

and that references are accessible on several devices. The table here below provides an overview of the different Mendeley components and allows to compare the discontinued and the current applications. While the deprecated "Mendeley Desktop" is still active, it needs to be used in conjunction with the legacy "Cite-O-Matic" Word plug-in. The new "Mendeley Reference Manager" works with the "Mendeley Cite" Word

. The "Mendeley Cite" Word add-in being a stand alone plug-in, it can also be directly used with Word without requiring "Mendeley Reference Manager" (desktop app) to be open, or even installed. Mendeley requires first to create a free account on its web site. Institutional, or premium, accounts also exist providing extra storage space to their users (academics, universities, research organisms, subscribing companies…). Free accounts can be upgraded to institutional accounts provided the user logs in with their institutional email address. If preferred, after the add-in "Mendeley Cite" has first been installed in the word processor, Mendeley can also be used entirely online, without downloading the "Mendeley Reference Manager" desktop app. Then, the library of references is simply accessed by logging into the Mendeley account with a web browser. The new citation Word add-in "Mendeley Cite" is a standalone application, which means that it can be used without having to open, or even to install, "Mendeley Reference Manager", as well as being used with online versions of Word (for Windows or macOS). This points out to the predominant importance of the cloud-based database which should always be considered by the user as the "master" prevalent reference database in order to anticipate known and potential issues when switching back from off-line to on-line, after a period of disconnection with the desktop application. Both the legacy and the new desktop applications allow to work off-line when no web connection is available, and also offer extra features. To properly function, they need to be regularly synchronised (''synced'') on-line with the "master" database stored in the cloud, and some operations with the desktop app, such as importing references from

text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flat file) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In ope ...

s (. ris, .

bibtex BibTeX is both a bibliographic flat-file database file format and a software program for processing these files to produce lists of references (citations). The BibTeX file format is a widely used standard with broad support by reference manage ...

, ,

xml Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

…) require to be connected on-line to avoid issues. Both desktop applications support various additional functionalities such as multiple PDFs local annotations, and ideas organisation, using the Mendeley Notebook. Only the desktop apps (Windows, macOS, and Linux) allow to export all the references in one shot as a text file.

Limitations and known issues

Not all the features available in the legacy "Mendeley Desktop" application have been yet implemented in the new "Mendeley Reference Manager" desktop application and it is unclear if they will be, because the "master" reference database of Mendeley is the on-line database available in the cloud, not the local database (a copy of the master) temporarily stored on the personal computer for working off-line. To avoid problems while being off-line with the recent "Mendeley Reference Manager" desktop version, new references directly imported from text files (.ris, .bibtex, .xml…) must always first be added to the "master" web database when being connected on-line. When being off-line, only small changes manually applied to the local database by using the keyboard (i.e., typos corrections, or hand-typed references) are properly synced with the "master" web database. It is not possible to export as a text file (.ris, .bibtex, .xml…) all the references stored in a library in one shot with "Mendeley Reference Manager web". The complete set of all the references can only be exported from the "Mendeley Reference Manager" desktop app (preferably when being connected on-line). However, the web version allows to export selected references or collections. Mendeley lacks a function to control the

capitalisation Capitalization ( North American spelling; also British spelling in Oxford) or capitalisation (Commonwealth English; all other meanings) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in ...

of words in the reference title, so that the list of references generated in a document may contain a mix of titles presented in different

letter case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...

formats such as "

Sentence case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing systems ...

" or "

Title Case Title case or headline case is a style of capitalization used for rendering the titles of published works or works of art in English. When using title case, all words are capitalized, except for minor words (typically articles, short prepositio ...

". The "Mendeley Reference Manager" desktop app works fine with

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

recent versions ( Ventura, Sonoma), but as it is not yet optimized for the new mac family equipped with the

Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

M-series SoC processors, it requires the automatic installation of

Rosetta 2 Rosetta is a dynamic binary translator developed by Apple Inc. for macOS, an application compatibility layer between different instruction set architectures. It enables a transition to newer hardware, by automatically translating software. The ...

to run. is a dynamic binary translator which converts

on the fly On the fly is a phrase used to describe something that is being changed while the process that the change affects is ongoing. It is used in the automotive, computer, and culinary industries. In cars, on the fly can be used to describe the changin ...

the instructions written for the

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

processor family to the SoC (

System on a Chip A system on a chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines most or all key components of a computer or Electronics, electronic system onto a single microchip. Typically, an SoC includes a central processing unit (CPU) with computer memory, ...

) of the new Apple M-series. Rosetta 2 silently works in the background, and as it does not require any interaction from the user, has even no

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

. After the automatic installation of Rosetta 2, the correct handling of the

Apple Disk Image Apple Disk Image is a disk image format commonly used by the macOS operating system. When opened, an Apple Disk Image is mounted as a volume within the Finder. An Apple Disk Image can be structured according to one of several proprietary disk ...

(.dmg file) containing the drag and drop installer can be confusing, and quite disturbing, for the user unfamiliar with this kind of installer, if he does not immediately realise that he has to

drag and drop In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user (computing), user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, i ...

the app icon (left) onto the shortcut of the Applications folder (right) to correctly copy the Mendeley desktop program at the right place on the Mac. After opening the disk image containing the installer, simply doubly clicking on the "Mendeley Reference Manager" desktop app icon only launches the desktop program and initiates the online registration procedure without copying the program into the Mac Applications folder as anticipated. However, a further

operation is sufficient to complete the installation without problem.

Features

The software can track reader counts, a readership statistic which has been asserted to predict citation impact, whereas journal-level metrics are poor predictors of reliability. An automatic

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

extraction from PDF files is also available. The platform can integrate with

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor program, word processing program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platf ...

OpenOffice OpenOffice or open office may refer to: Computing Software * OpenOffice.org (OOo), a discontinued open-source office software suite, originally based on StarOffice * Apache OpenOffice (AOO), a derivative of OOo by the Apache Software Foundation, ...

and other platforms. The platform intends to be

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

-compliant by allowing users to share files in private groups.

Incidents

In 2018, an update to Mendeley resulted in some users losing PDFs and annotations stored in their accounts. Elsevier fixed the issue for most users after a number of weeks.

Notes and references

External links

* {{Authority control 2007 software Reference management software Software that uses Qt Windows software Macintosh software Linux software RELX 2013 mergers and acquisitions