Reference Management Tools: Mendeley - Overview

What is Mendeley?

Mendeley is a free online referencing system that you can use on the web and on your desktop. You can create your own fully-searchable reference library, cite as you write and read and annotate your PDFs. It also functions as an academic social network; you can create your own researcher profile.

Unlike EndNote, Mendeley is not supported by the university. This guide will give you some initial help, and refer you to Mendeley help resources online.

Note: Many articles and guides have been written making comparisons about the main reference management tools available; Endnote, Mendeley, Zotero and Refworks:

Mendeley citation plugin

Mendeley offers a a free, simple plugin for Microsoft Word (Windows, Mac) or Libre Office (All platforms). The Citation Plugin allows you to quickly and easily cite materials that you’ve added to your Mendeley library - as well as generating a full bibliography of the materials you’ve referenced in the paper.

Please note, all VU staff and students must contact VU ITS on 9919 2777 to log a job to have the Mendeley Citation Plugin installed.

Upgrade to Mendeley Institutional Edition

Victoria University staff and students now have access to Mendeley Institutional Edition.

Upgrade from free to institutional access by following the steps below:

  1. Create a free account at https://www.mendeley.com using your vu.edu.au email address. If you have a personal username and password for another Elsevier product, such as ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal or ClinicalKey, the same login details will work here in Mendeley.
  2. Upgrade to the Institutional Edition by visiting the Victoria University Mendeley Group page. You should then receive an email which confirms your account has been upgraded.
  3. You will then be able to access your Institutional Edition account via https://www.mendeley.com.

 

Note: 

  • To maintain access to the Institutional Edition you will need to re-verify your account via the Victoria University Mendeley Group page at least once every 12 months.
  • If you have an existing Mendeley account using a personal email address and wish to join the Victoria UnIversity Institutional Edition: Login to your account, go to settings, change your email address to your vu.edu.au address. Follow the instructions at Step 2 above.

Benefits:

  • 100 GB personal storage instead of 2 GB with the 'free account'
  • 100 GB shared storage instead of 100 MB with the 'free account'
  • Unlimited private groups of up to 100 collaborators instead of 5 private groups of up to 25 collaborators

For more information on Mendeley, visit the self-help guide.

Download Mendeley Reference Manager

1. Go to https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager to download Mendeley Reference Manager.

2. The web importer lets you import references, websites and documents from over 30 databases. You can find the option to install here https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/web-importer.

3. Mendeley Cite allows you to insert references and bibliographies into your document using a citation add-in for Microsoft® Word. Go to https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/mendeley-cite to download.

Acknowledgement of Country

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Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Ancestors, Elders and families of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne campuses), the Eora Nation (Sydney campus) and the Yulara/Yugarapul and Turrbal Nation (Brisbane campus) who are the traditional owners of University land. As we share our own knowledge practices within the University, may we pay respect to the deep knowledge embedded within the Aboriginal community and recognise their ownership of Country.

We acknowledge that the land on which we meet, learn, and share knowledge is a place of age-old ceremonies of celebration, initiation and renewal, and that the Traditional Owners living culture and practices have a unique role in the life of this region. Learn more from our Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit.

Licence

     This content is licensed to Victoria University under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.