Give and take, researchers

WEB WATCH

Named after the great Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, Mendeley, www.mendeley.com, is a research management tool for researchers, scientists and science enthusiasts. The web-site was designed to manage, share, read and annotate research papers. It has a resea-rch network to manage papers online, discover research trends and statistics and to connect like-minded researchers.

Everyday users upload more than 1,00,000 papers into their private Mendeley accounts. 

These are grouped into canonical datasets and the bibliographic data is collected under a central database.

Each canonical dataset gets turned into an article page with tags and readership statistics. You can also ferret out research papers that interest you by navigating the list of disciplines or by exploring the most-read articles and authors’ list in your research area. The papers/ articles can be searched under:

*All research areas
*Arts and Literature
*Astronomy
*Astrophysics
*Space Science
*Biological Sciences
*Business Administration
*Chemistry
*Computer and Information Science
*Design
*Earth Sciences
*Economics
*Education
*Electrical and Electronic Engineering
*Engineering
*Environmental Sciences
*Humanities
*Law
*Linguistics
*Management Science
*Operations Research
*Materials Science
*Mathematics
*Medicine
*Philosophy
*Physics
*Psychology
*Social Sciences
*Sports & Recreation

Members can maintain a private account. However, if you create a “Public Collection” of documents, these can be viewed only as bibliographic data and not as the actual PDF itself. This is reassuring to users who upload documents into their Mendeley accounts — it’s like a personal hard-drive on the internet.

The only way to find article pages, presently, is either from the users’ “Public Collections” (http://www.mendeley.com/collections/) or by browsing the Research Paper Catalog (http://www.mendeley.com/catalog/computer-and-information-science/).

The Mendeley offers the viewer features like Microsoft Word, Open Office and other related tools like Zotero and Endnote. Its latest version is compatible with all operating systems. It can be downloaded at  www.mendeley.com/do-wnload-mendeley-desktop/. This version has additions which include:

*A new feature to create public collaborative groups.
*A way to collaborate with peers to create a shared collection of documents.
*Groups allow members to put together a list of papers and share notes.

There are three types of groups you can create —Private, Invite-only, and Open.
Private groups: These groups are visible only to members and can share papers and notes.

Invite-only groups: These groups are visible to public, but each has an owner who administrates the group.

Open groups: Anyone can join and contribute to these groups. A great way to build comm-unity-driven collections of literature around a subject.

Please note that Mendeley does not backup the documents you upload. You should continue to save those and back them up as you normally would. Daily backups of your uploads in Word or Open Office format are recommended. An easy way to do this is to upload the document to Google Docs. Another way to back up autom-atically and transparently is to install the dropbox (www.-dropbox.com) software.

This software can retrieve and back up data without notification. Put your working folders into a “Special Folder” and dropbox takes these files and sends them to the cloud where it can be saved.

Mendeley, launched in 2008, also facilitates social net-working, collaboration and information sharing within research networks.

The information can be synchronised with your account on the Mendeley website, allowing access to your library from anywhere. It combines Mendeley Desk-top, a PDF and reference management appli-cation with Mendeley Web, an online research paper manage-ment tool and social network for researchers.

Those who need help with navigating this site may visit www.istl.org/10-summer/electronic.html.