I have used Refworks while I have worked on my PhD and loved it, so, when I was asked to attend the Mendeley training session, I did not think it could be possible to persuade me to use Mendeley instead of Refworks. But, I have to admit, after the short introductory course presented by Unisa library staff, I am going to use this reference manager and academic social network in future. Mendeley is webbased, but it also has a desktop application, available at http://mendeley.com.

Mendeley is a free reference manager, academic social network and fully-searchable library that supports academics in doing their research in one place.

Mendeley can be used to:

• generate citations and bibliography in style of choice
• cite as you write
• read and annotate PDF’s on the go
• securely store references
• access references on any device
• sort references, documents and notes in one place
• sort references by using either keywords (tags) or folders for easy access
• publicly or privately share reading lists, references or full-text articles

The group functionality allows groups of academics to:

• publicly or privately share reading lists, references or full texts
• create groups to tackle research assignments, share feedback and write papers with collaborators

The connectivity affordance allows researchers to:

• connect with colleagues, peers or classmates to follow their research outputs
• showcase published research to millions around the world

I have created a few tutorials that can be shared with all interested in upping their referencing skills.

Topics covered:

• Mendeley 01: Get started
• Mendeley 02: How to use Google scholar to import references
• Mendeley 03: How to check and complete reference fields
• Mendeley 04: How to add references manually
• Mendeley 05: How to check in reference was imported
• Mendeley 06a: How to use Mendeley for referencing (iOS)
• Mendeley 06b: How to use Mendeley for referencinng (Word users)
• Mendeley 07: Summary of affordances
• Mendeley 08: Annotate documents easily
• Mendeley 09: How to create a group in Mendeley
• Mendeley 10: How to get access to a group in Mendeley desktop
• Mendeley 11: How to get access to a group in Mendeley online
• Mendeley 12: How to use different colours for annotations
• Mendeley 13: Using Feedback to suggest changes
• Mendeley 14: Changing from EndNote to Mendeley

If you need more tutorials, or you find some of the tutorials not sufficient, please feel free to leave a message. You may also request more tutorials if needed.