Mendeley: An Online Software for Reference Management in Research

Abstract

Research is a systematic effort to gain new
knowledge. A researcher has to collect a lot of existing
information resources in the specific domain of knowledge for
persuing research. Due to Information and communication
technology most of the information resources are appearing
now in electronic format. The range of information resources
varies from e-books, e-journals, databases, images, powerpoint presentations, audio and video resources. After collecting
the resources, the researcher has to organize it in personal
computers or on web for further study and consultation.
Reference is a link or relationship between two objects in
which one gives acknowledgement to other. Mendeley is an
online software for researchers not only to collect and store
their items, but also to organize, tag them, save the resources
and create citation and bibliography automatically in standard
formats. Researchers can save their precious time by using this
software, which was earlier done manually and consumed a lot
of time during the research process. The article introduces
online softwares for reference management i.e. Mendeley,
Zotero and Endnote. It further highlights how Mendeley can
help a researcher in creating personal digital library, reference
management, as a social networking site and the other facilities
which are very useful for academia and researchers. This
software can be used free of cost up-to a certain limit of
storage space on cloud.