Mendeley: Adding Content

Mendeley allows you to add PDFs directly into your library.  Just drag the PDF from your desktop or folder into the Mendeley center pane, and Mendeley will fill in the metadata (author, title, year published, publisher, etc.).  You can add additional information for a selected reference in the pane on the right side of the page.

If you add a PDF or import a reference that does not have the full citation information, you may see a yellow notification asking you to review the details of the citation, If the details are incomplete, click the search button. Mendeley wil search its catalog for the complete information and add it if it is available

Once you have done this, you can also click on View research catalog entry for this paper. You can see basic information about the paper. 

If the full text is available, you can read it in Mendeley Desktop.

Mendeley allows users to import citations directly from many databases, using the same RIS format that EndNote and Zotero use.

For example, the screenshot above shows how to select the RIS option in EBSCOhost's export manager.  You can then save the RIS file and import it into Mendeley by choosing the Import function under the File menu, and choosing the RIS option.  You can then select the saved RIS file and it will import into Mendeley.

You can also directly import citations from Elsevier products like Scopus. For instance, I can run a search in Scopus, choose the articles I want to export to Mendeley and choose Export.

Then, I can choose Mendeley from the options on the next screen to complete the direct export.

Mendeley allows literature searching through its desktop interface. To do this, follow these steps.

1. Follow the directions in the box to the left to enable full text access to University of Utah resources through Mendeley.

2. Click on the Literature Search option in Mendeley and enter your search terms.

3. Click on the article that interests you, and information about the article will pop up in the far right pane. Click on "view research catalog entry for this paper.

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4. Click on the dropdown menu that says "Find this paper at:" and select UNIV of UTAH

4. If the paper is available electronically, you will see a list of links to it in the next window that opens. Click on one of these to get to the full text of the article.