Citation Management Software

Mendeley is a citation management software owned by Elsevier - that helps you collect, manage, and cite research sources. It's easy to use, accessible within your web browser and/or on your desktop, and best of all it's free! 

Source: University of Washington Libraries

"Mendeley Desktop" has been discontinued. "Mendeley Reference Manager" has replaced it. 

Elsevier announcement: "As of September 1, 2022, users will no longer be able to download and install Mendeley Desktop software. Existing users, who have already installed Mendeley Desktop, will continue to be able to sign into, use and sync their Mendeley Desktop." 

For help with the transition to Mendeley Reference Manager, please visit Mendeley's LibGuide and their support pages.

The new Mendeley Reference Manager program has a number of issues, particularly the Mendeley Cite add-in to Word. At this time, we are not recommending Mendeley Reference Manager and suggest installing Zotero or EndNote instead.

Mendeley is one part reference management software and one part social network. It has many features that are similar to other reference management programs, but offers some unique benefits:

• The references you upload are saved in the cloud so you can access them via Mendeley anywhere you have access to the internet.
• You can attach documents, like article pdfs, to Mendeley records. The pdf viewer allows you to mark-up a paper and share your notes with others through Mendeley Groups.
• Your citations are added to a crowd-sourced catalogue that contains all of the references saved by all Mendeley users. You can search the catalogue for papers that your colleagues are reading, and get statistics on how often a reference has been saved by the Mendeley community.