Mendeley Desktop is a reference management tool used to build and organize a research library. The desktop software can be freely downloaded from www.mendeley.com to multiple devices and is compatible with operating systems including Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux.           

Mendeley Desktop allows you to:

• Edit citations by simply clicking under or next to the citation field
• Create folders and subfolders to organize your references
• Tag and search within your library
• Watch folders on your computer for new content
• Share your references
• Explore similiar research with Mendeley Suggest

When you import citations from either a PDF or directly from a database, sometimes the full citation information is not imported to your library. You can easily update your citation information by:

• Entering the DOI (digital object idenifier) number to the Document Details screen
• Select the magnifying glass image next to the DOI to search the web for citation information

There are 3 main ways to add a reference to Mendeley Desktop:

1. Click and drag: a file or folder into the Mendeley library.  Mendeley will automatically extract metadata.
2.  Create an entry manually: Choose File --> Add Entry Manually…   This will allow you to edit the citation information as needed.
3.  Download from a database or PittCat+ Catalog: Many databases will provide a button allowing you to download a list or single citations.  Mendeley will read files in .ris format.  Simply choose theExport to RIS Format or similar option, save the file, and click and drag the saved file to Mendeley Desktop.   

Once PDF's have been added to your library, you can read them within Mendeley's PDF Viewer.  This function allows you to:

1. Click on a PDF and open the document in a separate tab
2. Highlight text and create notes 
3. Store notes and annotations next to the citation detail tab for easy access
4. Search within the text

The Sync function will synchronize your library data to all of your Mendeley Web, desktop, and mobile devices.

To edit Sync options, select the first option in your Mendeley library: "All Documents".  Then select "Edit Settings" to choose to have all documents or specific folders synced to your Mendeley Web account.

The Mendeley.com library of citations is crowd-sourced. What this means is that all the citations added to your personal Mendeley library are also added to the database of citations that Mendeley shares with everyone. This is what drives the discovery aspect of Mendeley--you can find new research based on what your colleagues and other scholars have added to their libraries. An important note: all citations are anonymized, so your citations will not be tied to your name or account in Mendeley.com.

There may be times when you don't want a citation in your personal Mendeley library to be added to the crowd-sourced library. For example, this could be unpublished papers, personal manuscripts, or class notes. To keep these citations private, be sure to check the "Unpublished work" button at the bottom of the document details form. For more information, follow this link.