Searching your library and organizing your references

Smart Collections

Mendeley Reference Manager automatically organizes your references into smart collections.

• Recently Added - Displays the references added to your library in the last 30 days.

• Recently Read - Displays the references for PDFs opened in the last 30 days.

• Favorites - ‘Star’ a reference to automatically add it to your ‘Favorites’ collection.

• My Publications - This collection displays the publications that you have authored and claimed through the Scopus Author Profile.

• Trash - Displays the references that you have deleted from your library.

Custom Collections

Custom collections offer a way to quickly filter the view of your library.

Adding a reference to a collection in your Mendeley library does not relocate the reference, but instead acts as a label. This means that any reference added to a collection will still appear in ‘All References’. If you delete a collection the references inside will still be available in ‘All References’.

To create a new collection, select the ‘New Collection’ button in the left hand navigation panel.

To add a reference to a collection, drop it onto a collection in the left hand navigation panel.

Using the action panel

The action panel allows you to organize multiple references.

Select the check box next to a reference and the action panel will open at the bottom of the screen. Using the action panel you can:

1. Add references to your collections or groups using the 'Add to' menu.
2. Mark references as Favorites using the 'Mark as' menu.
3. Trash references using the 'Delete' option.

Using search to retrieve references

Mendeley Reference Manager search allows you to quickly retrieve your references.

Enter a search term in the field then press enter and Mendeley Reference Manager will return results based on the reference title, author, year or source. The search tool also is context-specific so will return results based on the collection you are currently viewing. You can use this to quickly pinpoint specific references.

To search your entire library ensure that ‘All References’ is selected.