Mendeley is a freely available reference manager with web-based and desktop versions. You can sync your library of papers between these different versions and across different computers.
UC Berkeley Mendeley users gain access to Mendeley Institutional Edition (MIE) by accessing Mendeley via a UCB IP address (note: when off-campus, use the proxy browser bookmarklet, or the Mendeley link below, or the VPN Full Tunnel, to take you through a UCB IP address). This gives UC Berkeley users 100GB personal library space, 100GB shared library space, 100 collaborators in private groups, and unlimited private groups. After leaving UC Berkeley, alumni will have access to MIE for 12 months. Contact librarian Becky Miller with questions or problems concerning MIE.
Non-UC Berkeley Mendeley users can still sign up for a free account, which offers 2GB of web space and the ability to create 1 private group with up to 3 members, or can upgrade to a premium plan to access more space or groups.
Mendeley currently has multiple products. There is more information below, or see Mendeley's information on what browsers and operating systems are supported for the different products.
To manage your references and build your library, you currently have two options with similar functionality:
OR:
To build your reference library while discovering articles online:
To insert citations and bibliographies into your document, you have two options. One may work better with your word processing setup than the other, and you should not try to use both at the same time. Neither allows you to insert citations in Google Docs:
OR:
Reference managers (also called citation managers or bibliographic management software) offer a way to save, organize and manage references. Many work with word processing software to format in-text citations and bibliographies for papers and theses, allow you to share references, and enable you to attach or link PDFs to a citation record.
Wikipedia comparison of reference management software