Dear Mendeley community,

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been two years since Mendeley joined Elsevier. In those two years we’ve seen a lot of exciting developments and improvements. We’ve almost doubled the size of our user base, as well as that of our team, and we continue to grow at an amazing pace (check out our recruitment page to get an idea of what that looks like). Our community has grown to four million users and we now have over 2,600 Mendeley Advisors all over the world. So, I’d say, that’s a pretty good result for the Mendeley and Elsevier teams working to make this a success.

But of course, there’s more: The Newsflo acquisition in January 2015 means that we’ll soon be able to bring our users some exciting new features around measuring the impact and media mentions of their research, and it demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the development of Mendeley as a broad user-focused research platform. The added resources that Elsevier brought to Mendeley also allowed us to develop the long-awaited Mendeley Android App (besides, of course, improving and polishing our already existing iOS App), which is definitely exciting.

We’ve also made a lot of progress integrating products and workflows of Mendeley and Elsevier, working towards making your research workflow more efficient, agile, and simply better. A step further in that direction is that we’ll soon enable selected groups of users to use their original Mendeley accounts with Elsevier products, by integrating these two accounts. If you’re one of those users, this means that your Mendeley username and password will automatically allow you access to products such as Scopus and Elsevier products (if you already have institutional access to those products), as well as ScienceDirect. Over the coming months, we’ll be extending this to the whole Mendeley user base.

The ultimate objective of this is to enable greater access to a wider range of content across both Mendeley and Elsevier. This includes existing products (such as Mendeley, ScienceDirect, Scopus, etc.), but also upcoming products and features (ssshhhh…). In the future, this will also allow Elsevier users to more easily create a Mendeley account. At the same time, you will have full control over your data (see our original promise) and we will continue to support standard and open data formats for import and export.

We’ve put together some FAQs below, but if you have any questions about this – or anything else – you can reach out as usual, either by leaving a comment below or tweeting @mendeley_com.

Thank you
Jan Reichelt
Co-Founder and President of Mendeley

 

In the next few months, you might be asked to “authenticate your Mendeley account” – what does that mean?
This means that the data you currently use to sign in to Mendeley will be used to create an Elsevier account “in the background” (i.e. no visible change for you). This will ultimately give you more access to content and features, and will help us to provide you with a better experience (not two different accounts, in two different systems, with two different credentials, for something that should effectively be one research workflow). To do this, we ask you to re-enter your password and please accept the Elsevier Terms and Conditions (since we are part of Elsevier).

What will this change mean for me?
Once your Mendeley account has been connected to the newly created Elsevier account, you will be able to use the same username and password that you use for Mendeley, to sign in to other Elsevier products like ScienceDirect and Scopus.

If I already have an Elsevier account, how do I connect my Mendeley account to it?
We will be prompting users to do this over the coming months. It will be a straightforward process of re-entering both your Mendeley password and Elsevier account passwords and consolidating the data held in both accounts.

What other Elsevier products will I be able to log into with my Mendeley username and password?
Currently you’ll be able to log in to ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Engineering Village using your Mendeley username and password. In the future we’ll be looking to expand this functionality to make it easier for users to switch between products, minimizing the amount of time you have to spend authenticating and gain access to various tools and resources.

Can I keep my Mendeley account separate from Elsevier?
In the long term, the answer is no. Mendeley has now been a part of Elsevier for two years, so it would be odd if we didn’t try to bring the products together. All Mendeley accounts will eventually need to be authenticated, and we believe it’s the right thing to do. We always wanted to connect the different products with each other and to integrate different services for our users. We are not making any changes to the way we store or use data about your documents, library or how you collaborate with each other on Mendeley. In the future, this will also make it easier for existing Elsevier users to use Mendeley. Of course, we will allow plenty of time so that you can take this step at a convenient time for you.

Will there be any difference in the way I sign in to Mendeley?
No. You will still use the same username and password to sign in to all Mendeley products, including Desktop, iOS, and the website, as well as any third-party applications that use your Mendeley username and password. From a workflow perspective, nothing changes for you at this point in time. This step allows us to better tie multiple products together, to make it easier for you to switch between products, as well as help us to be more efficient and better in our database management.

Will I be able to access my Mendeley library after I have authenticated my account?
Yes. All of your data, documents and groups will be maintained within Mendeley after your account has been authenticated. This is true for your Mendeley web library, for Mendeley Desktop, and Mendeley’s mobile apps.

Who has access to my data?
Once your account has been authenticated , the data that you used to register and sign in to Mendeley will be made available to other Elsevier products in order to allow you to sign in to these products as well. We are not making any changes to the way we store or use data about your documents, library or how you collaborate with each other on Mendeley products. All of your data will continue to be stored, maintained and used in accordance with the Mendeley Privacy Policy and Elsevier Privacy Policy.

Why do I have to enter my password?
That’s how we ensure that you are the owner of the Mendeley account and agree to connect your Mendeley account to an Elsevier account.

I am having problems with authenticating my account. How can I get help?
Please contact us at support@mendeley.com. Feedback welcome!