As your library grows, it is a challenge to manage all the references, documents and additional information. Read through this list, then watch the first video below.

Use Mendeley to:

1. Sort by author, item title, publication and tags (you can sort by other fields too).
2. Identify by icon which types of documents are attached to the references (PDF, Word doc, image).
3. Read and annotate attachments in the viewer window and save your notes and highlighted text to share with colleagues.
4. Star favourite references with a personal rating system to identify high use or highly relevant readings.
5. Mark read/unread to identify at a glance reading and note taking progress.
6. Create folders to categorise references by author, topic, theme, or research methodology; use folders and subfolders to reflect your thesis chapter structure or to build your own heirarchy of concepts and ideas. 
7. Search your library more effectively by using filters such as tags, author keywords, keywords or publications.

Want more? Check out the Mendeley Guide on Searching your library and organising your files. 

Now you're ready to learn about using Mendeley for your writing in the next section of this guide.

Watch this video to learn how to organise and manage your references, attachments and information, and to see a quick demonstration of how to annotate attachments and create folders and search your library using filters.

This video provides tips and tricks to efficiently search your desktop and web libraries, including how to search your entire library, abstracts only, the text of PDFs and attachments, and customised tags. In addition, groups are mentioned as a way to share references and co-annotate documents with your collaborators.