Effect of Library Advocacy on Mendeley User Adoption and Productivity

Millions of researchers and students currently use Mendeley.com, a free reference manager and one of the largest academic collaboration networks, to support them in reading, writing, collaboration, and publishing processes. Mendeley is an easy‐to‐use reference management tool with only self‐help online tools available for researchers. However, in the last two years, with its integration with Elsevier, it has made available more varied support resources for new users. It is widely believed to be more effective to provide structured support for early career researchers versus just‐in‐time support for seasoned researchers; and structured support for STEM disciplines versus just‐in‐time for non‐STEM disciplines. This study first defines the baseline differences in user adoption and productivity rates between different disciplines (STEM versus non‐STEM users) and academic statuses (undergraduates, graduates, post‐docs, professors). Then, by applying different library resources (in‐person training sessions, help aid, tutorial video, and on demand support) in selected US institutions, this project attempts to understand the effects of different support resources to eventual user adoption and productivity