The evolution of research

This is the subtitle of an exhibition at the British Library. Called “Growing Knowledge”, the exhibition seeks to answer the following questions:

• How have digital technologies changed research?
• What are the new challenges they pose?
• What role should a research library play in the 21st Century?

I’ve been exploring the website, and it seems quite interesting. There are a few ways in which people can take part in the research, and there is also a page of useful tools for researchers. I’ve heard of most of these, eg Evernote, but there are one or two that are new to me. One of these is Mendeley, which is a tool for generating and sharing research information. What especially appeals to me about it is this:

Our software, Mendeley Desktop, offers you:

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  • Automatic extraction of document details (authors, title, journal etc.) from academic papers into a library database, which saves you a lot of manual typing! As more people use Mendeley, the quality of the data extraction improves.

As I’m currently doing some research into Learning Platforms, I am hoping that this will prove to be quite useful.

There’s lots more to explore on the site, and the exhibition itself is almost certainly going to be well worth a visit.

Related articles

• Growing Knowledge Shifts Perceptions of Digital Research Tools (pressandpolicy.bl.uk)
• Review: Mendeley makes managing research more fun (arstechnica.com)

Comments

[@AmandaWilson169]

I'm a big fan now of mendeley (just paitiently waiting for the android app if it ever happens would be great). Finding it very useful since I stated my PhD has been a great tool. Its great as well for synching, so that when i'm at home i've got access to the same stuff as I have in my office. Also its great for sharing your collections as well with others in similar fields.

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

Thx Amanda
I have to figure out how to get the bibliography from Mendely to my document. Also, how to use the Word plug-in. Any tips that would save me some time having to trawl throug the documentation wld be much appreciated!

Thanks
Terry

[@AmandaWilson169]

To simply copy your bibliography right click on one of the papers and do select all. Go to edit and click copy citiations, then go to word and paste in. With word the plug in appears under Add ons and in there you can insert citations. Once you insert a citation it lets you select from mendeley. Then once your document is complete with citations, select insert bibliography.

hope that makes sense :)

[Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant]

Thanks ever so much, Amanda! I'll give both of those a whirl :-)