CPD23 Thing 14 - Citing irritation

Still slightly behind (as ever!) so bit of a Thing 14 catch-up this weekend. Not wanting to have to download and use Firefox for Zotero I decided on having a look at Mendeley.  The theory seemed interesting, I could see myself using it, various blogs seemed to like it, it appeared to download easily…

A bumpy start...

Now it might be that I’ll take to it yet.  But mostly I’ve failed to get past the sheer irritation of the fact  having downloaded it fine I need to click on an email link to verify the account.  Which I would do with pleasure if only an email to verify it would actually arrive in my InBox.  Having now triggered the website to re-send it three times since equally fruitlessly I’m basically sighing.  Partially because it’s not working and partially that the reason they need verification (having now gone looking for the explanation) is  “to make sure that the users that register on our site are human”.   It occurs to me 15yrs ago a machine wouldn’t have been trying to make me prove I’m a human being  - even if it is for the general good. So yes I’ve been through the relevant troubleshooting FAQs and it’s still not solving it. So I’ve emailed customer support and will see what I get back…

So I can’t currently use or explore all the functionality. I have loaded in various PDF’s, and so far its got them all partially wrong as automatic citation and flagged them all as needing review. Which is also a little dispiriting, even though I really like things like the notes and highlighting. But really I utterly love the idea of automatic referencing and bibliography – but only if it works faster and easier than doing it all manually myself.

Summary

Liked the theory. The practice is leaving me underwhelmed presently. But it may get there yet.

If I can sort out the verification glitch then I will play about with this more. The theory is good and useful (says woman thinking about essay due next term it should be ideal for), but safe to say we’re really not having an instant rapport as yet.

Addendum - Lovely people at Mendeley Customer Support, solved within a few hours by them. Verification achieved. Hurrah.