Abstract
This chapter discusses the application of Mendeley desktop in academic and research libraries. The features of Mendeley were used to justify it as a digital library for researchers, scientists, and scholars. The importance of Mendeley desktop application as a digital library was also compared with a traditional library. This chapter should thus enable anyone without prior knowledge of Mendeley to effectively utilise it as a digital library as it provides an extensive guide on how to work with the Mendeley Application to perform various tasks.
TopOverview Of A Digital Library
As days pass, innovations keep emerging in all fields of man's endeavours. Thus, Library and Information Science as a discipline is not left out due to the high demand for quick and easy access to books, journal articles and other information sources. In time past, researchers, scholars and scientists relied on the physical/traditional library to source relevant knowledge and information. Along the line, many scholars faced the challenge of travelling distance locations in search of scholarly literature. Fortunately, this challenge was bridged through the advent of the Internet and electronic/digital databases. The Internet is a platform that allows individuals to communicate/disseminate research ideas and findings electronically without having to meet themselves or travel across a long distance. Although the Internet made the storing and retrieval of information accessible, not many people have benefited from the wealth of the Internet. This is because many people lack Internet access, especially in Africa and developing nations (Abdulqadir & Asongu, 2022; Mojapelo, 2020; Owan et al., 2021, 2022; Oyedemi, 2015; Sambuli, 2016). Without internet access, there will be difficulty gathering scholarly materials, especially at the convenience of one's location.
Over two decades ago, accessing digital information was only possible by saving the materials/books on a computer disk or removable disks such as CD-ROM, floppy disks, etc. However, there is poor maximisation of cataloguing skills/tools when accessing files from such storage devices. Thus, these media do not constitute a digital library. A digital library should contain appropriately arranged materials (catalogue) to optimise easy access to information. Cataloguing is a demanding task performed by librarians to ensure that materials are not mixed up. Cataloguing aims to make sure that materials are timely and quickly sourced. The arrangement of materials (including books, journal articles, magazines, etc.) uses several classification indicators. For instance, books can be classified based on, but not limited to, the field, author(s), publisher(s) and year of publication. This means that anywhere materials are saved without appropriate arrangement and classification, such media cannot be referred to as a library. For a platform to be considered a library, it must possess many features (such as proper management of materials, easy accessibility, location of indexed materials, etc.), just like traditional libraries.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Scientists: Scientists are people that meticulously collect and analyse data and evidence for the generation and testing of hypotheses to gain and share insight and knowledge.
Information: Information are verified or process data about events, observations, things, procedures, people, processes, or phenomena that can lend itself to meaningful conclusions.
Digital Library: This is an online database containing digital items such as text, still images, audio and video clips and other media formats. A digital library and its holdings are supported through Internet.
Documents: A document is a printed, illustrated, projected, or archived expression of ideas, which is often the embodiment of both non-fictional and fictitious material.
Electronic Database: An electronic database is a computer-based accumulation or directory of materials, such as research papers, review articles, theses, books, and chapters in books, among others, that are structured logically with searchable features or sections.
Shelf: A shelf is a rectangular piece of wooden or other hard substance attached to a wall or incorporated into furniture that serves as a platform for storing or displaying library materials.
Scholars: Scholars are people with a profound knowledge of a subject, an area, or a discipline. Scholars engage in academic or intellectual endeavours and use their intellectual curiosity to become specialists in their professions.
Catalogue: A catalogue is a list of all the books and other materials located in a particular library or collection of libraries.
Bibliography: A bibliography provides a list of works (such as books and articles) on a subject or by an author.
Researchers: Researchers are individuals concerned with discovering new knowledge by engaging in the systematic gathering of data, processing them into information using appropriate analytic procedures and making meaning from the evidence for man’s improved existence.