Duplication management in Mendeley Reference Manager has arrived!

As per the news released (Mendeley Blog) dated today i.e. 25-Aug-2023

I have personally used this new feature of identifying duplicate library items in Mendeley Reference Manager. An excellent feature that avoids confusion while citing references in a manuscript and saves lots of time for a researcher.

What are duplicates in Reference Manager?

When we work with reference management and create library items, we often tend to add the same library items (twice or multiple times).

This is also applicable when a researcher adds library items from the web or uploads the data for doing a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) or meta-analysis.

It is often required that we identify duplicate entries and remove those duplicates, thereby ensuring that the references cited in our manuscript are free from errors or duplicate records or ensuring that duplicates are not double counted when doing SLR or meta-analysis.

Why does this situation occur in Reference Management Software?

This situation occurs due to researchers working with multiple, increasing variety of resources, such as Bibliometric databases (SCOPUS, Web of Science) or publisher databases (like Elsevier, Emerald, Taylor & Francis, Sage, Wiley) or other databases (such as EBSCO, JSTOR) etc.

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What is the issue if a duplicate record exists in the library of Reference Management Software?

Such duplicate entries can lead to confusion in the minds of researchers

• Not knowing which of the 2 entries has been cited in a research paper
• Can lead to errors while citing a research paper in their manuscripts
• Can also lead to desk rejection in case of such errors

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Is this a new feature in Mendeley?

The identification of duplicate records existed in the Mendeley Desktop Manager.

However, the introduction of a new duplication management feature in Mendeley Reference Manager can help a researcher identify and remove any duplicate references that threaten to disrupt the workflow.

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When is the deduplication feature introduced in Mendeley Reference Manager?

As per the news released (Mendeley Blog) dated today i.e. 25-Aug-2023

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How does one take advantage of the duplication feature in Mendeley Reference Manager?

Ensure to have the latest version of Mendeley Reference Manager installed in your system.

https://www.mendeley.com/download-reference-manager/windows

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How does one identify the Mendeley Reference Manager installed on a system?

In the Mendeley Reference Manager, go to the menu option “About Mendeley Reference Manager”

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A new pop-up window will appear, listing the present version of Mendeley Reference Manager installed on your system.

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What is the current version of Mendeley Reference Manager?

The current version as of 25-Aug-2023 is 2.98.0?

?How does duplication management work??

Mendeley Reference Manager identifies two references with the same DOI as duplicates.?

On importing a duplicate reference into your library, a pop-up will appear at the bottom right-hand side of the screen.?

Under the Tools menu option in Mendeley Reference Manager, select “Check for duplicates”

?Output of the duplicates found in MRM

• Mendeley has also created a new smart collection called ‘Duplicates’.
• Duplicate references are also automatically added into a new smart collection called ‘Duplicates’.
• In this smart collection, the duplicates are grouped into individual ‘sets’ of duplicates.?

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Users can now easily delete these duplicate references by selecting the trash icon.?

Conclusion?

Users can now easily view the duplicate library items in a new smart collection called ‘Duplicates’ and remove any pre-existing or newly-added duplicate references from their library.

This saves a lot of our time as a researcher while handling references & and citations and we can continue to focus on our key area of research.

I hope you find this post useful!

About me?

Dr. Raja Sankaran, PhD from IIM-Ranchi (profile) is a Mendeley Advisor and has been conducting 65+ workshops on various research topics. Apart from this, he has also conducted 100+ Trainings in 25+ countries for about 5 years. Link to various Trainings & FDPs conducted.

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