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Can Mendeley bookmarks reflect readership? A survey of user motivations

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  • Ehsan Mohammadi
  • Mike Thelwall
  • Kayvan Kousha

Abstract

Although Mendeley bookmarking counts appear to correlate moderately with conventional citation metrics, it is not known whether academic publications are bookmarked in Mendeley in order to be read or not. Without this information, it is not possible to give a confident interpretation of altmetrics derived from Mendeley. In response, a survey of 860 Mendeley users shows that it is reasonable to use Mendeley bookmarking counts as an indication of readership because most (55%) users with a Mendeley library had read or intended to read at least half of their bookmarked publications. This was true across all broad areas of scholarship except for the arts and humanities (42%). About 85% of the respondents also declared that they bookmarked articles in Mendeley to cite them in their publications, but some also bookmark articles for use in professional (50%), teaching (25%), and educational activities (13%). Of course, it is likely that most readers do not record articles in Mendeley and so these data do not represent all readers. In conclusion, Mendeley bookmark counts seem to be indicators of readership leading to a combination of scholarly impact and wider professional impact.

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  • Ehsan Mohammadi & Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2016. "Can Mendeley bookmarks reflect readership? A survey of user motivations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(5), pages 1198-1209, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:67:y:2016:i:5:p:1198-1209
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.23477
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Banshal, Sumit Kumar & Gupta, Solanki & Lathabai, Hiran H & Singh, Vivek Kumar, 2022. "Power Laws in altmetrics: An empirical analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3).
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    8. Mike Thelwall, 2021. "Measuring Societal Impacts Of Research With Altmetrics? Common Problems And Mistakes," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1302-1314, December.
    9. Zhiqi Wang & Wolfgang Glänzel & Yue Chen, 2020. "The impact of preprints in Library and Information Science: an analysis of citations, usage and social attention indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1403-1423, November.
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    14. Mike Thelwall, 2018. "A decade of Garfield readers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(2), pages 669-674, February.
    15. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz & Robin Haunschild & Felix Moya-Anegon & Mirko Almeida Madeira Clemente & Moritz Stefaner, 2021. "Mapping the impact of papers on various status groups in excellencemapping.net: a new release of the excellence mapping tool based on citation and reader scores," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 9305-9331, November.
    16. Bornmann, Lutz & Haunschild, Robin, 2018. "Normalization of zero-inflated data: An empirical analysis of a new indicator family and its use with altmetrics data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 998-1011.
    17. Drahomira Herrmannova & Robert M. Patton & Petr Knoth & Christopher G. Stahl, 2018. "Do citations and readership identify seminal publications?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 239-262, April.
    18. Thelwall, Mike, 2017. "Three practical field normalised alternative indicator formulae for research evaluation," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 128-151.
    19. Zahedi, Zohreh & Haustein, Stefanie, 2018. "On the relationships between bibliographic characteristics of scientific documents and citation and Mendeley readership counts: A large-scale analysis of Web of Science publications," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 191-202.
    20. Michael Taylor, 2023. "Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow: five altmetric sources observed over a decade show evolving trends, by research age, attention source maturity and open access status," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2175-2200, April.
    21. Kuku Joseph Aduku & Mike Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2017. "Do Mendeley reader counts reflect the scholarly impact of conference papers? An investigation of computer science and engineering," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 573-581, July.
    22. Thelwall, Mike & Nevill, Tamara, 2018. "Could scientists use Altmetric.com scores to predict longer term citation counts?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 237-248.
    23. Mojisola Erdt & Aarthy Nagarajan & Sei-Ching Joanna Sin & Yin-Leng Theng, 2016. "Altmetrics: an analysis of the state-of-the-art in measuring research impact on social media," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1117-1166, November.
    24. Kousha, Kayvan & Thelwall, Mike & Abdoli, Mahshid, 2018. "Can Microsoft Academic assess the early citation impact of in-press articles? A multi-discipline exploratory analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 287-298.
    25. Amalia Mas-Bleda & Mike Thelwall, 2016. "Can alternative indicators overcome language biases in citation counts? A comparison of Spanish and UK research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2007-2030, December.

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