Setting up a shared group folder in a reference manager

Many of our students are now busy working on their group projects.

One easy way to share references amongst a group is to set up group folders in a reference manager like Mendeley or Zotero. Private group folders are accessible to invited team members and let you store and share all your references, along with any attached PDFs which can be annotated to support your project work. Individual comments by team members are visible to the whole team, so thoughts about the research can be shared easily.

Mendeley allows up to 25 people in a private group, and Zotero has no limits on the number invited to join, but in both cases, all invited group members will need to have either a Mendeley or Zotero account to access the group.

Details on setting up and managing private groups

• Private groups in Mendeley Reference Manager
• Private groups in Zotero

Tips

Only one member of the project team needs to create the private reference manager group and invite the other members. It is best to wait until everyone has joined the group before you start adding documents to it.

Group libraries are separate from your personal library of references, so documents and files will need to be copied over to the group folder to be visible to all group members. Notes and annotations to PDFs should be made in your group folder, not on the copies in your personal library, and any prior notes made in your personal library will not be copied over to the group.

If using reference managers is not for you, did you also know you can share documents on Teams?  Just create a team and convert your PDFs to Word documents.  These can then be shared via the Teams files and annotated by your group.  But remember you will still need to create the references for all your sources when you are done.

Want to know more?

If you want to know more about referencing, we have a dedicated referencing and plagiarism area on our Library Services website, and we have also created specific workbooks for Mendeley and Zotero to get you started with using them.

And of course, don’t forget that our Librarians are more than happy to help you find relevant information for your project, as well as supporting your use of Mendeley or Zotero if you need them! Please email us or book an appointment.

Good luck!!