Mendeley Readership Analysis

Not necessarily. A Mendeley reader count records the number of users who added the article to their library, which signals intent to read, cite, or keep it, not confirmed reading. Mohammadi and Thelwall treated the count as a measure of attention and interest rather than of comprehension or endorsement. This ambiguity is the central caveat of the metric: it is a useful early proxy for engagement, but interpreting it as evidence that the paper was read, let alone used or approved, overstates what a save can tell you.

They are related but distinct. Mohammadi and Thelwall found moderate positive correlations between Mendeley readership and citations, meaning the two often agree on which papers attract attention but diverge enough that readership adds information. Readership is broader, since it includes non-citing audiences, and earlier, since saves precede citations by years. It is therefore best used alongside citations: as an early indicator for recent work and as a window onto audiences, such as students and professionals, that citation analysis cannot see.

In these fields citations are slower and an important part of the audience, including students and practitioners, engages with research without publishing citing papers. Mohammadi and Thelwall showed that Mendeley reader demographics capture this engagement, with large shares of student and professional readers for social science and humanities articles. Readership thus reveals impact that citation counts miss in fields where the readership extends well beyond the set of authors who will eventually cite the work, making it a valuable complementary indicator there.