Do you think the purchase will have opened the doors for similar applications in Altmetrics such as Figshare and Impact Story to reach a wider audience or will it make academics interested in this area a little more wary - considering how many feel about the publishing giants.
Yes, I think so. Altmetric.com and Figshare are already owned by a major publisher - Macmillan/Nature - and when Elsevier starts to integrate Mendeley's altmetrics data, it will be brought to a much wider audience. Elsevier has 10 million monthly users!
Do you think the purchase will help loosen very tight copyright laws that prevent the sharing of information, or at least the accessibility of academic content within the Cloud for individuals and their own access and groups?
In my mind, the laws are not necessarily the issue - they keep getting more permissive anyway, for example with the UK Hargreaves review. To me, it seems that we simply don't have an easy solution to determining who should have access to which piece of content. The information about this - e.g. a user's affiliation or multiple affiliations, the various holdings of the different libraries of a single university, authentication methods - is too decentralised. We hope that Mendeley can indeed make this easier and thereby increase the accessibility of content.
What will yours, Jan's and Paul's involvement be with Mendeley from now on?
We're still in the same roles: Jan runs our day-to-day operations, Paul manages projects and interfaces between business requirements and technology, and I work on the strategy and product vision. Additionally, I will join the Elsevier strategy team as VP of Strategy.
Looking back six years, could you have ever imagined that Mendeley would be where it is today?
To be honest: Yes :-)
We always hoped, and passionately believed, that this idea could turn into something big - and I think it's fair to say that it has! Of course, it hasn't always been a smooth ride, we've had many setbacks and catastrophes along the way. The friendship between Jan, Paul, and I played a big role in overcoming those challenges - we supported each other and kept believing in our idea.
Are you working on any other projects or are you planning to concentrate on your own research more again?
No - Mendeley is keeping me busy enough, and that won't change for the foreseeable future!
Andy Tattersall is an information specialist working at ScHARR. Dr. Victor Henning (pictured) is the Co-Founder & CEO, Mendeley Ltd. @mendeley_com. The full text of the original post can be found on the ScHARR blog and is reproduced here with thanks.