
SSRN is first and foremost a site where content is discovered and distributed. Among other things, the SSRN acquisition is another step in Elsevier’s path towards data and analytics. Chi described clearly at the Research Library UK conference in 2014. Elsevier has been pursuing a strategy of reducing the share of its revenues coming from content and increasing the share coming from analytics and other services, as its chairman Y.S. I had a chance to speak yesterday with Gregg Gordon, president of SSRN, Jan Reichelt, co-founder of Mendeley, and Tom Reller, a senior Elsevier executive, about the acquisition. If you're on a private network, you should be able to configure this yourself.Today, Elsevier is announcing that it has acquired SSRN, the preprint and publishing community that focuses on social sciences and law. Check with your administrator about your proxy settings, it may be that your problems are caused by security software on your network that is blocking Mendeley Desktop. Once proxy setting are acquired, you can either set this up (or disable it if not needed) within Mendeley Desktop by going to Tools > Options > Connection. These settings vary from location to location and you'll need to consult whomever maintains your network for this information. You may require proxy settings for Mendeley Desktop to connect.


If you have admin rights try either disabling the firewall/anti-virus temporarily, or add an exception that explicitly allows Mendeley Desktop connectivity. This may be due to firewalls, or anti-virus software on your computer, or further down in your network setup (especially if you're on a public computer/network). Local settings are blocking Mendeley Desktop from connecting out.Check that you can access within your web browser to verify if this is the case. A temporary issue either on our servers, or with your ISP routing to our servers, is preventing a connection.


When you encounter this error message, it's usually indicative of one of two problems that are preventing Mendeley Desktop from contacting the Mendeley Web servers.
