LibGuides: Systematic Review Service: Request a Consultation

How can the Library help?

Reference Librarians can serve as consultants or co-authors depending on the degree of involvement in the review project.

Use this form to submit a Systematic Review search request.

At a minimum, we can save you TIME!

Different Stages of SR	Librarian's Role - Consultation	Librarian's Role - Co-author
Before the review	Provide guidance and best practice guidelines for evidence synthesis	Develop and refine your research question Find if there are existing reviews or protocols on similar topics Map the existing literature on the topic
Protocol Development and Publication		Provide support documents and templates Write the searching methods section
Search Strategy Development and Documentation	Guidance of databases and other sources to use Review of search strategies	Build exhaustive searches for different databases Search grey literature sources Hand searching of relevant journals
Citation Management and Study Selection	Recommendations for tools for deduplication, and screening	Export citations from databases into reference management software for deduplication Export citations to Covidence or JBI SUMARI for screening Training for Covidence Find full text for included references
Quality Assessment	Recommendations for checklists	Assist in selecting the appropriate tool, standards and templates for assessing included studies for bias
Data Extraction	Provide best practices for reporting the data	Provide examples for similar reviews with completed data tables Collaborate with team on building the template
Submitting Review for Publication		Provide suitable examples of published reviews for guidance in manuscript preparation. Write the search and methods section of the paper including search documentation and PRISMA flowchart. Identify journals for publication of manuscript
Role of Librarian	Acknowledgement of support	Co-authorship

Additional Readings

The IOM Standards for Systematic Reviews and the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions highly recommend that the systematic review team include a librarian who can develop an exhaustive search strategy and also help with the planning, conducting and reporting phases of the review.

Research shows the benefits of having a librarian on the review team:

Rethlefsen ML, Farrell AM, Osterhaus Trzasko LC, Brigham TJ. Librarian co-authors correlated with higher quality reported search strategies in general internal medicine systematic reviews. J Clin Epidemiol. 2015;68(6):617-626. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.

Rethlefsen ML, Murad MH, Livingston EH. Engaging medical librarians to improve the quality of review articles. JAMA. 2014;312(10):999-1000. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.9263

Dudden RF, Protzko SL. The systematic review team: contributions of the health sciences librarian. Med Ref Serv Q. 2011;30(3):301-315. doi:10.1080/02763869.2011.590425

Meert D, Torabi N, Costella J. Impact of librarians on reporting of the literature searching component of pediatric systematic reviews. J Med Libr Assoc. 2016;104(4):267-277. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.104.4.004