when conducting a literature review authors should consult with librarians

• Mayo Clinic Libraries
• Evidence Synthesis Guide
• Consult with a Librarian

Evidence Synthesis Guide : Consult with a Librarian

• Review Types & Decision Tree
• Standards & Reporting Results
• Materials in the Mayo Clinic Libraries
• Training Resources
• Review Teams
• Develop & Refine Your Research Question
• Develop a Timeline
• Project Management
• Communication
• PRISMA-P Checklist
• Eligibility Criteria
• Register your Protocol
• Other Resources
• Other Screening Tools
• Grey Literature Searching
• Citation Searching
• Minimize Bias
• Risk of Bias by Study Design
• GRADE & GRADE-CERQual
• Data Extraction Tools
• Synthesis & Meta-Analysis
• Publishing your Review

Consult With Your Mayo Librarian

Research indicates that involving librarians in the systematic review process results in significantly higher quality reported search strategies. 1,2 By formulating search strategies and performing extensive literature searches across multiple databases, librarians help researchers minimize bias in their reviews. 3,4 Additional roles for librarians in evidence synthesis include citation management, education, source selection, planning, and question formulation. 5

Consult Cochrane Interactive Learning Module 3: Searching for Studies for further information.  *Please note you will need to register for a Cochrane account while initially on the Mayo network. You'll receive an email message containing a link to create a password and activate your account.*

Standards Recommending Librarian Involvement

• Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews
• Standard 3.1.1

Work with a librarian or other information specialist trained in performing systematic reviews to plan the search strategy

1.    Eden J, Levit L, Berg A. Finding What Works in Health Care : Standards for Systematic Reviews. National Academies Press; 2011. Accessed May 5, 2021. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13059

• Section 4.2.1 Role of the information specialist/librarian

[R]eview authors [should] seek guidance from a medical/healthcare librarian or information specialist, preferably one with experience in supporting systematic reviews.

Lefebvre C, Glanville J, Briscoe S, et al. Searching for and selecting studies. In: Higgins J, Thomas J, Chandler J, et al., eds. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions . version 6.2: Cochrane; 2021.

PRISMA-S is an extension of PRISMA 2020. "The literature search, or information retrieval process, not only informs the results of a systematic review; it is the underlying process that establishes the data available for analysis." "PRISMA-S is a 16-item checklist that covers multiple aspects of the search process for systematic reviews. It is intended to guide reporting, not conduct, of the search."

Your Mayo librarian is familiar with PRISMA-S and will provide you with the information required to meet with this reporting standard.

Rethlefsen ML, Kirtley S, Waffenschmidt S, et al. PRISMA-S: an extension to the PRISMA Statement for Reporting Literature Searches in Systematic Reviews. Systematic reviews. 2021;10(1):39.

Recognizing the Contribution of Your Librarian

Mayo Clinic librarians have received specialized training in systematic literature searching. A 2018 study by Bullers, Howard, Hansen, et. al, found that librarians devote a median time of 22 hours to their portion of a systematic review. 6   The time it takes to perform a systemic search of the literature varies, but it requires an exceptional skillset to strategize and execute systematic literature searches.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has defined criteria for two roles in the publication process: co-authors and contributors. These roles have differing levels of responsibility for the publication and provide different types of input to the final product. Depending on the librarian's level of involvement in your review, we recommend recognizing him or her as either a contributor or a co-author. The ICJME authorship criteria will help you decide which level of recognition is appropriate.

References & Recommended Reading

1.          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. Journal of clinical epidemiology. 2015;68(6):617-626.

2.          Meert D, Torabi N, Costella J. Impact of librarians on reporting of the literature searching component of pediatric systematic reviews. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA. 2016;104(4):267-277.

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

4.          Metzendorf M-I. Why medical information specialists should routinely form part of teams producing high quality systematic reviews–a Cochrane perspective. 2016.

5.          Spencer AJ, Eldredge JD. Roles for librarians in systematic reviews: a scoping review. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA. 2018;106(1):46-56.

6.          Bullers K, Howard AM, Hanson A, et al. It takes longer than you think: librarian time spent on systematic review tasks. Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA. 2018;106(2):198-207.

• << Previous: Register your Protocol
• Next: Other Resources >>
• Last Updated: Aug 30, 2024 9:56 AM
• URL: https://libraryguides.mayo.edu/systematicreviewprocess

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

• Collections
• Research Help

YSN Doctoral Programs: Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

• Biomedical Databases
• Global (Public Health) Databases
• Soc. Sci., History, and Law Databases
• Grey Literature
• Trials Registers
• Data and Statistics
• Public Policy
• Google Tips
• Recommended Books
• Steps in Conducting a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
• << Previous: Recommended Books
• Last Updated: Jun 20, 2024 9:08 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.yale.edu/YSNDoctoral

How to Conduct a Literature Review: A Guide for Graduate Students

• Let's Get Started!
• Traditional or Narrative Reviews
• Systematic Reviews
• Typology of Reviews
• Literature Review Resources
• Developing a Search Strategy
• What Literature to Search
• Where to Search: Indexes and Databases
• Finding articles: Libkey Nomad
• Finding Dissertations and Theses
• Extending Your Searching with Citation Chains
• Forward Citation Chains - Cited Reference Searching
• Keeping up with the Literature
• Managing Your References
• Need More Information?

Bookmark This Guide!

https://instr.iastate.libguides.com/gradlitrev

Where to Get Help

Librarians at ISU are subject experts who can help with your research and course needs. There are experts available for every discipline at ISU who are ready to assist you with your information needs!

What we do:

• Answer questions via phone, chat and in-person
• Consult with student and faculty researchers on request
• Purchase materials for the collection
• Teach instruction session for ISU courses
• Support faculty getting ready for promotion & tenure reviews
• Help with data management plans

Find Your Librarian

   “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.” - Neil Gaiman

The literature review is an important part of your thesis or dissertation. It is a survey of existing literature that provides context for your research contribution, and demonstrates your subject knowledge. It is also the way to tell the story of how your research extends knowledge in your field.

The first step to writing a successful literature review is knowing how to find and evaluate literature in your field. This guide is designed to introduce you to tools and give you skills you can use to effectively find the resources needed for your literature review.

Before getting started, familiarize yourself with some essential resources provided by the Graduate College:

• Dissertation and Thesis Information
• Center for Communication Excellence
• Graduate College Handbook

Below are some questions that you can discuss with your advisor as you begin your research:

Questions to ask as you think about your literature review:

What is my research question.

Choosing a valid research question is something you will need to discuss with your academic advisor and/or POS committee. Ideas for your topic may come from your coursework, lab rotations, or work as a research assistant. Having a specific research topic allows you to focus your research on a project that is manageable. Beginning work on your literature review can help narrow your topic.

What kind of literature review is appropriate for my research question?

Depending on your area of research, the type of literature review you do for your thesis will vary. Consult with your advisor about the requirements for your discipline. You can view theses and dissertations from your field in the library's Digital Repository can give you ideas about how your literature review should be structured.

What kind of literature should I use?

The kind of literature you use for your thesis will depend on your discipline. The Library has developed a list of Guides by Subject with discipline-specific resources. For a given subject area, look for the guide titles "[Discipline] Research Guide." You may also consult our liaison librarians for information about the literature available your research area.

How will I make sure that I find all the appropriate information that informs my research?

Consulting multiple sources of information is the best way to insure that you have done a comprehensive search of the literature in your area. The What Literature to Search tab has information about the types of resources you may need to search. You may also consult our liaison librarians for assistance with identifying resources..

How will I evaluate the literature to include trustworthy information and eliminate unnecessary or untrustworthy information?

While you are searching for relevant information about your topic you will need to think about the accuracy of the information, whether the information is from a reputable source, whether it is objective and current. Our guides about Evaluating Scholarly Books and Articles and Evaluating Websites will give you criteria to use when evaluating resources.

How should I organize my literature? What citation management program is best for me?

Citation management software can help you organize your references in folders and/or with tags. You can also annotate and highlight the PDFs within the software and usually the notes are searchable. To choose a good citation management software, you need to consider which one can be streamlined with your literature search and writing process. Here is a guide page comparing EndNote, Mendeley & Zotero. The Library also has guides for three of the major citation management tools:

• EndNote & EndNote Web Guide
• Mendeley Guide
• Getting Started with Zotero

What steps should I take to ensure academic integrity?

The best way to ensure academic integrity is to familiarize yourself with different types of intentional and unintentional plagiarism and learn about the University's standards for academic integrity. Start with this guide . The Library also has a guide about your rights and responsibilities regarding copyrighted images and figures that you include in your thesis.

Where can I find writing and editing help?

Writing and editing help is available at the Graduate College's Center for Communication Excellence . The CCE offers individual consultations, peer writing groups, workshops and seminars to help you improve your writing.

Where can I find I find formatting standards? Technical support?

The Graduate College has a Dissertation/ Thesis website with extensive examples and videos about formatting theses and dissertations. The site also has templates and formatting instructions for Word and LaTex .

What citation style should I use?

The Graduate College thesis guidelines require that you "use a consistent, current academic style for your discipline." The Library has a Citation Style Guides resource you can use for guidance on specific citation styles. If you are not sure, please consult your advisor or liaison librarians for help.

Adapted from The Literature Review: For Dissertations, by the University of Michigan Library. Available: https://guides.lib.umich.edu/dissertationlitreview

Center for Communication Excellence/ Library Workshop Slides

Slides from the CCE/ Library Workshop "A Citation Here...A Citation There...Pretty Soon You'll Have a Lit Review" held on February 21, 2024 are below:

• CCE Workshop February 21, 2024
• Next: Types of Literature Reviews >>

The library's collections and services are available to all ISU students, faculty, and staff and Parks Library is open to the public .

• Last Updated: Aug 12, 2024 4:07 PM
• URL: https://instr.iastate.libguides.com/gradlitrev

Literature Reviews

• Getting Started
• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• Peer Review
• Citation/Style Guides This link opens in a new window

Quick Links

1. choose a topic. define your research question..

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.  Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor.

2. Decide on the scope of your review.

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search.  You can use our Discovery Service to search all library databases or view our Online Resources A to Z list to find individual databases.   

Tips: 

• Look at the library's research guides in your discipline to select discipline-specific databases.  Don't forget to look at books!
• Make an appointment with or contact your librarian to make sure you aren't missing major databases.

4. Conduct your searches and find the literature. Keep track of your searches!

• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Write down the searches you conduct in each database so that you may duplicate them if you need to later (or avoid dead-end searches   that you'd forgotten you'd already tried).
• Save your searches and results by creating an account and signing in.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Ask your professor or a scholar in the field if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Keep track of your searches by using Zotero or another bibliographic tool.

5. Review the literature.

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions. Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited?; if so, how has it been analyzed?
• Again, review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.

Conducting a literature review is usually recursive, meaning that somewhere along the way, you'll find yourself repeating steps out-of-order.

That is actually a good sign.  

Reviewing the research should lead to more research questions and those questions will likely lead you to either revise your initial research question or go back and find more literature related to a more specific aspect of your research question.

• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: Finding "The Literature" >>
• Last Updated: Aug 14, 2024 5:23 PM
• URL: https://westlibrary.txwes.edu/literaturereview

Conducting a Literature Review

• Literature Review
• Developing a Topic
• Planning Your Literature Review
• Developing a Search Strategy
• Managing Citations
• Critical Appraisal Tools
• Writing a Literature Review

What is a Literature Review

A literature review is a  systematic review of the published literature on a specific topic or research question designed to analyze-- not just summarize-- scholarly writings that are related directly to your research question .  That is, it represents the literature that provides background information on your topic and shows a correspondence between those writings and your research question.  This guide is designed to be a general resource for those completing a literature review in their field. 

Why a Literature Review is Important

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Helps focus your own research questions or problems
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias.
• Identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches.
• Indicates potential directions for future research.

A Literature Review Must:

A literature review must do these things

• be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question you are developing
• synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
• identify areas of controversy in the literature
• formulate questions that need further research

A Literature Review is NOT

Keep in mind that a literature review defines and sets the stage for your later research.  While you may take the same steps in researching your literature review, your literature review is NOT:

• Not an annotated bibliography i n which you summarize each article that you have reviewed.  A lit review goes beyond basic summarizing to focus on the critical analysis of the reviewed works and their relationship to your research question.
• Not a research paper  where you select resources to support one side of an issue versus another.  A lit review should explain and consider all sides of an argument in order to avoid bias, and areas of agreement and disagreement should be highlighted.

Types of Literature Reviews

D ifferent projects involve different  kinds  of literature reviews with different  kinds  and  amounts  of work. And, of course, the "end products" vary.

• Honors paper
• Capstone project
• Research Study
• Senior thesis
• Masters thesis
• Doctoral dissertation
• Research article
• Grant proposal
• Evidence based practice
• The Interprofessional Health Sciences Library
• 123 Metro Boulevard
• Nutley, NJ 07110
• [email protected]
• Student Services
• Parents and Families
• Career Center
• Web Accessibility
• Visiting Campus
• Public Safety
• Disability Support Services
• Campus Security Report
• Report a Problem
• Login to LibApps

Literature Review

• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review
• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• Sample Literature Reviews
• FAMU Writing Center

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.  Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor.

2. Decide on the scope of your review.

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

Tip: This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

• Look at the Library's research guides in your discipline to select discipline-specific databases.  Don't forget to look at books!
• Make an appointment with or contact your   subject librarian to make sure you aren't missing major databases.

4. Conduct your searches and find the literature. Keep track of your searches!

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Write down the searches you conduct in each database so that you may duplicate them if you need to later (or avoid dead-end searches   that you'd forgotten you'd already tried).
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Ask your professor or a scholar in the field if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Use RefWorks to keep track of your research citations. See the RefWorks Tutorial if you need help.

5. Review the literature.

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions. Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited?; if so, how has it been analyzed?
• Again, review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.

Composing your literature review

O nce you've settled on a general pattern of organization, you're ready to write each section. There are a few guidelines you should follow during the writing stage. Here is a sample paragraph from a literature review about sexism and language to illuminate the following discussion:

  However, other studies have shown that even gender-neutral antecedents are more likely to produce masculine images than feminine ones (Gastil, 1990). Hamilton (1988) asked students to complete sentences that required them to fill in pronouns that agreed with gender-neutral antecedents such as "writer," "pedestrian," and "persons." The students were asked to describe any image they had when writing the sentence. Hamilton found that people imagined 3.3 men to each woman in the masculine "generic" condition and 1.5 men per woman in the unbiased condition. Thus, while ambient sexism accounted for some of the masculine bias, sexist language amplified the effect. (Source: Erika Falk and Jordan Mills, "Why Sexist Language Affects Persuasion: The Role of Homophily, Intended Audience, and Offense," Women and Language19:2.

Use evidence

In the example above, the writers refer to several other sources when making their point. A literature review in this sense is just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence to show that what you are saying is valid.

Be selective

Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the review's focus, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological.

Use quotes sparingly

Falk and Mills do not use any direct quotes. That is because the survey nature of the literature review does not allow for in-depth discussion or detailed quotes from the text. Some short quotes here and there are okay, though if you want to emphasize a point, or if what the author said just cannot be rewritten in your own words. Notice that Falk and Mills do quote certain terms that were coined by the author, not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. But if you find yourself wanting to put in more quotes, check with your instructor.

Summarize and synthesize

Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each paragraph as well as throughout the review. The authors here recapitulate important features of Hamilton's study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to their own work.

Keep your own voice

While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice (the writer's) should remain front and center. Notice that Falk and Mills weave references to other sources into their own text, but they still maintain their own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with their own ideas and their own words. The sources support what Falk and Mills are saying.

Use caution when paraphrasing

When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. In the preceding example, Falk and Mills either directly refer in the text to the author of their source, such as Hamilton, or they provide ample notation in the text when the ideas they are mentioning are not their own, for example, Gastil's. For more information, please see our handout on plagiarism .

• << Previous: Home
• Next: Finding "The Literature" >>
• Last Updated: Oct 20, 2022 11:24 AM
• URL: https://library.famu.edu/literaturereview

Literature Reviews (Health Sciences)

• What is a Literature Review?
• Best Practices
• Research Question Development
• Written Protocol
• Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria

Librarian Collaboration

Tier one (basic support: librarian as advisor), tier two (librarian as research partner).

• Search Documentation
• Screening Results
• Quality Assessment
• Reference Management

Contact a Librarian

Still have questions about reviews.

Fill out the form below and a librarian will contact you shortly!

Systematic Reviews follow established guidelines and best practices, and MUSC Library’s goal is to work with you to produce a high-quality review. Librarians offer two tiers of collaboration: Tier One (basic support) and Tier Two (research partner). Roles and expectations of librarians and research teams based on the tier of collaboration. Read more about the librarian's role in a systematic review team .

Research teams should partner with a librarian to design search strategies. Librarians are experts in translating research questions into search concepts, identifying appropriate databases, developing comprehensive search strategies, translating the search strategy for each database, writing the search methodology, and creating the PRISMA flow diagram.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (formally the Institute of Medicine) has issued standards for systematic review teams in the book, " Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews" including standards specifically for conducting searches:

• Standard 3.1.1: Work with a librarian or other information specialist trained in performing systematic reviews (SRs) to plan the search strategy.
• Standard 3.1.3: Use an independent librarian or other information specialist to peer review the search strategy.

For Tier One service, librarians will provide:

• Consultation to determine the feasibility of a systematic review vs other review types.
• Provide guidance on best practices, protocols, or guidelines, e.g. PRISMA.
• Recommend appropriate databases and advise on initial search strategies. 
• Provide advice on Covidence review management software.

• << Previous: Database Search
• Next: Databases >>
• Last Updated: Jun 27, 2024 12:33 PM
• URL: https://musc.libguides.com/reviews

PSYC 210: Foundations of Psychology

• Tips for Searching for Articles

What is a literature review?

Conducting a literature review, organizing a literature review, writing a literature review, helpful book.

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Google Scholar

A  literature review  is a compilation of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works.

• Summarizes and analyzes previous research relevant to a topic
• Includes scholarly books and articles published in academic journals
• Can be an specific scholarly paper or a section in a research paper

The objective of a Literature Review is to find previous published scholarly works relevant to an specific topic

• Help gather ideas or information
• Keep up to date in current trends and findings
• Help develop new questions

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area
• Helps focus your own research questions or problems
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic
• Tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias
• Identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches

Source: "What is a Literature Review?", Old Dominion University,  https://guides.lib.odu.edu/c.php?g=966167&p=6980532

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question. 

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question. It represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted, and analyzed by you in a synthesized way. 

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.
• Write down terms that are related to your question for they will be useful for searches later. 

2. Decide on the scope of your review. 

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.
• Consider these things when planning your time for research. 

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches. 

• By Research Guide 

4. Conduct your searches and find the literature. 

• Review the abstracts carefully - this will save you time!
• Many databases will have a search history tab for you to return to for later.
• Use bibliographies and references of research studies to locate others.
• Use citation management software such as Zotero to keep track of your research citations. 

5. Review the literature. 

Some questions to help you analyze the research: 

• What was the research question you are reviewing? What are the authors trying to discover? 
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings? 
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze the literature review, samples and variables used, results, and conclusions. Does the research seem complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise? 
• If there are conflicted studies, why do you think that is? 
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Are they experts or novices? Has the study been cited? 

Source: "Literature Review", University of West Florida,  https://libguides.uwf.edu/c.php?g=215113&p=5139469

A literature review is not a summary of the sources but a synthesis of the sources. It is made up of the topics the sources are discussing. Each section of the review is focused on a topic, and the relevant sources are discussed within the context of that topic. 

1. Select the most relevant material from the sources

• Could be material that answers the question directly
• Extract as a direct quote or paraphrase 

2. Arrange that material so you can focus on it apart from the source text itself

• You are now working with fewer words/passages
• Material is all in one place

3. Group similar points, themes, or topics together and label them 

• The labels describe the points, themes, or topics that are the backbone of your paper’s structure

4. Order those points, themes, or topics as you will discuss them in the paper, and turn the labels into actual assertions

• A sentence that makes a point that is directly related to your research question or thesis 

This is now the outline for your literature review. 

Source: "Organizing a Review of the Literature – The Basics", George Mason University Writing Center,  https://writingcenter.gmu.edu/writing-resources/research-based-writing/organizing-literature-reviews-the-basics

• Literature Review Matrix Here is a template on how people tend to organize their thoughts. The matrix template is a good way to write out the key parts of each article and take notes. Downloads as an XLSX file.

The most common way that literature reviews are organized is by theme or author. Find a general pattern of structure for the review. When organizing the review, consider the following: 

• the methodology 
• the quality of the findings or conclusions
• major strengths and weaknesses
• any other important information

Writing Tips: 

• Be selective - Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. It should directly relate to the review's focus.
• Use quotes sparingly.
• Keep your own voice - Your voice (the writer's) should remain front and center. .   
• Aim for one key figure/table per section to illustrate complex content, summarize a large body of relevant data, or describe the order of a process
• Legend below image/figure and above table and always refer to them in text 

Source: "Composing your Literature Review", Florida A&M University,  https://library.famu.edu/c.php?g=577356&p=3982811

• << Previous: Tips for Searching for Articles
• Next: Citing Your Sources >>
• Last Updated: Aug 21, 2024 3:43 PM
• URL: https://infoguides.pepperdine.edu/PSYC210

Explore. Discover. Create.

Copyright ©  2022  Pepperdine University

• UWF Libraries

Literature Review: Conducting & Writing

• Steps for Conducting a Lit Review

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

2. decide on the scope of your review., 3. select the databases you will use to conduct your searches., 4. conduct your searches and find the literature. keep track of your searches, 5. review the literature..

• Finding "The Literature"
• Organizing/Writing
• APA Style This link opens in a new window
• Chicago: Notes Bibliography This link opens in a new window
• MLA Style This link opens in a new window
• Sample Literature Reviews

Disclaimer!!

Conducting a literature review is usually recursive, meaning that somewhere along the way, you'll find yourself repeating steps out-of-order.

That is actually a good sign.  

Reviewing the research should lead to more research questions and those questions will likely lead you to either revise your initial research question or go back and find more literature related to a more specific aspect of your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.  Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor.

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

Tip: This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

Make a list of the databases you will search.  Remember to include comprehensive databases such as WorldCat and Dissertations & Theses, if you need to.

Where to find databases:

• Find Databases by Subject UWF Databases categorized by discipline
• Find Databases via Research Guides Librarians create research guides for all of the disciplines on campus! Take advantage of their expertise and see what discipline-specific search strategies they recommend!
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Write down the searches you conduct in each database so that you may duplicate them if you need to later (or avoid dead-end searches   that you'd forgotten you'd already tried).
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Ask your professor or a scholar in the field if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Use RefWorks to keep track of your research citations. See the RefWorks Tutorial if you need help.

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions. Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited?; if so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Again, review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• << Previous: Home
• Next: Finding "The Literature" >>
• Last Updated: Aug 8, 2024 11:00 AM
• URL: https://libguides.uwf.edu/litreview

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Request Info
• Search Search Site Faculty/Staff
• Open Navigation Menu Menu Close Navigation Menu
• Literature Review Guidelines

Making sense of what has been written on your topic.

Goals of a literature review:.

Before doing work in primary sources, historians must know what has been written on their topic.  They must be familiar with theories and arguments–as well as facts–that appear in secondary sources.

Before you proceed with your research project, you too must be familiar with the literature: you do not want to waste time on theories that others have disproved and you want to take full advantage of what others have argued.  You want to be able to discuss and analyze your topic.

Your literature review will demonstrate your familiarity with your topic’s secondary literature.

GUIDELINES FOR A LITERATURE REVIEW:

1) LENGTH:  8-10 pages of text for Senior Theses (485) (consult with your professor for other classes), with either footnotes or endnotes and with a works-consulted bibliography. [See also the  citation guide  on this site.]

2) NUMBER OF WORKS REVIEWED: Depends on the assignment, but for Senior Theses (485), at least ten is typical.

3) CHOOSING WORKS:

Your literature review must include enough works to provide evidence of both the breadth and the depth of the research on your topic or, at least, one important angle of it.  The number of works necessary to do this will depend on your topic. For most topics, AT LEAST TEN works (mostly books but also significant scholarly articles) are necessary, although you will not necessarily give all of them equal treatment in your paper (e.g., some might appear in notes rather than the essay). 4) ORGANIZING/ARRANGING THE LITERATURE:

As you uncover the literature (i.e., secondary writing) on your topic, you should determine how the various pieces relate to each other.  Your ability to do so will demonstrate your understanding of the evolution of literature.

You might determine that the literature makes sense when divided by time period, by methodology, by sources, by discipline, by thematic focus, by race, ethnicity, and/or gender of author, or by political ideology.  This list is not exhaustive.  You might also decide to subdivide categories based on other criteria.  There is no “rule” on divisions—historians wrote the literature without consulting each other and without regard to the goal of fitting into a neat, obvious organization useful to students.

The key step is to FIGURE OUT the most logical, clarifying angle.  Do not arbitrarily choose a categorization; use the one that the literature seems to fall into.  How do you do that?  For every source, you should note its thesis, date, author background, methodology, and sources.  Does a pattern appear when you consider such information from each of your sources?  If so, you have a possible thesis about the literature.  If not, you might still have a thesis.

Consider: Are there missing elements in the literature?  For example, no works published during a particular (usually fairly lengthy) time period?  Or do studies appear after long neglect of a topic?  Do interpretations change at some point?  Does the major methodology being used change?  Do interpretations vary based on sources used?

Follow these links for more help on analyzing  historiography  and  historical perspective .

5) CONTENTS OF LITERATURE REVIEW:

The literature review is a research paper with three ingredients:

a) A brief discussion of the issue (the person, event, idea). [While this section should be brief, it needs to set up the thesis and literature that follow.] b) Your thesis about the literature c) A clear argument, using the works on topic as evidence, i.e., you discuss the sources in relation to your thesis, not as a separate topic.

These ingredients must be presented in an essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion.

6) ARGUING YOUR THESIS:

The thesis of a literature review should not only describe how the literature has evolved, but also provide a clear evaluation of that literature.  You should assess the literature in terms of the quality of either individual works or categories of works.  For instance, you might argue that a certain approach (e.g. social history, cultural history, or another) is better because it deals with a more complex view of the issue or because they use a wider array of source materials more effectively. You should also ensure that you integrate that evaluation throughout your argument.  Doing so might include negative assessments of some works in order to reinforce your argument regarding the positive qualities of other works and approaches to the topic.

Within each group, you should provide essential information about each work: the author’s thesis, the work’s title and date, the author’s supporting arguments and major evidence.

In most cases, arranging the sources chronologically by publication date within each section makes the most sense because earlier works influenced later ones in one way or another.  Reference to publication date also indicates that you are aware of this significant historiographical element.

As you discuss each work, DO NOT FORGET WHY YOU ARE DISCUSSING IT.  YOU ARE PRESENTING AND SUPPORTING A THESIS ABOUT THE LITERATURE.

When discussing a particular work for the first time, you should refer to it by the author’s full name, the work’s title, and year of publication (either in parentheses after the title or worked into the sentence).

For example, “The field of slavery studies has recently been transformed by Ben Johnson’s The New Slave (2001)” and “Joe Doe argues in his 1997 study, Slavery in America, that . . . .”

Your paper should always note secondary sources’ relationship to each other, particularly in terms of your thesis about the literature (e.g., “Unlike Smith’s work, Mary Brown’s analysis reaches the conclusion that . . . .” and “Because of Anderson’s reliance on the president’s personal papers, his interpretation differs from Barry’s”). The various pieces of the literature are “related” to each other, so you need to indicate to the reader some of that relationship.  (It helps the reader follow your thesis, and it convinces the reader that you know what you are talking about.)

7) DOCUMENTATION:

Each source you discuss in your paper must be documented using footnotes/endnotes and a bibliography.  Providing author and title and date in the paper is not sufficient.  Use correct Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style form.  [See  Bibliography  and  Footnotes/Endnotes  pages.]

In addition, further supporting, but less significant, sources should be included in  content foot or endnotes .  (e.g., “For a similar argument to Ben Johnson’s, see John Terry, The Slave Who Was New (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), 3-45.”)

8 ) CONCLUSION OF LITERATURE REVIEW:

Your conclusion should not only reiterate your argument (thesis), but also discuss questions that remain unanswered by the literature.  What has the literature accomplished?  What has not been studied?  What debates need to be settled?

Additional writing guidelines

History and American Studies

• About the Department
• Major Requirements & Courses
• What courses will I take as an History major?
• What can I do with my History degree?
• History 485
• Methodology
• Choosing a Topic
• Book Reviews
• Historiographic Clues
• Understanding Historical Perspective
• Sample Literature Review
• Using Quotations
• Ellipses and Brackets
• Footnotes and Endnotes
• Content Notes
• Citation Guide
• Citing Non-Print Resources
• How to Annotate
• Annotated Examples
• Journals vs. Magazines
• Understanding Plagiarism
• Historians Define Plagiarism
• Plagiarism Tutorial
• UMW Honor System
• Presentation Guidelines
• Tips for Leading Seminars
• Hints for Class Discussion
• Speaking Center
• Guidelines for a Research Paper
• Library Research Plan
• How to Use ILL
• Database Guide
• Guide to Online Research
• Writing Guidelines
• Recognizing Passive Voice
• Introduction and Conclusion
• MS Word’s Grammar and Spellcheck
• Writing Center
• What You Need to Know
• Links to Online Primary Sources by Region
• What will I learn from my American Studies major?
• What courses will I take as an American Studies major?
• What can I do with my American Studies degree?
• American Studies 485
• For Prospective Students
• Honors and Award Recipients
• Internships

Alumni Intros

How have History & American Studies majors built careers after earning their degrees? Learn more by clicking the image above.  

Recent Posts

• History and American Studies Symposium–April 26, 2024
• Fall 2024 Courses
• Fall 2023 Symposium – 12/8 – All Welcome!
• Spring ’24 Course Flyers
• Internship Opportunity – Chesapeake Gateways Ambassador
• Congratulations to our Graduates!
• History and American Studies Symposium–April 21, 2023
• View umwhistory’s profile on Facebook
• View umwhistory’s profile on Twitter

• University of Michigan Library
• Research Guides

Environmental Health Sciences

• Conducting Literature Reviews
• Databases (General)
• Subject-Specific Resources
• Health Statistics
• Creating a Well-Focused Question
• Searching in PubMed
• PubMed - Article Abstract Page
• Searching Other Databases - Embase
• Searching Other Databases - Web of Science
• Writing, Citing, & Research This link opens in a new window
• Citation Management
• Evaluating Sources
• Copyright & Publishing
• Funding Sources for SPH Students This link opens in a new window
• NIH Public Access Policy (NIHPAP) This link opens in a new window
• Research Funding & Grants This link opens in a new window

Library Contact

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of literature review is appropriate for my research question?    This will depend on your area of research, but in the health sciences, you will most often rely on scholarly journal articles, patents, conference proceedings, & data sets.  You also may need to use books, newspaper articles, & new media, such as Twitter & blog posts.

How much literature should I use?    There is no standard answer to this question, but make sure that you have enough literature to tell your story. You may find examples in the workshops that are occasionally given for graduate students by the Rackham Graduate School & English Language Institute. Discuss this question with your advisor & peers.

How will I find all appropriate information to inform my research?    You should consult multiple databases & resources appropriate for your research area so that you can have a comprehensive view of the research that has already been done in your area. Browse the research guides for your department or subject for databases & other resources recommended for your specific area.  Also consult with your informationist at the Taubman Health Sciences Library to determine the resources you should investigate.

Do I need to document my searches in any way?   If you are going to publish this project, then the answer is a most emphatic "yes," as you'll need to include a description of your searches in the methodology section.  Even if this is just a class research project, keeping track of the search strategies that you used can help you prevent making the same mistake twice. At the least, you'll want to include y) our final search strategy for each database, 2) the number of records deleting duplicates, 3) (depending on the type of review that you're doing) the number of articles that were relevant to your topic & were used in your study. Consult an informationist for specific examples

How will I evaluate the literature to include trustworthy information and eliminate unnecessary or untrustworthy information?    Start with scholarly sources, such as peer-reviewed journal articles & books. Always pay attention to creditability of the source(s) & the author(s) you cite. Citation analysis ( http://guides.lib.umich.edu/citeanalysis & http://guides.lib.umich.edu/citation ) can be useful to check the creditability of sources & authors.

How should I organize my literature? What citation management program is best for me?    Citation management software, such as EndNote, Mendeley, & Zotero, helps you collect & organize references & easily insert citations & format citations & bibliographies in thousands of styles in your Word document.

To choose the program that's right for you, consider which one works best with your literature search & writing process. This guide compares different types of citation management software & provides tutorials for each type. You may also ask your liaison librarian for advice.

How do I ensure academic integrity (i.e., avoid plagiarism)?    Familiarize yourself with different types of intentional and unintentional plagiarism and learn about the University's standards for academic integrity. Start with this guide .  Remember, citation management tools can help you avoid unintentional plagiarism by making it easy to collect & cite sources.

The Process of Writing a Literature Review

What kind of literature should you choose.

Different types of information sources may be critical for particular disciplines.  Please contact your liaison librarian for additional guidance on information sources appropriate to your research.  In addition to books, reference resources, journal articles, & datasets, these sources may be helpful.

Government documents

The U.S. Government Printing Office produces a great deal of information that is useful to researchers. Congress, the Supreme Court, the Office of the President & federal agencies are rich sources of policy information, legislation, & historical records. The University of Michigan's Clark Library is a federal depository library. Librarians there can help you find documents and records created by the federal government, as well as state & local laws & legislation.  International government information can be found in United Nations documents , available in print & online since 1946.  Also check the Grey Literature guide for more resources.

Statistics reported by government or private sources can be useful, but can also be difficult to find.  Use the Health Statistics research guide for more information on how to search & for sources.

Grey Literature

Theses & Dissertations :    Dissertations on topics similar to yours may contain information & technical details not published in other forms. You may also be inspired by how others approach similar topics.  

Conference proceedings :    For many fields, researchers present their most up-to-date research results at professional conferences. These results will later be published in conference proceedings, abstracts, or preprints. 

Other unpublished information :    For all of the above and resources, including clinical & pharmaceutical research, FDA reports, & more, visit the Grey Literature research guide .

What is a Literature Review?

A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books, dissertations, conference proceedings & other resources that are relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory & provides context for a master's thesis or Ph.D. dissertation by identifying past research.

Research tells a story, & the existing literature helps us identify where we are in the story currently. It is up to those writing a thesis or dissertation to continue that story with new research and new perspectives, but they must first be familiar with the story before they can move forward. 

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review:

• Helps you to discover the research that has been conducted on a topic already & identifies gaps in current knowledge
• Increases the breadth of your knowledge in your area of research
• Helps you identify seminal works in your area
• Allows you to provide the intellectual context for your work & position your research with other, related research
• Provides you with opposing viewpoints
• Helps you to discover research methods that may be applicable to your work

Greenfield, T. (2002). Research methods for postgraduates. 2nd ed. London: Arnold.

There are many specific types of literature reviews.  For more information on Comparative Effectiveness Reviews and Systematic Reviews, click here .  To read more about the different types of reviews, see this article:  Maria J. Grant & Andrew Booth. "A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies".  Health Information and Libraries Journal (26):91–108.  DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

Related Research Guides

• Grey Literature Resources & strategies for searching for information not contained in databases.
• Finding Tests & Measurement Instruments Resources, tips, & tricks for finding tests & measurement instruments in the health & social sciences.
• THL Citation Management Tutorials on EndNote, Mendeley, & Zotero.
• Citation Analysis Guide Information about impact factors, journal rankings, & how to find who has cited an article.
• Systematic Reviews (research guide) How to do a systematic review: what it is,the process/methodology, & helpful tips.
• Research Impact Assessment (Health Sciences) Explore methods and tools for assessing your research impact, including citation tracking and altmetrics.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Res Integr Peer Rev

Librarians as methodological peer reviewers for systematic reviews: results of an online survey

Holly k. grossetta nardini.

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06520-8014 USA

Janene Batten

Melissa c. funaro, rolando garcia-milian, judy m. spak, janis g. glover, associated data.

Data and materials are available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/s6yab/ .

Developing a comprehensive, reproducible literature search is the basis for a high-quality systematic review (SR). Librarians and information professionals, as expert searchers, can improve the quality of systematic review searches, methodology, and reporting. Likewise, journal editors and authors often seek to improve the quality of published SRs and other evidence syntheses through peer review. Health sciences librarians contribute to systematic review production but little is known about their involvement in peer reviewing SR manuscripts.

This survey aimed to assess how frequently librarians are asked to peer review systematic review manuscripts and to determine characteristics associated with those invited to review. The survey was distributed to a purposive sample through three health sciences information professional listservs.

There were 291 complete survey responses. Results indicated that 22% ( n = 63) of respondents had been asked by journal editors to peer review systematic review or meta-analysis manuscripts. Of the 78% ( n = 228) of respondents who had not already been asked, 54% ( n = 122) would peer review, and 41% ( n = 93) might peer review. Only 4% ( n = 9) would not review a manuscript. Respondents had peer reviewed manuscripts for 38 unique journals and believed they were asked because of their professional expertise. Of respondents who had declined to peer review (32%, n = 20), the most common explanation was “not enough time” (60%, n = 12) followed by “lack of expertise” (50%, n = 10).

The vast majority of respondents (95%, n = 40) had “rejected or recommended a revision of a manuscript| after peer review. They based their decision on the “search methodology” (57%, n = 36), “search write-up” (46%, n = 29), or “entire article” (54%, n = 34). Those who selected “other” (37%, n = 23) listed a variety of reasons for rejection, including problems or errors in the PRISMA flow diagram; tables of included, excluded, and ongoing studies; data extraction; reporting; and pooling methods.

Conclusions

Despite being experts in conducting literature searches and supporting SR teams through the review process, few librarians have been asked to review SR manuscripts, or even just search strategies; yet many are willing to provide this service. Editors should involve experienced librarians with peer review and we suggest some strategies to consider.

Systematic reviews (SR) summarize and evaluate primary studies on a research topic to establish evidence about the efficacy of an intervention [ 1 ]. When a systematic review is done well, it is considered to be evidence of the highest level on which to base health care decisions [ 2 ]. Systematic reviews (SR) and other types of evidence syntheses, for example meta-analyses, scoping reviews, integrative reviews, rapid reviews, and clinical guidelines, use rigorous protocols and guidelines to gather and synthesize all literature relevant to a research or clinical question [ 1 , 3 ]. The methodology requires a systematic, transparent, reproducible, and comprehensive search to locate all studies, published and unpublished, about a topic [ 4 , 5 ]. Conversely, narrative literature reviews do not require the same level of rigor in the literature search, nor the double screening of results to determine if the information found meets pre-established inclusion criteria. A literature review does not typically include formal quality assessment or risk of bias assessment and is not considered evidence-based.

The number of published systematic reviews is increasing dramatically; one study reports an increase of 2,700% between 1991 and 2014 [ 6 ]. Unfortunately, many of these SRs are conflicted, overlapping, and poorly reported [ 6 ]. Some research shows possible improvement in reporting quality, particularly in Cochrane SRs [ 7 ]. Methodological rigor, such as the quality of the search strategies, directly affects the quality of systematic reviews.

Identifying a comprehensive body of potentially relevant studies from the literature is a critically important initial step in an evidence synthesis and, if done poorly, can compromise the entire review [ 8 , 9 ]. “Data” in a systematic review are the set of studies resulting from the comprehensive literature search, which is analogous to the findings and data from a primary research study or specific results or data from an experiment [ 9 ]. Proper construction, validation, and reporting of search strategies to retrieve these data are fundamental to the quality and reproducibility of systematic reviews and meta-analyses [ 4 , 5 , 7 , 9 – 13 ]. Librarians, information specialists, and informationists are experts in searching for information, and systematic review quality improves when the systematic search methodology is designed and performed by a librarian [ 10 , 14 , 15 ]. Involvement of a librarian in the process of developing and executing a comprehensive search is increasingly evident in the literature and strongly encouraged by organizations such as the Cochrane Collaboration; the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (previously Institute of Medicine—IOM); and the Campbell Collaboration [ 1 , 4 , 9 ]. Increasingly, because of expertise in searching and methodological advice, librarians are sought after as partners and co-authors of systematic reviews [ 16 ] and research shows that the quality of SRs is higher if librarians are included as co-authors [ 12 ]. At the authors’ institution, research teams undertaking systematic reviews with significant librarian involvement are required to include the librarian as a co-author [ 17 – 21 ].

Biomedical journal editors have expressed interest in improving the quality of published evidence syntheses, both in design and in reporting. Several journals now include specific systematic review instructions for authors or have appointed section editors especially for systematic reviews and other review types [ 14 , 22 , 23 ]. Some journals put submissions through statistical review as a matter of policy or encourage editors to pursue statistical review of certain sections by methodological specialists [ 24 , 25 ]. Some journals require that authors use specific reporting standards for systematic reviews [ 26 , 27 ]. Multiple standards exist for the design and reporting of systematic reviews as well as other evidence syntheses, chief among them IOM, Cochrane Handbooks, Methodological Expectations for Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR), Meta-analyses Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE), and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) [ 1 , 4 , 28 – 30 ]. Evaluation tools have also been developed for critical appraisal of systematic reviews (AMSTAR) and of SR search strategies (PRESS) [ 31 , 32 ]. The EQUATOR Network provides a robust list of reporting guidelines for many study types [ 33 ]. If these standards are recommended by editorial policies and used by authors, then peer reviewers of systematic review and meta-analysis manuscripts should also use them as they conduct a review of the design, execution, and reporting of a systematic review manuscript [ 34 ]. Reviewers are also best positioned to effectively peer review if they have both subject expertise and experience with the study design of the manuscript they are evaluating. Librarians and information specialists with search expertise are well qualified to peer review the methodology and reported search strategies of SR manuscripts.

Librarians' roles in the systematic review process are broadening [ 35 , 36 ]. However, the extent of librarians’ involvement as journal manuscript peer reviewers has not been investigated. This study sought to answer that question.

A survey was developed to capture experiences of medical librarians with regard to the peer review process of SR manuscript submissions to journals. The 16-question survey was developed in Qualtrics, pilot tested with a group of medical librarians, and reviewed by a methodological expert. The survey questions included demographic information about type of professional setting, years as a librarian, and depth of involvement in systematic review teams. Questions were also asked about respondents’ experience with systematic reviews and/or peer reviewing. Survey logic presented different questions to different respondents (e.g., only those answering yes to a specific question would be asked questions related to that answer. The Yale University Human Subjects Committee ruled that this survey was exempt from human subjects protection (IRB #2000022848). The survey and a CHERRIES-compliant reporting checklist are Additional file 1 : Tables S5 and S6 [ 37 ].

The survey was distributed to a purposive sample [ 38 ]. On March 15, 2018, the survey was emailed through three listservs known to be used by biomedical information professionals who do systematic reviews (AASHL-all, medlib-l, expertsearching) and a reminder notification was sent to the same listservs on March 29, 2018. To get wide distribution, recipients were encouraged to invite others to respond, a variation on a snowball sample. There were no financial incentives for participation. The survey closed on April 6, 2018. We were unable to calculate a response rate because respondents self-selected to complete the survey and were asked to invite additional respondents. Additionally, it is difficult to calculate the response rate because there is an unknown but potentially significant overlap between the three listserv subscriber groups. The survey data was extracted and analyzed using Microsoft Excel and R (version 3.5.3; The R Project for Statistical Computing). To analyze the association between variables, we used Fisher’s exact test. Preliminary results were reported at the Medical Library Association Meeting in May 2018 [ 39 ].

A total of 291 respondents completed the survey. The number of respondents per question ranged from 20 to 291. All results are presented in Additional file 1 : Table S1.

The median number of years that respondents had been librarians was 11.5 (IQR 6–20). Most respondents worked in either an academic medical library ( n = 169, 66%) or a teaching hospital ( n = 37, 14%, Q12-13). More than a third of respondents ( n = 95, 37%) had participated in over 11 systematic review teams or created and conducted searches for SRs. About one quarter ( n = 61, 24%) had participated in 5–10 systematic reviews, another third ( n = 79, 31%) had participated in 1–4 systematic reviews, and the remainder ( n = 24, 9%) had never participated in or created and conducted searches for systematic reviews (Q14).

Respondents gained their expertise through three main methods: classes/webinars ( n = 220, 85%), self-training ( n = 145, 56%), or in-house training ( n = 121, 47%, Q15). Most respondents had not been asked by a journal editor to peer review ( n = 228, 78%). Of the respondents who had not been asked to peer review, most indicated that they would ( n = 122, 54%) or might ( n = 93, 41%) peer review a manuscript if asked. Only nine respondents said they would not peer review a manuscript if asked ( n = 9, 4%, Q2, Q16).

For librarians who had been asked by a journal editor to peer review ( n = 63, 22%), respondents listed 38 unique journal titles. They included PLOS ONE with five mentions and JAMIA : a Scholarly Journal of Informatics in Health and Biomedicine , JBI Database of Systematic Reviews , Journal of the Medical Library Association , and Systematic Reviews all with three mentions each (Additional file 1 : Table S2). Most of the respondents ( n = 31, 70%) knew why they were asked to peer review. The most frequent reasons given were their professional expertise, referral by a colleague, and expertise in the topic area (Q3-4).

The median number of systematic reviews or meta-analysis manuscripts that any one respondent peer reviewed was four (IQR 1–5), with one librarian having peer reviewed 40 manuscripts (Q5).

The survey included two questions that asked respondents to identify if they used any standards for evaluating the methods section or the search strategy. Over half of the respondents ( n = 37, 59%) stated that they used standards to evaluate manuscripts’ methods sections. PRISMA was the most frequently mentioned methods standard ( n = 32, 86%), followed by Cochrane ( n = 10, 27%) and MECIR ( n = 4, 11%, Additional file 1 : Table S3). The respondents also identified the standards or checklists they utilized for evaluating search strategies ( n = 36, 57%). Most respondents mentioned using only one standard ( n = 28, 78%), while some respondents utilized two or three standards ( n = 9, 25%) PRESS was the most frequently mentioned search strategy standard used ( n = 13, 36%, Additional file 1 : Table S4).

The majority of librarians who had peer reviewed ( n = 40, 95%) rejected or recommended revisions of a manuscript. The most frequent reason given for manuscript rejection or revision was the “search methodology” ( n = 36, 86%), followed by “entire article” ( n = 34, 81%), then “search write-up” ( n = 29, 69%). Respondents also listed “other reasons” ( n = 23, 55%) for their decisions: the PRISMA flow diagram; tables of included, excluded, and ongoing studies; data extraction; inconsistent/incomplete reporting; pooling methods; and failure to use risk of bias tools. Note that these reasons could be identified as elements of the search methodology and of the search write-up, but respondents did not classify them in this way (Q8).

When asked if they had declined a request from journal editors to peer review SR manuscripts, almost half ( n = 20, 45%) reported they had declined (Q10). Top reasons included “not enough time” ( n = 12, 60%) and “did not have enough expertise” ( n = 10, 50%). One respondent said “I was asked to review the entire SR, which I did not feel competent to do. Had they asked for the search methods / search strategy only, I would have been happy to do so” (Q11).

Further analysis of the data showed that professional setting, if reported, made little difference in whether or not respondents had been asked by journal editors to peer review. Among librarians who were invited to peer review, the majority ( n = 39, 62%) had participated in SR projects themselves at least 5 times. Fisher’s exact test shows that previous systematic review authorship is indeed associated with invitations to peer review SR submissions (Table ​ (Table1 1 ).

Association of librarians’ workplace and authorship experience with invitations to peer review systematic reviews.

*Fisher test (does not include “no response”)

Our study has shown that the majority of librarians surveyed ( n = 228, 78%) have not been invited to peer review systematic review manuscripts and that half ( n = 122, 54%) of those not yet asked would be willing to do so. We also know that many editors struggle to find qualified peer reviewers [ 40 ]. This suggests that journal editors need ways to identify librarians who are interested in and capable of peer reviewing the search strategies and/or overall methodologies of manuscripts. Potentially a registry of qualified librarians could be developed and made available to editors. To help editors find a good match, the registry could include librarians’ experience with systematic reviews, and their areas of expertise. Journal editors could also look at SR search methods papers to identify qualified search specialists. Some automated tools help identify appropriate reviewers, such as Jane (Journal/Author Name Estimator) and PubReMiner [ 41 , 42 ]. Librarians who wish to peer review SRs should also explore existing peer reviewer registries, such as Publons, and make their profiles available on multiple platforms to increase their professional visibility and help journal editors find them [ 43 ]. Librarians who are already registered in journal submission systems as an author or those who proactively choose to register could indicate that they wish to peer review—often by simply checking “yes” during registration. However, many current submission systems do not capture librarians’ areas of expertise and skills in their pre-defined list of keywords or classifications or require that a minimum number of terms be selected, leaving librarians forced to choose from medical specialties or vague terms like “education” or “administration.” Some systems, like Editorial Manager or ScholarOne Manuscripts, allow journals to enable personal keywords beyond the pre-defined lists, but many journals have not enabled this option. There is an opportunity for advocacy with journal editors and software manufacturers to expand registration and profile options and establish some pre-defined options in journal submission systems (like “information specialist/librarian” or “systematic reviews” or “search specialist”). Promoting new ways to match qualified librarians with editors could help improve the peer review of systematic review manuscripts.

In our survey, 32% of information specialists/librarians ( n = 20) declined invitations to peer review entire manuscripts and only half of those who have not yet been asked ( n = 122, 54%) expressed willingness to peer review. Even though many librarians are expert systematic review methodologists and searchers, they may lack skills in peer reviewing and knowledge of the scientific content [ 10 , 44 ]. In addition to time limitations that all peer reviewers face, librarians might be reluctant to volunteer due to a perceived lack of expertise in peer review. It is important to acknowledge that there are different levels of expertise in the information specialist/librarian community and that the variation in breadth and depth of this expertise is likely reflected in our findings. With increased training and clear guidelines about which sections they are being asked to review, librarians might be more likely to accept invitations to peer review, adding to the pool of potential reviewers and improving published SRs.

One way of doing this would be for editors to ask librarians to review only specific sections of manuscripts, such as the methodology and search strategies, to harness their specialized expertise. Librarians who would like to gain peer review fluency could seek to increase their skills with the PRESS tool and through online peer reviewer training [ 31 , 45 ]. Professional organizations, library associations, and journal editors could also offer specific peer review training to librarians and maintain a searchable bank of librarian peer reviewers. Library associations and other stakeholders, like the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), could advocate to journal editors that librarian peer reviewers could improve search and methodological quality, reporting, and reproducibility [ 46 ].

The most prominent standards and guides recommend librarians be involved in systematics reviews. The Campbell Collaboration “requires the expertise . . . of an information specialist (IS) or a librarian” for information retrieval because it is a crucial part of the systematic review process [ 9 ]. The 2019 draft of the sixth edition of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions defines an integral role for the information specialist/librarian in the production of systematic reviews and recommends that authors work closely, from the start of the protocol, with a librarian experienced in the process [ 47 ]. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recommend that teams work with a librarian to plan and peer review the search strategy [ 4 ]. Yet most biomedical editorial policies do not require librarian peer review of search methodologies submitted in manuscripts. Some journals, such as Ophthalmology , Academic Medicine , Journal of School Nursing , and Annals of Family Medicine and those listed in Additional file 1 : Table S2 have turned to librarians and information specialists for peer review. Editors from other journals may not be aware that librarians have this expertise and are willing to take on this role. Biostatisticians have increasingly made the case that a biostatistician should review manuscripts’ statistical analyses [ 48 , 49 ]. Journal editors could adopt this model for librarian peer review of systematic review searches and methods.

Another important but perhaps not unexpected finding is that librarians were more likely to be asked to peer review a manuscript if they had a record of systematic review co-authorship. Co-authoring a published SR or serving on a systematic review team as a methodologist and expert searcher can demonstrate a level of expertise necessary for peer reviewing manuscripts. Editors who seek peer reviewers can discover some librarians more easily, perhaps from their record of publications, long service, and existing registrations on journal submission systems. Two thirds of respondents ( n = 194, 67%) had participated in SR teams but had not been asked to peer review a journal manuscript (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). This group reported participating in at least one systematic review and up to 40, with more than half having participated in at least five systematic review teams (Additional file : Table S1—Q14). There is clearly a pool of untapped experts potentially available for peer review.

Librarians regularly refer to standards when designing, deploying, and reporting search strategies and methodologies for systematic reviews. PRISMA is a well-known standard for SR reporting elements and PRESS is a guideline for peer reviewing search strategies. Our survey revealed that very few respondents use both of these tools to review SRs. Respondents referred to PRISMA for reviewing the methods, but some librarians also reported using PRISMA to review the search strategy. This may reflect a lack of awareness of PRESS or an overreliance on PRISMA to simply assess the reporting of search methodologies, as opposed to the underlying quality and intellectual rigor of the search strategies themselves. As librarians gain more experience with the systematic review process, whether through years of experience, training, or involvement on SR projects, there may be less reliance on checklists and tools and more reliance on professional judgment. Librarians—and all reviewers—should refer to standards, checklists, and tools when peer reviewing [ 34 , 50 , 51 ]. The increased use of standards could improve the reliability and validity of peer review and, most importantly, the rigor of published systematic reviews. In fact, studies show that adherence to reporting guidelines and including a methodologist in peer review can lead to more citations [ 52 ] although that does not necessarily reflect the quality of the underlying search. Interestingly, since this survey was administered, a new PRISMA standard, PRISMA-S, has been released to serve as a reporting standard for searches to improve their transparency and reproducibility [ 11 ].

The reproducibility of the search in a systematic review or meta-analysis is one of the markers of a high-quality review [ 29 ]. As experts in literature searching as well as systematic review methodology, information specialists and librarians are able to critically assess the quality of search strategies and reporting. This study revealed that very few librarians who peer reviewed a manuscript found the search or the reporting methods of fully acceptable quality and rigor. The majority of respondents ( n = 40, 95%) rejected or recommended revisions to manuscripts they peer reviewed, reflecting the overall publication process where very few papers are accepted outright in journals [ 53 ]. Librarians who serve as peer reviewers for journals are not simply rubber stamping the manuscripts that they review. They bring their experience, knowledge of established tools and standards, as well as their professional judgment to this role [ 35 ]. The addition of a librarian with searching expertise and methodological experience to the peer review process for submitted systematic reviews should improve the integrity of the search strategies and methods and thus the data underlying the entire review, which should, in turn, improve the quality of published systematic reviews to inform health care decision-making.

Limitations

This study had several limitations. We used a non-validated survey instrument for this novel project. Its measurement properties, as described by the COSMIN definitions, are unknown, including its reliability, validity, responsiveness, and interpretability [ 54 ]. We are unaware of any validated survey instruments designed to measure the experiences of peer reviewers in general, let alone librarian peer reviewers. Survey results are based on self-reported responses, and the survey is likely to have attracted a non-representative sample of respondents with peer reviewing experience. It might have attracted librarians and information specialists who have more experience with systematic reviews, even though respondents with no experience were also encouraged to complete the survey. Respondents were asked to recall events in the past. For example, we asked respondents to estimate the number of manuscripts they had peer reviewed. Because of the use of professional biomedical librarian listservs to recruit respondents, we are unable to report a response rate, nor do we know how representative the participants are. Despite pilot-tested language in the survey, some responses clearly are referring to informal pre-submission peer review of searches by librarian colleagues rather than journal-level formal peer review of manuscripts. The terms “systematic review” and “meta-analysis” were not clearly defined and may have been interpreted inconsistently by respondents. This study did not explore whether a single reviewer is adequate to peer review the search strategy of a systematic review; further studies could examine inter-rater reliability of librarians as peer reviewers. All authors are or were practicing biomedical librarians, which could have introduced bias to the survey or manuscript.

This survey reports medical librarian and information specialists’ experience peer reviewing systematic review manuscripts submitted for publication. Librarians are highly qualified to do comprehensive searching and often participate in systematic review teams. Furthermore, literature has shown that librarian involvement in production of a systematic review increases its quality. However, only a quarter of librarians in our study were involved in peer review of systematic reviews. Those who were involved were tough reviewers and overwhelmingly rejected or recommended revisions to manuscripts. More effort is needed from publishers, editors, journals, and professional library associations to increase the rates of librarian, information specialist, or other search strategy experts’ involvement in evaluation of systematic review manuscripts.

Supplementary information

Acknowledgements.

Fanny Duprilot and Denise Hersey for work on an earlier version of this project. Robert Hughes for Excel advice. Yale graduate students and statistical consultants Kayoko Shioda and Yingnan Lyu for statistical advice. Sarah Tudesco for reviewing the survey instrument. Robin Featherstone, Shona Kirtley, Joseph S. Ross, and Joshua Wallach for comments on drafts of the manuscript.

Abbreviations

Authors’ contributions

All authors conceptualized the study. HGN served as principal investigator and oversaw the entire project and IRB approvals. HGN presented preliminary survey results at a conference. JB revised the introduction and was a primary editor. MF drafted the survey instrument and spearheaded the data analysis. RGM assisted with survey and data analysis. KN established an OSF project associated with the paper and compiled data for CHERRIES. JS assisted with IRB approval and survey design and was a primary editor. LW spearheaded survey and data analysis. JG drafted the initial project. All authors discussed the results and analysis and critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Authors’ information

All the authors are librarians at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library at Yale University. Cumulatively they are co-authors on over 70 published evidence syntheses (including systematic reviews and meta-analyses) and biomedical research articles, in addition to articles in the library science literature. JB, RGM, HGN, KN and JS have peer reviewed over 40 manuscripts for journals including Academic Medicine ,  Annals of Family Medicine , JAMA , JAMIA , JMLA , the Journal of eScience Librarianship , the Journal of School Nursing , and PLOS ONE . JB serves on the editorial advisory board of the Journal for Pediatric Healthcare . HGN has served on publication advisory boards for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Physicians (ACP), and the Radiological Society of North American (RSNA).

Not applicable

Availability of data and materials

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

A survey instrument was used. Participants had to agree to the following statement:

Participation in this research project is completely voluntary. You have the right to say no. You may change your mind at any time and withdraw. You may choose not to answer specific questions or to stop participating at any time.

There are no personal benefits or risks to participating in this study.

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Yale University has reviewed this study and deemed it exempt. If you have any concerns or questions about the survey, please contact the researcher: Holly Grossetta Nardini, Associate Director, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University. [email protected]

Clicking the AGREE button below indicates that I have read the previous information and agree to volunteer to participate in this survey.

On March 7, 2018, the Yale Human Subjects Committee (Institutional Review Board—IRB) deemed the project exempt. Project number 2000022848

Consent for publication

Competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Holly K. Grossetta Nardini, Email: [email protected] .

Janene Batten, Email: [email protected] .

Melissa C. Funaro, Email: [email protected] .

Rolando Garcia-Milian, Email: [email protected] .

Kate Nyhan, Email: [email protected] .

Judy M. Spak, Email: [email protected] .

Lei Wang, Email: [email protected] .

Janis G. Glover, Email: moc.liamg@revolggnaj .

Supplementary information accompanies this paper at 10.1186/s41073-019-0083-5.

Covidence website will be inaccessible as we upgrading our platform on Monday 23rd August at 10am AEST, / 2am CEST/1am BST (Sunday, 15th August 8pm EDT/5pm PDT) 

The Librarian’s Role in a Systematic Review Team

• Best Practice

Home | Blog | Best Practice | The Librarian’s Role in a Systematic Review Team

Why you should make friends with a librarian.

If you are embarking on a systematic review, a librarian can be the person on your research team who can really set you up for success. We’ve invited Carrie Price, health professions librarian at the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University in Towson, Maryland, to share some tips on building a relationship with a Librarian.

When forming a review team for a systematic review , it’s advisable to build a strong group with expertise in different areas. The U.S. Institute of Medicine, in their publication, “Finding what works in health care: Standards for systematic reviews,” recommends that the systematic review author team be “multidisciplinary, with…librarians or information specialists trained in searching bibliographic databases” in addition to subject matter experts, statisticians, and methodologists (Institute of Medicine, 2011). It’s always good to have a librarian on your side! A 2015 article by Rethlefsen, et al., found that systematic reviews “with librarian or information specialist co-authors are correlated with significantly higher quality reported search strategies.” Chances are, if you are affiliated with a university or academic medical center, your librarian is just a click away.

So how can you best prepare for working with your librarian? Here are five things you can do to create a beneficial and long-lasting professional relationship with your librarian.

Spend some time formulating your topic.

Many systematic review topics fit into the PICO framework ; that is, Patient/Problem/Population, Intervention, Comparator/Control, and Outcomes. However, if your topic doesn’t quite fit that framework, that’s okay too. There are other topic development frameworks for building a viable systematic review query, like those outlined in the JBI Evidence Synthesis Manual . The more you are able to describe your topic, the better off you’ll be from the start. If you’re struggling, a librarian may be able to guide you in formulating an effective research topic.

Identify key articles.

You don’t have to do a significant amount of searching, but take a look around in a platform like PubMed , from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and see if you are able to locate a couple of important articles on your topic. Your librarian will find them very helpful for creating an effective and comprehensive search and understanding what you want to find.

Have a draft of the protocol.

Even if you haven’t completed it yet, the protocol is helpful for your librarian to understand your topic a little better. It’s also critical to outline your inclusion and exclusion criteria from the start to minimize bias, but also to inform the search process. Don’t forget that there’s a protocol extension, the PRISMA-P , that you can use to aid in compiling a proper protocol. 

Make sure you’ve planned the timeline appropriately.

Did you know that the average systematic review takes 67.3 weeks (Borah, et al., 2018)? Tools like Covidence can help reduce the time as a collaboration tool, but because of the effort involved, it’s critical to plan ahead. Your librarian will be working on other projects during the same time that they’re working on yours and will need time to create, test, translate, and run your searches. If you plan ahead and bring your librarian in from the beginning, you’ll be able to tackle each step of the process in a timely manner.

Invite librarian co-authorship.

The International Committee of Journal Editors makes a recommendation of including as a co-author anyone who has “made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work” and participated in the drafting and revision of the manuscript. In addition to consulting on the search, many librarians are prepared to assist you with the search methods section and elements of the PRISMA Flow Diagram.

During and after your consultation, the librarian will take an initial look at the literature to make sure that no recent systematic reviews have been published about your topic. They will also use your identified key articles to create a robust literature search. They’ll probably ask you some questions, such as: How do you plan to perform the screening? What citation management program do you prefer? After the searches are translated and completed, the librarian may deduplicate the results and send you the file of results so that you can get started on title/abstract screening.

Librarians are an invaluable member of a systematic review team, making significant contributions to a robust, high-quality, reproducible search, and consulting on citation management and the search methods. If you’re ready to do a systematic review, make friends with your librarian. You won’t be sorry!

Aromataris E, Munn Z (Editors). JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. JBI, 2020. Available from https://synthesismanual.jbi.global.  https://doi.org/10.46658/JBIMES-20-01  

Borah, R., Brown, A. W., Capers, P. L., & Kaiser, K. A. (2017). Analysis of the time and workers needed to conduct systematic reviews of medical interventions using data from the PROSPERO registry. BMJ open, 7(2), e012545. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012545  

Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Standards for Systematic Reviews of Comparative Effectiveness Research, Eden, J., Levit, L., Berg, A., & Morton, S. (Eds.). (2011). Finding what works in health care: standards for systematic reviews. National Academies Press (US). https://doi.org/10.17226/13059  

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (N.D). Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

National Library of Medicine. PubMed [platform]. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/  

Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., … & Moher, D. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ , 372. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71  

Rethlefsen, M. L., Farrell, A. M., Osterhaus Trzasko, L. C., & Brigham, T. J. (2015). Librarian co-authors correlated with higher quality reported search strategies in general internal medicine systematic reviews. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 68 (6), 617–626. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.11.025  

Carrie Price

Perhaps you'd also like....

Data Extraction Tip 5: Communicate Regularly

The Covidence Global Scholarship recipients are putting evidence-based research into practice. We caught up with some of the winners to discover the impact of their work and find out more about their experiences.

Data Extraction Tip 4: Extract the Right Amount of Data

Data Extraction Tip 3: Pilot the Template

Better systematic review management, head office, working for an institution or organisation.

Find out why over 350 of the world’s leading institutions are seeing a surge in publications since using Covidence!

Request a consultation with one of our team members and start empowering your researchers: 

By using our site you consent to our use of cookies to measure and improve our site’s performance. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information. 

Roles for librarians in systematic reviews: a scoping review

• Angela J. Spencer Manager, C. Alan McAfee, MD Medical Library, St. Luke’s Hospital, Chesterfield, MO http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6233-053X
• Jonathan D. Eldredge Associate Professor, Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3132-9450

Objective: What roles do librarians and information professionals play in conducting systematic reviews? Librarians are increasingly called upon to be involved in systematic reviews, but no study has considered all the roles that librarians can perform. This inventory of existing and emerging roles aids in defining librarians’ systematic reviews services.

Methods: For this scoping review, the authors conducted controlled vocabulary and text-word searches in the PubMed; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts; and CINAHL databases. We separately searched for articles published in the Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries, Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, the Journal of the Canadian Heath Libraries Association, and Hypothesis. We also text-word searched Medical Library Association annual meeting poster and paper abstracts.

Results: We identified 18 different roles filled by librarians and other information professionals in conducting systematic reviews from 310 different articles, book chapters, and presented papers and posters. Some roles were well known such as searching, source selection, and teaching. Other less documented roles included planning, question formulation, and peer review. We summarize these different roles and provide an accompanying bibliography of references for in-depth descriptions of these roles.

Conclusion: Librarians play central roles in systematic review teams, including roles that go beyond searching. This scoping review should encourage librarians who are fulfilling roles that are not captured here to document their roles in journal articles and poster and paper presentations.

Author Biography

Jonathan d. eldredge, associate professor, health sciences library and informatics center, university of new mexico, albuquerque, nm.

Mulrow CD. Rationale for systematic reviews. BMJ. 1994 Sep 3;309(6954):597–9. PubMed PMID: 8086953; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2541393.

Dickersin K, Scherer R, Lefebvre C. Identifying relevant studies for systematic reviews. BMJ. 1994 Nov 12;309(6964):1286–91. PubMed PMID: 7718048; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2541778.

Hunt DL, McKibbon KA. Locating and appraising systematic reviews. Ann Intern Med. 1997 Apr 1;126(7):532–8. PubMed PMID: 9092319.

Beverley CA, Booth A, Bath PA. The role of the information specialist in the systematic review process: a health information case study. Health Inf Libr J. 2003 Jun;20(2):65–74. PubMed PMID: 12786905.

Harris MR. The librarian’s roles in the systematic review process: a case study. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005 Jan;93(1):81–7. PubMed PMID: 15685279; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC545126.

Cooper ID, Crum JA. New activities and changing roles of health sciences librarians: a systematic review, 1990–2012. J Med Libr Assoc. 2013 Oct;101(4):268–77. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.101.4.008 . PubMed PMID: 24163598; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3794682.

Morris M, Boruff JT, Gore GC. Scoping reviews: establishing the role of the librarian. J Med Libr Assoc. 2016 Oct;104(4):346–54. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.4.020 .

Peters MD, Godfrey CM, Khalil H, McInerney P, Parker D, Soares CB. Guidance for conducting systematic scoping reviews. Int J Evid Based Healthc. 2015 Sep;13(3):141–6.

Eldredge JD. Evidence-based practice. In: Wood MS, ed. Introduction to health sciences librarianship. New York, NY: The Haworth Press; 2008. p. 245–69.

Eldredge JD, Hannigan GG. Emerging trends in health sciences librarianship. In: Wood MS, ed. Health sciences librarianship. Rowman & Littlefield; Chicago, IL: Medical Library Association; 2014. p. 57–83.

Foster MJ. An overview of the role of librarians in systematic reviews: from expert searcher to project manager. J Eur Assoc Health Inf Libr. 2015;11(3):3–7.

Ascher MT, Foster MJ, MacEachern M, Townsend WA. Beyond the search: expanding role of the librarian in the systematic review process. Presented at MLA ’16, the 116th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Toronto, ON, Canada; May 13–18, 2016.

Bramer WM, Milic J, Mast F. Reviewing retrieved references for inclusion in systematic reviews using EndNote. J Med Libr Assoc. 2017 Jan;105(1):84–7. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2017.111 .

Campbell S, Dorgan M. What to do when everyone wants you to collaborate: managing the demand for library support in systematic review searching. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2015;36(1):11–9.

Koffel J. Survey of systematic review authors to determine rates of librarian involvement benefits, roles, and barriers to collaboration. Presented at MLA ’15, the 115th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Austin, TX; May 15–20, 2015.

Bramer WM, Giustini D, de Jonge GB, Holland L, Bekhuis T. De-duplication of database search results for systematic reviews in EndNote. J Med Libr Assoc. 2016 Jul;104(3):240–3. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.3.014 . Correction in: J Med Libr Assoc. 2017 Jan;105(1):111. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2017.128 .

Kwon Y, Lemieux M, McTavish J, Wathen N. Identifying and removing duplicate records from systematic review searches. J Med Libr Assoc. 2015 Oct;103(4):184–8. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.4.004 .

Bramer WM, Giustini D, Kramer BM, Anderson P. The comparative recall of Google Scholar versus PubMed in identical searches for biomedical systematic reviews: a review of searches used in systematic reviews. Syst Rev. 2013 Dec 23;2:115.

Bramer WM, Giustini D, Kramer BM. Comparing the coverage, recall, and precision of searches for 120 systematic reviews in EMBASE, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar: a prospective study. Syst Rev. 2016 Mar 1;5:39.

Bramer WM. Variation in the number of hits for complex searches in Google Scholar. J Med Libr Assoc. 2016 Apr;104(2):143–5. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.2.009

Golder S, Loke YK. Failure or success of electronic search strategies to identify adverse effects data. J Med Libr Assoc. 2012 Apr;100(2):130–4. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.100.2.012 .

Golder S, Loke YK, Zorzela L. Comparison of search strategies in systematic reviews of adverse effects to other systematic reviews. Health Inf Libr J. 2014 Jun;31(2):92–105.

Knehans A, Dell E. Establishing, marketing, and expanding a fee-based systematic review information service. Poster presented at MLA ’15, the 115th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Austin, TX; May 15–20, 2015.

Rethlefsen ML, Murad MH, Livingston EH. Engaging medical librarians to improve the quality of review articles. JAMA. 2014 Sep 10;312(1):999–1000.

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 Jun;68(6):617–26.

Li L, Tian J, Tian H, Moher D, Liang F, Jiang T, Yao L, Yang, K. Network meta-analyses could be improved by searching more sources and by involving a librarian. J Clin Epidemiol. 2014 Sep;67(9):1001–7.

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 Oct;104(4):267–77. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.4.004 .

Funk ME, Reid CA. Indexing consistency in MEDLINE. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 1983 Apr;71(2):176–83.

Wilczynski NL, Haynes RB. Consistency and accuracy of indexing systematic review articles and meta-analysis in MEDLINE. Health Inf Libr J. 2009 Sep;26(3):203–10.

Anderson M. Isn’t MeSH enough? Medical Subject Headings for systematic review searching: a preliminary look. Poster presented at MLA ’16, the 116th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Toronto, ON, Canada; May 13–18, 2016.

Institute of Medicine. Finding what works in health care: standards for systematic reviews. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2011.

Sampson M, McGowan J, Cogo E, Grimshaw J, Moher D, Lefebvre C. An evidence-based practice guideline for the peer review of electronic search strategies. J Clin Epidemiol. 2009 Sep;62(9)944–52.

McGowan J, Sampson M, Salzwedel DM, Cogo E, Foerster V, Lefebvre C. PRESS Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies: 2015 guideline statement. J Clin Epidemiol. 2016 Jul;75:40–6.

Crumley E, Bhatnagar N, Stobart K. Peer reviewing comprehensive search strategies in hemophilia and von Willebrand disease. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2004;25(4):113–6.

Goode V, Lobner K. Setting expectations: getting your systematic review started on the right foot. Poster presented at MLA ’13, the 113th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Boston, MA; May 3–8, 2013.

Eldredge JD, Carr R, Broudy, D, Voorhees RE. The effect of training on question formulation among public health practitioners: results from a randomized controlled trial. J Med Libr Assoc. 2008 Oct;96(4):299–309. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.96.4.005 .

Cochrane Collaboration. Cochrane handbook for systematic review interventions [Internet]. The Collaboration; 2011 [cited 28 Feb 2017]. < http://handbook.cochrane.org >.

Liberati, A, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Mulrow C, Gøtzsche PC, Ioannidis JP, Clarke, M, Devereaux PJ, Kleijnen J, Moher D. The PRISMA statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of studies that evaluate health care interventions: explanation and elaboration. PLOS Med. 2009 Jul 21;6(7):e1000100.

Yoshii A, Plaut DA, McGraw KA, Anderson MJ, Wellik KE. Analysis of the reporting of search strategies in Cochrane systematic reviews. J Med Libr Assoc. 2009 Jan;97(1):21–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.97.1.004 .

Eldredge JD, Ascher MT, Holmes HN, Harris MR. Top-ranked research questions and systematic reviews. Hypothesis. 2013;24(2):5–16.

Eldredge JD, Ascher MT, Holmes HN, Harris MR. The new Medical Library Association research agenda: final results from a three-phase delphi study. J Med Libr Assoc. 2012 Jul;100(3):214–8. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.100.3.012 .

Wilczynski NL, Walker CJ, McKibbon KA, Haynes RB. Reasons for the loss of sensitivity and specificity of methodologic MESH and textwords in MEDLINE. Proc Annu Symp Comput Appl Med Care. 1995:436–60.

Giustini D. Search filters and hedges [Internet]. HLWIKI International [cited 28 Feb 2017]. < http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Search_filters_%26_hedges >.

McMaster University. Health information research unit [Internet]. The University [cited 28 Feb 2017]. < http://hiru.mcmaster.ca/hiru/ >.

Campbell S, Dorgan M, Tjosvold L. Creating provincial and territorial search filters to retrieve studies related to Canadian Indigenous peoples from Ovid MEDLINE. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2014;35(1):5–10.

Frazier JJ, Stein CD, Tseytlin E, Bekhuis T. Building a gold standard to construct search filters: a case study with biomarkers for oral cancer. J Med Libr Assoc. 2015 Jan;103(1)22–30. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.1.005 .

Jenkins M. Evaluation of methodological search filters--a review. Health Inf Libr J. 2004 Sep;21(3):148–63.

McKibbon KA, Wilczynski NL, Haynes RB; Hedges Team. Retrieving randomized controlled trials from MEDLINE: a comparison of 38 published search filters. Health Inf Libr J. 2009 Sep;26(3):187–202.

Glanville J, Bayliss S, Booth A, Dundar Y, Fernandes H, Fleeman ND, Foster L, Fraser C, Fry-Smith A, Golder S, Lefebvre C, Miller C, Paisley S, Payne L, Price A, Welch K. So many filters, so little time: the development of a search filter appraisal checklist. J Med Libr Assoc. 2008 Oct;96(4)356–61. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.96.4.011 .

Bak G, Mierzwinski-Urban M, Fitzsimmons H, Morrison A, Maden-Jenkins M. A pragmatic critical appraisal instrument for search filters: introducing the CADTH CAI. Health Inf Libr J. 2009 Sep;26(3):211–9.

Medical Library Association. Role of expert searching in health sciences libraries: policy statement by the Medical Library Association adopted September 2003. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005 Jan;93(1):42–4.

McGowan J, Sampson M. Systematic reviews need systematic searchers. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005 Jan;93(1):74–80.

Ford C, Farrah K, Lefebvre C, Rethlefsen ML, Sampson M. Where does gray fit into the mosaic? a discussion of the use, values, and practicality of gray literature in systematic reviews. Presented at MLA ’16, the 116th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Toronto, ON, Canada; May 13–18, 2016.

Agha R, Fowler AJ, Lee SY, Gundogan B, Whitehurst K, Sagoo H, Jeong K, Altman DG, Orgill DP. A systematic review protocol for reporting deficiencies within surgical case series. BMJ Open. 2015 Oct 5;5(10):e008007.

Arigoni S, Ignjatovic S, Sager P, Betschart J, Buerge T, Wachtl J, Tschuor C, Limani P, Puhan MA, Lesurtel M, Raptis DA, Breitenstein S. Diagnosis and prediction of neuroendocrine liver metastases: a protocol of six systematic reviews. JMIR Res Protoc. 2013 Dec 23;23(2):e60.

Limani P, Tschuor C, Gort L, Balmer B, Gu A, Ceresa C, Raptis DA, Lesurtel M, Puhan M, Breitenstein S. Nonsurgical strategies in patients with NET liver metastases: a protocol of four systematic reviews. JMIR Res Protoc. 2014 Mar 7;3(1):e9.

McCool ME, Theurich MA, Apfelbacher C. Prevalence and predictors of female sexual dysfunction: a protocol for a systematic review. Syst Rev. 2014 Jul 11;3:75.

Chapman AL, Morgan LC, Gartlehner G. Semi-automating the manual literature search for systematic reviews increases efficiency. Health Inf Libr J. 2010 Mar;27(1):22–7.

Glanville JM, Duffy S, McCool R, Varley D. Searching ClinicalTrials.gov and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform to inform systematic reviews: what are the optimal search approaches? J Med Libr Assoc. 2014 Jul;102(3):177–83. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.102.3.007 .

Royle P, Waugh N. Should systematic reviews include searches for published errata? Health Inf Libr J. 2004 Mar;21(1):14–20.

DeLuca JB, Mullins MM, Lyles CM, Crepaz N, Kay L, Thadiparthi S. Developing a comprehensive search strategy for evidence based systematic reviews. Evid Based Libr Inf Pract. 2008;3(1):3–32.

Golder S, McIntosh HM, Duffy S, Glanville J; Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and UK Cochrane Centre Search Filters Design Group. Developing efficient search strategies to identify reports of adverse effects in MEDLINE and EMBASE. Health Inf Libr J. 2006 Mar;23(1):3–12.

Booth A, Carroll C. Systematic searching for theory to inform systematic reviews: is it feasible? is it desirable? Health Inf Libr J. 2015 Sep;32(3):220–35.

Parker R, Tougas R, Hayden J. When the RCT filter is not enough: best practices for finding prognosis studies. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2014;35(2):99–100.

Relevo R. Using analytic framework to make sense of complex search requests. Poster presented at MLA ’10, the 110th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Washington, DC; May 21–26, 2010.

Jenuwine ES, Floyd JA. Comparison of Medical Subject Headings and text-word searches in MEDLINE to retrieve studies on sleep in healthy individuals. J Med Libr Assoc. 2004 Jul;92(3):349–53.

Posey R, Walker J, Crowell KE. Knowing when to stop: final results versus work involved in systematic review database searching. Presented at MLA ’16, the 116th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Toronto, ON, Canada; May 13–18, 2016.

Helmer D, Savoie I, Green C, Kazanjian A. Evidence-based practice: extending the search to find material for the systematic review. Bull Med Libr Assoc. 2001 Oct;89(4):346–52.

Crumley ET, Wiebe N, Cramer K, Klassen TP, Hartling L. Which resources should be used to identify RCT/CCTs for systematic reviews: a systematic review. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2005 Aug 10;5:24.

Bethal A, Rogers M. A checklist to assess database-hosting platforms for designing and running searches for systematic reviews. Health Inf Libr J. 2014 Mar;31(1):43–53.

Greyson DL. Non-biomedical sources for systematic reviews of pharmaceutical policy. J Med Libr Assoc. 2010 Jan;98(1):85–7. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.98.1.021 .

Lam MT, McDiarmid M. Increasing number of databases searched in systematic reviews and meta-analyses between 1994 and 2014. J Med Libr Assoc. 2016 Oct;104(4):284–9. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.4.006 .

Koufogiannakis D. LIS systematic reviews [Internet]. 23 Jan 2012 [21 Jun 2015; cited 4 Nov 2016]. < http://lis-systematic-reviews.wikispaces.com/Welcome >.

Brettle A. Information skills training: a systematic review of the literature. Health Inf Libr J. 2003 Jun;20(suppl 1):3–9.

Wagner KC, Byrd GD. Evaluating the effectiveness of clinical medical librarian programs: a systematic review of the literature. J Med Libr Assoc. 2004 Jan;92(1):14–33.

Weightman AL, Williamson J; Library & Knowledge Development Network (LKDN) Quality and Statistics Group. The value and impact of information provided through library services for patient care: a systematic review. Health Inf Libr J. 2005 Mar;22(1):4–25.

Eldredge JD, Ascher MT, Holmes HN. An innovative model of evidenced-based practice for other professions. J Med Libr Assoc. 2015 Apr;103(2):100–2. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.2.009 .

Eldredge JD, Holmes HN, Ascher MT. Moving the EBLIP community’s research agenda forward. Evid Based Libr Inf Pract. 2015;10(2):170–3.

Harris M. The librarian’s role in conducting a systematic review. Presented at MLA 2000, the 100th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Vancouver, BC, Canada; May 5–11 2000.

Campbell SM, Kung JYC, Dennett L. A curriculum for an introductory systematic review searching workshop for researchers. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2016;37(1):2–5.

Conte ML, MacEachern, MP, Mani NS, Townsend WA, Smith JE, Masters C, Kelley C. Flipping the classroom to teach systematic reviews: the development of a continuing education course for librarians. J Med Libr Assoc. 2015 Apr;103(2):69–73. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.103.2.002 .

Parker RMN, Neilson MJ. Lost in translation: supporting learners to search comprehensively across databases. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2015;36(2):54–8.

Fyfe T, Dennett L. Building capacity in systematic review searching: a pilot program using virtual mentoring. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2012;33(1):12–6.

McKibbon A, Goldsmith C, Hannigan GG. Is my search complete? the capture mark recapture method (CMR) to estimate the number of citations that are missing. Presented at MLA ’10, the 110th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Washington, DC; May 21–26, 2010.

Nash-Stewart CE, Kruesi LM, Del Mar CB. Does Bradford’s Law of Scattering predict the size of the literature in Cochrane reviews? J Med Libr Assoc. 2012 Apr;100(2):135–8. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.100.2.013 .

Sampson M. Welcoming systematic reviews to the Journal of the Medical Library Association [editorial]. J Med Libr Assoc. 2014 Jul;102(3):143–5. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.102.3.001 .

de Jonge G, Lein RK. Sharing literature search blocks: status and ideas for a cooperative solution. J Eur Assoc Health Inf Libr. 2015;11(3):11–4.

Gore GC, Jones J. Systematic reviews and librarians: a primer for managers. Partnership: Can J Libr Inf Pract Res. 2015;10(1):1–16..

Bullers K, Howard AM, Sakmar K, Polo RL, Orriola JJ. How long does it take to paint your part of the big picture: the time librarians spend on systematic review tasks. Poster presented at MLA ’16, the 116th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Toronto, ON, Canada; May 13–18, 2016.

Foster ML The development of the Systematic Review Special Interest Group of MLA. Poster presented at MLA ’15, the 115th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Austin, TX; May 15–20, 2015.

Additional Files

• Supplemental Appendix A
• Supplemental Appendix B

Current Issue

ISSN 1558-9439 (Online)

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• My Bibliography
• Collections
• Citation manager

Save citation to file

Email citation, add to collections.

• Create a new collection
• Add to an existing collection

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search, create a file for external citation management software, your rss feed.

• Search in PubMed
• Search in NLM Catalog
• Add to Search

Roles for librarians in systematic reviews: a scoping review

• PMID: 29339933
• PMCID: PMC5764593
• DOI: 10.5195/jmla.2018.82

Objective: What roles do librarians and information professionals play in conducting systematic reviews? Librarians are increasingly called upon to be involved in systematic reviews, but no study has considered all the roles librarians can perform. This inventory of existing and emerging roles aids in defining librarians' systematic reviews services.

Methods: For this scoping review, the authors conducted controlled vocabulary and text-word searches in the PubMed; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts; and CINAHL databases. We separately searched for articles published in the Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries, Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, the Journal of the Canadian Heath Libraries Association, and Hypothesis. We also text-word searched Medical Library Association annual meeting poster and paper abstracts.

Results: We identified 18 different roles filled by librarians and other information professionals in conducting systematic reviews from 310 different articles, book chapters, and presented papers and posters. Some roles were well known such as searching, source selection, and teaching. Other less documented roles included planning, question formulation, and peer review. We summarize these different roles and provide an accompanying bibliography of references for in-depth descriptions of these roles.

Conclusion: Librarians play central roles in systematic review teams, including roles that go beyond searching. This scoping review should encourage librarians who are fulfilling roles that are not captured here to document their roles in journal articles and poster and paper presentations.

PubMed Disclaimer

PRISMA flow diagram

Similar articles

• Benchmarking veterinary librarians' participation in systematic reviews and scoping reviews. Toews L. Toews L. J Med Libr Assoc. 2019 Oct;107(4):499-507. doi: 10.5195/jmla.2019.710. Epub 2019 Oct 1. J Med Libr Assoc. 2019. PMID: 31607807 Free PMC article.
• Assessing the roles and challenges of librarians in dental systematic and scoping reviews. Schvaneveldt N, Stellrecht EM. Schvaneveldt N, et al. J Med Libr Assoc. 2021 Jan 1;109(1):52-61. doi: 10.5195/jmla.2021.1031. J Med Libr Assoc. 2021. PMID: 33424464 Free PMC article. Review.
• Reference librarians' perceptions of the issues they face as academic health information professionals. Scherrer CS. Scherrer CS. J Med Libr Assoc. 2004 Apr;92(2):226-32. J Med Libr Assoc. 2004. PMID: 15098052 Free PMC article.
• The librarian's roles in the systematic review process: a case study. Harris MR. Harris MR. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005 Jan;93(1):81-7. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005. PMID: 15685279 Free PMC article.
• Systematic reviews need systematic searchers. McGowan J, Sampson M. McGowan J, et al. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005 Jan;93(1):74-80. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005. PMID: 15685278 Free PMC article. Review.
• Recognizing the value of meta-research and making it easier to find. Stevens ER, Laynor G. Stevens ER, et al. J Med Libr Assoc. 2023 Oct 2;111(4):839-843. doi: 10.5195/jmla.2023.1758. J Med Libr Assoc. 2023. PMID: 37928126 Free PMC article.
• A decade of systematic reviews: an assessment of Weill Cornell Medicine's systematic review service. Demetres MR, Wright DN, Hickner A, Jedlicka C, Delgado D. Demetres MR, et al. J Med Libr Assoc. 2023 Jul 10;111(3):728-732. doi: 10.5195/jmla.2023.1628. J Med Libr Assoc. 2023. PMID: 37483367 Free PMC article.
• The case of the disappearing librarians: analyzing documentation of librarians' contributions to systematic reviews. Brunskill A, Hanneke R. Brunskill A, et al. J Med Libr Assoc. 2022 Oct 1;110(4):409-418. doi: 10.5195/jmla.2022.1505. J Med Libr Assoc. 2022. PMID: 37101926 Free PMC article.
• A review of the factors influencing adoption of digital health applications for people living with dementia. Conway A, Ryan A, Harkin D, Mc Cauley C, Goode D. Conway A, et al. Digit Health. 2023 Mar 15;9:20552076231162985. doi: 10.1177/20552076231162985. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec. Digit Health. 2023. PMID: 36937696 Free PMC article. Review.
• An environmental scan of librarian involvement in systematic reviews at Queen's University: 2020 update. Ross-White A. Ross-White A. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2021 Aug 1;42(2):110-117. doi: 10.29173/jchla29517. eCollection 2021 Aug. J Can Health Libr Assoc. 2021. PMID: 35949918 Free PMC article.
• Mulrow CD. Rationale for systematic reviews. BMJ. 1994 Sep 3;309(6954):597–9. doi: 10.1136/bmj.309.6954.597. PubMed PMID: 8086953; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2541393. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
• Dickersin K, Scherer R, Lefebvre C. Identifying relevant studies for systematic reviews. BMJ. 1994 Nov 12;309(6964):1286–91. doi: 10.1136/bmj.309.6964.1286. PubMed PMID: 7718048; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2541778. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
• Hunt DL, McKibbon KA. Locating and appraising systematic reviews. Ann Intern Med. 1997 Apr 1;126(7):532–8. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-126-7-199704010-00006. PubMed PMID: 9092319. - DOI - PubMed
• Beverley CA, Booth A, Bath PA. The role of the information specialist in the systematic review process: a health information case study. Health Inf Libr J. 2003 Jun;20(2):65–74. doi: 10.1046/j.1471-1842.2003.00411.x. PubMed PMID: 12786905. - DOI - PubMed
• Harris MR. The librarian’s roles in the systematic review process: a case study. J Med Libr Assoc. 2005 Jan;93(1):81–7. PubMed PMID: 15685279; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC545126. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

• Search in MeSH

Related information

• Cited in Books

LinkOut - more resources

Full text sources.

• Europe PubMed Central
• PubMed Central

Other Literature Sources

• scite Smart Citations
• Citation Manager

NCBI Literature Resources

MeSH PMC Bookshelf Disclaimer

The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited.