Research Guides: Systematic Review: Library Help

Welcome

The University of Maryland Libraries’ Systematic Review Team support all students, faculty, and staff affiliated with the UMD College Park campus. Our services are free of charge and include workshops, customized guest lectures and course support, faculty collaboration and project support, and one-on-one consultations on all aspects of systematic review research and teaching.

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Are you embarking on a systematic review project?

Librarians at the UMD Libraries are expert searchers and offer a systematic review service to faculty, students and research staff. We are available to guide and collaborate with researchers on the following tasks:

Choose the best review methodology to fit your timeline, question scope and discipline
Suggest relevant databases for searching the scholarly and grey literature
Design complex search strategies for specific databases
Use citation management software for organizing references (e.g. Zotero and Endnote)
Use article screening and selection tools (e.g. Rayyan)

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Levels of systematic review service

Tier 1: General consulting - we offer assistance to researchers interested in how to do a regular literature review. In a one-hour in-person consultation, we will provide a basic overview of the systematic review process such as developing a protocol, designing a search strategy, selecting relevant databases, collecting and organizing studies, screening the results, and writing the manuscript.
Tier 2: Credit given as acknowledgment - at this level, we offer assistance in generating key terms, creating search strings for specific databases, and/or reviewing search strings created by the researcher. The researcher should acknowledge the librarian in the final publication.
Tier 3: Credit given as co-authorship - at this level, we develop the search strategy, execute the searching in various databases, manage the studies and prepare them for screening by the researcher and write any portion of the search methodology. The researcher should agree to include the librarian as a middle author.

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Further reading about librarian's contributions to systematic reviews

Aamodt, M., Huurdeman, H., & Strømme, H. (2019). Librarian co-authored systematic reviews are associated with lower risk of bias compared to systematic reviews with acknowledgement of librarians or no participation by librarians. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 14(4), 103–127. https://doi.org/10.18438/eblip29601
Desmeules, R., Campbell, S., & Dorgan, M. (2016). Acknowledging librarians’ contributions to systematic review searching. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association / Journal de l’Association Des Bibliothèques de La Santé Du Canada, 37(2). https://doi.org/10.5596/c16-014
Ghezzi-Kopel, K., Ault, J., Chimwaza, G., Diekmann, F., Eldermire, E., Gathoni, N., Kelly, J., Kinengyere, A. A., Kocher, M., Lwoga, E. T., Page, J., Young, S., & Porciello, J. (2022). Making the case for librarian expertise to support evidence synthesis for the sustainable development goals. Research Synthesis Methods, 13(1), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1528
Koffel, J. B. (2015). Use of recommended search strategies in systematic reviews and the impact of librarian involvement: A cross-sectional survey of recent authors. PLOS ONE, 10(5), e0125931.
Medical Library Association. (2005). Role of expert searching in health sciences libraries. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 93(1), 42.
Ramirez, D., Foster, M. J., Kogut, A., & Xiao, D. (2022). Adherence to systematic review standards: Impact of librarian involvement in Campbell Collaboration’s education reviews. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 48(5), 102567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2022.102567
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. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.11.025
Spencer, A. J., & Eldredge, J. D. (2018). Roles for librarians in systematic reviews: a scoping review. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 106(1), 46.
Visintini, S. (2017, August 25). Librarian authorship, systematic reviews, and applying ICMJE authorship criteria.

Workshops

For faculty only: To request an instruction session for your class or a workshop for your department, please fill out the Systematic Review Workshop Request form.

If you have any other questions about this service, please write to us at systrev@umd.edu

Self-paced online, open, and free course

Campbell Collaboration Systematic Review online course "provides an overview of the steps involved in conducting a systematic (scientific) review of results of multiple quantitative studies. These steps include: problem formulation, searching for relevant literature, screening potentially eligible studies, coding and critically appraising studies, synthesizing results across studies using meta-analysis, reporting and disseminating results, and updating or re-analysis of data."

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