Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34(2):173–180, 2015 Published with license by Taylor & Francis ISSN: 0276-3869 print=1540-9597 online DOI: 10.1080/02763869.2015.1019323
Developing a Library Systematic Review Service: A Case Study EMILIE LUDEMAN, KATHERINE DOWNTON, and ANDREA GOLDSTEIN SHIPPER Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
YUNTING FU Laupus Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Systematic review searching is a standard job responsibility for many health sciences librarians. The strategies a library uses to market its expertise may affect the number of researchers requesting librarian assistance as well as how researchers perceive librarians as systematic review collaborators. This article describes how one health sciences library developed, launched, and promoted its systematic review service to researchers on campus. KEYWORDS Health sciences libraries, role of librarians, service implementation, systematic reviews
INTRODUCTION As members of the systematic review team, librarians are in a unique position to support evidence-based decision making.1 The identification of studies for systematic reviews affects the quality and ultimately the reliability of the finished product. A recent essay in the Journal of the American Medical Association encouraged clinicians to engage medical librarians in the review process because they ‘‘play an important role in developing high-quality # Emilie Ludeman, Katherine Downton, Andrea Goldstein Shipper, and Yunting Fu Received: November 19, 2014; Revised: January 12, 2015; Accepted: January 16, 2015. This article is based on a poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association, Chicago, May 19, 2014. Address correspondence to Emilie Ludeman, Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 601 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. E-mail: [email protected] 173
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narrative and systematic reviews. . . [and their involvement] ensures that the review will be thorough and its methodology reproducible.’’2 Librarian participation in systematic reviews is not a recent phenomenon. The Institute of Medicine acknowledged the importance of working with a librarian or other information professional when producing its standards for systematic reviews.3 A case study produced by the Centre for Health Information Management Research in the United Kingdom advocates that information professionals should be afforded the opportunity to become more involved in evidence-based health care and identifies ten possible roles for information specialists in the systematic review process.4 These roles range from the traditional (e.g., literature searcher, reference manager) to the atypical (e.g., project manager, data extractor, critical appraiser). Although an increasing body of evidence highlights librarians’ roles in the systematic review process, there is little published information about how libraries plan, develop, and implement structured systematic review services. In order to explore the topic, this article describes how the Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS=HSL) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) formalized and launched its systematic review service. Processes, challenges, and rewards are also discussed.
BACKGROUND The HS=HSL serves the graduate and professional schools of nursing, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and social work at UMB. With a student enrollment of more than 6,300, including both undergraduate and graduate programs, UMB plays a central role in educating many of the state’s physicians, graduate-level nurses, dentists, social workers, and pharmacists. The HS= HSL provides a range of expertise to support the research and teaching needs of faculty and students at the university. Like other health sciences libraries during the past several decades, the roles of librarians at the HS=HSL have changed. As new technologies have made it easier for end users to navigate databases with minimal assistance, librarians have adapted their services. In the early days of library automation and the World Wide Web, librarians at the HS=HSL dedicated a substantial portion of their time to developing and conducting comprehensive literature searches for researchers and clinicians, including some systematic reviews. Librarians conducted 852 mediated searches in 1993 and fewer than 50 in 2013. As database interfaces became easier for anyone to use, services became more focused on instruction. Librarians continued to provide some support for searching and periodically assisted with comprehensive searches, but resources and staff time were focused increasingly on teaching search skills. During the past several years, a renewed emphasis on librarians as expert searchers has again transformed the library’s services. Several factors
Developing a Library Systematic Review Service
175
propelled this change. First, university administration encouraged librarians to expand collaborative work with clinical and basic science researchers on campus. Second, as researchers became more familiar with systematic reviews, the demand for librarian assistance with systematic reviews and other comprehensive searches increased. This change coincided with several librarians attending systematic review training sessions in 2011 and 2012. In response to this confluence of events, HS=HSL librarians decided to enhance their expert search services by developing and promoting a formal systematic review service.
SERVICE DEVELOPMENT The Systematic Review Task Force, comprising three Research, Education and Outreach librarians, was formed in April 2012 and charged with formalizing the library’s systematic review services. The HS=HSL places a priority on structuring and packaging its services, both for marketing purposes and to increase the visibility and value of the library on campus. The Task Force’s goals included: . . . . . .
Developing a vision and mission statement (see Appendix); Recommending librarian training opportunities and resource acquisitions; Constructing guidelines to assist in processing and assigning systematic review requests; Creating guidelines for the initial consultation with researchers; Building an informational web page and systematic review service request form; Identifying vehicles for promoting the service throughout campus.
Though the HS=HSL has a rich history of providing expert searching, nearly half of the Services Department in 2012 was composed of early career librarians without experience constructing searches for systematic reviews. Considering this lack of experience, staff training was crucial. There are a variety of well-reputed systematic review workshops, webinars, and other forms of continuing education aimed at librarians. HS=HSL librarians attended the University of Pittsburgh’s ‘‘Systematic Review Workshop: The Nuts and Bolts for Librarians.’’ The workshop provided foundational knowledge of the systematic review process and bolstered librarians’ confidence in their ability to make significant contributions to systematic review teams. Recently, the Medical Library Association’s Beyond the Search webinar series provided a welcome review of the systematic review process and practical information about emerging roles for librarians such as screening studies for inclusion. While librarians received training at the Pittsburgh workshop, the Task Force developed procedures for managing incoming systematic review
176
E. Ludeman et al.
requests and guidelines for facilitating the preliminary consultation with researchers. The preliminary consultation is required before librarians commit to working on the review. The meeting provides an opportunity to better understand the research question and allows librarians to discuss their roles and expectations. Librarians also use this meeting to determine if the project is a true systematic review or another type of project, such as a literature review or rapid review. Librarians typically construct and run database searches, manage results in RefWorks, de-duplicate results, and write the search methods for publication. Grey literature searches are offered as an option, but researchers have rarely chosen to include them. The service does not currently encompass areas such as screening studies for inclusion, data extraction, or other non-traditional librarian roles. Librarians do request authorship on the manuscript arising from the project, to which the vast majority of researchers have been amenable. In addition to developing procedures and guidelines, the Task Force created a guide on the HS=HSL website that contains general information about systematic reviews, information about the library’s service, and a consultation request form. All requests submitted via the online form are sent to members of the Task Force, who then assign librarians to the review depending on availability and area of expertise. The HS=HSL is fortunate to have a team of seven librarians with systematic review training. The librarians decided that charging for the systematic reviews service would detract from their service model; so the service is offered free of charge. Few additional resources were added to the existing collection to support the service. The library licensed the Embase database, which is considered essential for systematic review searches because of its international scope, and recently purchased EndNote for librarians to use as an alternative to RefWorks.
OUTCOMES The official launch of the service in March 2013 consisted of e-mail announcements sent to faculty at each school on campus, a banner across the library’s home page, and an article in the library’s bi-monthly newsletter. Librarians also gave brief presentations about the new service at school department meetings and added a workshop to the library’s regular offerings called An Introduction to Conducting Systematic Reviews. The publicity was successful, and the systematic review website received over 300 hits in its first month. Within the first week of the launch, the HS=HSL received four systematic review consultation requests. For the first three months of the service, librarians worked on all reviews in pairs. As librarians gained experience, they began to complete searches individually. Two new librarians joined the department after the launch of
Developing a Library Systematic Review Service
177
the service, and both worked with a more experienced librarian for their first reviews. Now, librarians work in pairs if a search promises to be particularly complicated or if time constraints make it more practical to share the work. Librarians also apply an informal peer review process to their search strategies. This allows colleagues to check the search strategies for proper syntax, spelling, and for errors or omissions. Between March 2013 and October 2014, the HS=HSL received 37 systematic review requests. Reviews are tracked in a statistics database that houses information such as amount of time spent working on the review, status of the review, and the investigator’s affiliation. Of these 37 requests, 12 amounted to only a meeting with the research team or some preliminary searching. In many of these cases, researchers underestimated the scale of the project and decided to delay completing the systematic review or changed the focus to a narrative review. For others, a preliminary search revealed similar systematic reviews conducted in the recent past. Searches have been completed for 22 reviews. Of those, one has been published and two have been submitted for publication. In some cases, the review process stalled after the search was completed due to other commitments of the research team. Other investigators simply lost touch with librarian collaborators, without communicating the status of the systematic review. Overall, the majority of systematic reviews have been requested by faculty affiliated with the School of Medicine. However, all schools served by the HS=HSL have requested librarian assistance, including two faculty members from the School of Dentistry, five from the School of Nursing, two from the School of Pharmacy, seven from the School of Social Work, and one from a staff member at the university-affiliated hospital. Because of the diversity of the researchers, the subjects of these systematic reviews have varied widely. Topics have included traditional clinical questions about the effectiveness of interventions, comprehensive searches in medical education, and issues of health policy and economics. Librarian time commitment to systematic reviews has varied with the complexity of the topics. Librarians have devoted between 4.5 and 30 hours to a single review, including time meeting with researchers, completing the search, depositing results into a citation manager, and removing duplicate citations. The average review has taken about 15 hours and extended from a week to as long as a month or more.
DISCUSSION As the systematic review service grows, it continues to evolve. The Systematic Review Task Force is now a permanent committee. This committee continues to assign incoming review requests to librarians and to update the service’s web page and procedures. Most recently, the committee adapted a handout
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from the University of Pittsburgh that walks researchers through a list of topics they should plan to discuss with a librarian during the preliminary consultation.5 These include questions of preparation, such as whether the team has determined that no other systematic reviews exist on the topic, a protocol has been written, and a full research team has been assembled. Researchers are also asked to consider the time commitment a systematic review will entail. Finally, the handout informs researchers that librarians expect to be included as co-authors on manuscripts arising from the review. Librarians contribute significantly ‘‘to the conception or design of the work’’ and meet other authorship criteria designated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).6 The committee is also responsible for evaluating the service. Formal evaluation, beyond objective measures, such as the number of reviews published, has not yet commenced. Plans include routine follow-up with researchers to seek feedback about their experience with the service. The committee initially considered sending a formal evaluation survey to researchers but determined this would not provide useful data and could undermine librarians’ desires to be viewed as collaborators and not simply support staff. Ultimately, success will also be evaluated based on the number of publications produced, librarian authorship or acknowledgement, and the short- and long-term impact of these publications. The HS=HSL librarians have faced a number of challenges since launching the service. Shortly after the service was announced, the library received a number of requests from students who had been assigned to write a systematic review for a class project. The Task Force quickly updated the web page and request form to reflect that the service was available to faculty and staff only. These web pages now direct students to the library’s research consultation service, where librarians meet with and assist students in developing search strategies for class assignments. Librarians have encountered a wide range of background knowledge among researchers requesting systematic reviews. Many have no prior experience conducting systematic reviews and have limited knowledge of the scope of the project. Some have completed previous systematic reviews, though never with assistance from a librarian. Even experienced researchers have needed education on certain aspects of the review process, especially the timeline. A number of investigators expect a search to be complete within a week or intend to finish the entire review within a few months. To clarify the systematic review process, the committee now shares the previously mentioned handout with requestors before the initial consultation. The handout provides researchers who are new to systematic reviews an idea of the time commitment involved if they decide to pursue this type of research. The committee uses the handout to establish and manage expectations.
Developing a Library Systematic Review Service
179
While there are many resources available for librarians working on systematic reviews in the health sciences, far less information exists about how to conduct systematic reviews in other fields. School of Social Work faculty are becoming increasingly interested in systematic reviews, and HS=HSL librarians have worked on several. The research questions asked by social work faculty often require broad searches in order to be comprehensive, as language in the social sciences tends to be more ambiguous than in the health sciences. Imprecise terminology can yield vast result sets, with tens of thousands of citations for researchers to sort through. Researchers recognize this challenge, but librarians must continue to develop their search skills in this area.
CONCLUSION HS=HSL librarians have benefited from collaborating on systematic reviews in a number of ways. Benefits include opportunities to develop and improve search expertise, collaborate with faculty and other researchers, and publish as part of a systematic review team. Librarians have learned much about the research process and believe they are enhancing the quality of systematic reviews conducted by UMB researchers. The service has established library credibility among researchers and increased departmental collaboration as librarians gain confidence in expert searching. Initially, librarians were challenged to find the extra time to devote to systematic reviews. In adding the service, other responsibilities were not eliminated. Now, with planning and forethought, reviews are balanced with other work priorities. The HS=HSL is fortunate to have a team of librarians devoted to making the service a success. Librarians continue to develop knowledge and skills with the support of an administration that values investment in continuing education. For any library considering enhancing and formalizing a systematic review service, challenges are likely to include time and staffing limitations, training, effective and honest communication with researchers, and promotion. However, the experience at HS=HSL suggests the benefits to both the library and the university are significant.
REFERENCES 1. Dudden, Rosalind F., and Shandra L. Protzko. ‘‘The Systematic Review Team: Contributions of the Health Sciences Librarian.’’ Medical Reference Services Quarterly 30, no. 3 (July–September 2011): 301–315. 2. Rethlefsen, Melissa L., M. Hassan Murad, and Edward H. Livingston. ‘‘Engaging Medical Librarians to Improve the Quality of Review Articles.’’ Journal of the American Medical Association 312, no. 10 (September 2014): 999–1000.
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3. Eden, Jill, Laura Levit, Alfred Berg, and Sally Morton, eds. Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011. 4. Beverley, Catherine A., Andrew Booth, and Peter A. Bath. ‘‘The Role of the Information Specialist in the Systematic Review Process: A Health Information Case Study.’’ Health Information & Libraries Journal 20, no. 2 (June 2003): 65–74. 5. University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library System. Getting Ready for a Systematic Review: Things to Consider. February 2014. http://hsls.libguides.com/ ld.php?content_id=4403227. 6. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. ‘‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.’’ Accessed January 5, 2014. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS Emilie Ludeman, MSLIS ([email protected]) is Research, Education and Outreach Librarian; Katherine Downton, MSLIS ([email protected]) is Research, Education and Outreach Librarian; and Andrea Goldstein Shipper, MSLIS ([email protected]. edu) is Research, Education and Outreach Librarian; all at Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 601 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. Yunting Fu, MLS ([email protected]) is Liaison Librarian to College of Allied Health Sciences, Laupus Library, East Carolina University, 600 Moye Boulevard, Greenville, NC 27834.
APPENDIX: SYSTEMATIC REVIEW TASK FORCE VISION AND MISSION STATEMENT The Systematic Review Taskforce aims to support research and improve the quality of systematic reviews conducted at the University of Maryland. Initiatives: . . . .
Develop best practices in conducting and supporting systematic reviews. Enhance researchers’ productivity through librarian’s role as expert searcher. Collaborate and build partnerships with diverse constituents throughout the University. Provide librarians with opportunities for authorship and refinement of expert searching skills as members of a systematic review team.
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Developing a Library Systematic Review Service: A Case Study EMILIE LUDEMAN, KATHERINE DOWNTON, and ANDREA GOLDSTEIN SHIPPER Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
YUNTING FU Laupus Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Systematic review searching is a standard job responsibility for many health sciences librarians. The strategies a library uses to market its expertise may affect the number of researchers requesting librarian assistance as well as how researchers perceive librarians as systematic review collaborators. This article describes how one health sciences library developed, launched, and promoted its systematic review service to researchers on campus. KEYWORDS Health sciences libraries, role of librarians, service implementation, systematic reviews
INTRODUCTION As members of the systematic review team, librarians are in a unique position to support evidence-based decision making.1 The identification of studies for systematic reviews affects the quality and ultimately the reliability of the finished product. A recent essay in the Journal of the American Medical Association encouraged clinicians to engage medical librarians in the review process because they ‘‘play an important role in developing high-quality # Emilie Ludeman, Katherine Downton, Andrea Goldstein Shipper, and Yunting Fu Received: November 19, 2014; Revised: January 12, 2015; Accepted: January 16, 2015. This article is based on a poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association, Chicago, May 19, 2014. Address correspondence to Emilie Ludeman, Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 601 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. E-mail: [email protected] 173
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narrative and systematic reviews. . . [and their involvement] ensures that the review will be thorough and its methodology reproducible.’’2 Librarian participation in systematic reviews is not a recent phenomenon. The Institute of Medicine acknowledged the importance of working with a librarian or other information professional when producing its standards for systematic reviews.3 A case study produced by the Centre for Health Information Management Research in the United Kingdom advocates that information professionals should be afforded the opportunity to become more involved in evidence-based health care and identifies ten possible roles for information specialists in the systematic review process.4 These roles range from the traditional (e.g., literature searcher, reference manager) to the atypical (e.g., project manager, data extractor, critical appraiser). Although an increasing body of evidence highlights librarians’ roles in the systematic review process, there is little published information about how libraries plan, develop, and implement structured systematic review services. In order to explore the topic, this article describes how the Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS=HSL) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) formalized and launched its systematic review service. Processes, challenges, and rewards are also discussed.
BACKGROUND The HS=HSL serves the graduate and professional schools of nursing, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and social work at UMB. With a student enrollment of more than 6,300, including both undergraduate and graduate programs, UMB plays a central role in educating many of the state’s physicians, graduate-level nurses, dentists, social workers, and pharmacists. The HS= HSL provides a range of expertise to support the research and teaching needs of faculty and students at the university. Like other health sciences libraries during the past several decades, the roles of librarians at the HS=HSL have changed. As new technologies have made it easier for end users to navigate databases with minimal assistance, librarians have adapted their services. In the early days of library automation and the World Wide Web, librarians at the HS=HSL dedicated a substantial portion of their time to developing and conducting comprehensive literature searches for researchers and clinicians, including some systematic reviews. Librarians conducted 852 mediated searches in 1993 and fewer than 50 in 2013. As database interfaces became easier for anyone to use, services became more focused on instruction. Librarians continued to provide some support for searching and periodically assisted with comprehensive searches, but resources and staff time were focused increasingly on teaching search skills. During the past several years, a renewed emphasis on librarians as expert searchers has again transformed the library’s services. Several factors
Developing a Library Systematic Review Service
175
propelled this change. First, university administration encouraged librarians to expand collaborative work with clinical and basic science researchers on campus. Second, as researchers became more familiar with systematic reviews, the demand for librarian assistance with systematic reviews and other comprehensive searches increased. This change coincided with several librarians attending systematic review training sessions in 2011 and 2012. In response to this confluence of events, HS=HSL librarians decided to enhance their expert search services by developing and promoting a formal systematic review service.
SERVICE DEVELOPMENT The Systematic Review Task Force, comprising three Research, Education and Outreach librarians, was formed in April 2012 and charged with formalizing the library’s systematic review services. The HS=HSL places a priority on structuring and packaging its services, both for marketing purposes and to increase the visibility and value of the library on campus. The Task Force’s goals included: . . . . . .
Developing a vision and mission statement (see Appendix); Recommending librarian training opportunities and resource acquisitions; Constructing guidelines to assist in processing and assigning systematic review requests; Creating guidelines for the initial consultation with researchers; Building an informational web page and systematic review service request form; Identifying vehicles for promoting the service throughout campus.
Though the HS=HSL has a rich history of providing expert searching, nearly half of the Services Department in 2012 was composed of early career librarians without experience constructing searches for systematic reviews. Considering this lack of experience, staff training was crucial. There are a variety of well-reputed systematic review workshops, webinars, and other forms of continuing education aimed at librarians. HS=HSL librarians attended the University of Pittsburgh’s ‘‘Systematic Review Workshop: The Nuts and Bolts for Librarians.’’ The workshop provided foundational knowledge of the systematic review process and bolstered librarians’ confidence in their ability to make significant contributions to systematic review teams. Recently, the Medical Library Association’s Beyond the Search webinar series provided a welcome review of the systematic review process and practical information about emerging roles for librarians such as screening studies for inclusion. While librarians received training at the Pittsburgh workshop, the Task Force developed procedures for managing incoming systematic review
176
E. Ludeman et al.
requests and guidelines for facilitating the preliminary consultation with researchers. The preliminary consultation is required before librarians commit to working on the review. The meeting provides an opportunity to better understand the research question and allows librarians to discuss their roles and expectations. Librarians also use this meeting to determine if the project is a true systematic review or another type of project, such as a literature review or rapid review. Librarians typically construct and run database searches, manage results in RefWorks, de-duplicate results, and write the search methods for publication. Grey literature searches are offered as an option, but researchers have rarely chosen to include them. The service does not currently encompass areas such as screening studies for inclusion, data extraction, or other non-traditional librarian roles. Librarians do request authorship on the manuscript arising from the project, to which the vast majority of researchers have been amenable. In addition to developing procedures and guidelines, the Task Force created a guide on the HS=HSL website that contains general information about systematic reviews, information about the library’s service, and a consultation request form. All requests submitted via the online form are sent to members of the Task Force, who then assign librarians to the review depending on availability and area of expertise. The HS=HSL is fortunate to have a team of seven librarians with systematic review training. The librarians decided that charging for the systematic reviews service would detract from their service model; so the service is offered free of charge. Few additional resources were added to the existing collection to support the service. The library licensed the Embase database, which is considered essential for systematic review searches because of its international scope, and recently purchased EndNote for librarians to use as an alternative to RefWorks.
OUTCOMES The official launch of the service in March 2013 consisted of e-mail announcements sent to faculty at each school on campus, a banner across the library’s home page, and an article in the library’s bi-monthly newsletter. Librarians also gave brief presentations about the new service at school department meetings and added a workshop to the library’s regular offerings called An Introduction to Conducting Systematic Reviews. The publicity was successful, and the systematic review website received over 300 hits in its first month. Within the first week of the launch, the HS=HSL received four systematic review consultation requests. For the first three months of the service, librarians worked on all reviews in pairs. As librarians gained experience, they began to complete searches individually. Two new librarians joined the department after the launch of
Developing a Library Systematic Review Service
177
the service, and both worked with a more experienced librarian for their first reviews. Now, librarians work in pairs if a search promises to be particularly complicated or if time constraints make it more practical to share the work. Librarians also apply an informal peer review process to their search strategies. This allows colleagues to check the search strategies for proper syntax, spelling, and for errors or omissions. Between March 2013 and October 2014, the HS=HSL received 37 systematic review requests. Reviews are tracked in a statistics database that houses information such as amount of time spent working on the review, status of the review, and the investigator’s affiliation. Of these 37 requests, 12 amounted to only a meeting with the research team or some preliminary searching. In many of these cases, researchers underestimated the scale of the project and decided to delay completing the systematic review or changed the focus to a narrative review. For others, a preliminary search revealed similar systematic reviews conducted in the recent past. Searches have been completed for 22 reviews. Of those, one has been published and two have been submitted for publication. In some cases, the review process stalled after the search was completed due to other commitments of the research team. Other investigators simply lost touch with librarian collaborators, without communicating the status of the systematic review. Overall, the majority of systematic reviews have been requested by faculty affiliated with the School of Medicine. However, all schools served by the HS=HSL have requested librarian assistance, including two faculty members from the School of Dentistry, five from the School of Nursing, two from the School of Pharmacy, seven from the School of Social Work, and one from a staff member at the university-affiliated hospital. Because of the diversity of the researchers, the subjects of these systematic reviews have varied widely. Topics have included traditional clinical questions about the effectiveness of interventions, comprehensive searches in medical education, and issues of health policy and economics. Librarian time commitment to systematic reviews has varied with the complexity of the topics. Librarians have devoted between 4.5 and 30 hours to a single review, including time meeting with researchers, completing the search, depositing results into a citation manager, and removing duplicate citations. The average review has taken about 15 hours and extended from a week to as long as a month or more.
DISCUSSION As the systematic review service grows, it continues to evolve. The Systematic Review Task Force is now a permanent committee. This committee continues to assign incoming review requests to librarians and to update the service’s web page and procedures. Most recently, the committee adapted a handout
178
E. Ludeman et al.
from the University of Pittsburgh that walks researchers through a list of topics they should plan to discuss with a librarian during the preliminary consultation.5 These include questions of preparation, such as whether the team has determined that no other systematic reviews exist on the topic, a protocol has been written, and a full research team has been assembled. Researchers are also asked to consider the time commitment a systematic review will entail. Finally, the handout informs researchers that librarians expect to be included as co-authors on manuscripts arising from the review. Librarians contribute significantly ‘‘to the conception or design of the work’’ and meet other authorship criteria designated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).6 The committee is also responsible for evaluating the service. Formal evaluation, beyond objective measures, such as the number of reviews published, has not yet commenced. Plans include routine follow-up with researchers to seek feedback about their experience with the service. The committee initially considered sending a formal evaluation survey to researchers but determined this would not provide useful data and could undermine librarians’ desires to be viewed as collaborators and not simply support staff. Ultimately, success will also be evaluated based on the number of publications produced, librarian authorship or acknowledgement, and the short- and long-term impact of these publications. The HS=HSL librarians have faced a number of challenges since launching the service. Shortly after the service was announced, the library received a number of requests from students who had been assigned to write a systematic review for a class project. The Task Force quickly updated the web page and request form to reflect that the service was available to faculty and staff only. These web pages now direct students to the library’s research consultation service, where librarians meet with and assist students in developing search strategies for class assignments. Librarians have encountered a wide range of background knowledge among researchers requesting systematic reviews. Many have no prior experience conducting systematic reviews and have limited knowledge of the scope of the project. Some have completed previous systematic reviews, though never with assistance from a librarian. Even experienced researchers have needed education on certain aspects of the review process, especially the timeline. A number of investigators expect a search to be complete within a week or intend to finish the entire review within a few months. To clarify the systematic review process, the committee now shares the previously mentioned handout with requestors before the initial consultation. The handout provides researchers who are new to systematic reviews an idea of the time commitment involved if they decide to pursue this type of research. The committee uses the handout to establish and manage expectations.
Developing a Library Systematic Review Service
179
While there are many resources available for librarians working on systematic reviews in the health sciences, far less information exists about how to conduct systematic reviews in other fields. School of Social Work faculty are becoming increasingly interested in systematic reviews, and HS=HSL librarians have worked on several. The research questions asked by social work faculty often require broad searches in order to be comprehensive, as language in the social sciences tends to be more ambiguous than in the health sciences. Imprecise terminology can yield vast result sets, with tens of thousands of citations for researchers to sort through. Researchers recognize this challenge, but librarians must continue to develop their search skills in this area.
CONCLUSION HS=HSL librarians have benefited from collaborating on systematic reviews in a number of ways. Benefits include opportunities to develop and improve search expertise, collaborate with faculty and other researchers, and publish as part of a systematic review team. Librarians have learned much about the research process and believe they are enhancing the quality of systematic reviews conducted by UMB researchers. The service has established library credibility among researchers and increased departmental collaboration as librarians gain confidence in expert searching. Initially, librarians were challenged to find the extra time to devote to systematic reviews. In adding the service, other responsibilities were not eliminated. Now, with planning and forethought, reviews are balanced with other work priorities. The HS=HSL is fortunate to have a team of librarians devoted to making the service a success. Librarians continue to develop knowledge and skills with the support of an administration that values investment in continuing education. For any library considering enhancing and formalizing a systematic review service, challenges are likely to include time and staffing limitations, training, effective and honest communication with researchers, and promotion. However, the experience at HS=HSL suggests the benefits to both the library and the university are significant.
REFERENCES 1. Dudden, Rosalind F., and Shandra L. Protzko. ‘‘The Systematic Review Team: Contributions of the Health Sciences Librarian.’’ Medical Reference Services Quarterly 30, no. 3 (July–September 2011): 301–315. 2. Rethlefsen, Melissa L., M. Hassan Murad, and Edward H. Livingston. ‘‘Engaging Medical Librarians to Improve the Quality of Review Articles.’’ Journal of the American Medical Association 312, no. 10 (September 2014): 999–1000.
180
E. Ludeman et al.
3. Eden, Jill, Laura Levit, Alfred Berg, and Sally Morton, eds. Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011. 4. Beverley, Catherine A., Andrew Booth, and Peter A. Bath. ‘‘The Role of the Information Specialist in the Systematic Review Process: A Health Information Case Study.’’ Health Information & Libraries Journal 20, no. 2 (June 2003): 65–74. 5. University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library System. Getting Ready for a Systematic Review: Things to Consider. February 2014. http://hsls.libguides.com/ ld.php?content_id=4403227. 6. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. ‘‘Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.’’ Accessed January 5, 2014. http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS Emilie Ludeman, MSLIS ([email protected]) is Research, Education and Outreach Librarian; Katherine Downton, MSLIS ([email protected]) is Research, Education and Outreach Librarian; and Andrea Goldstein Shipper, MSLIS ([email protected]. edu) is Research, Education and Outreach Librarian; all at Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 601 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. Yunting Fu, MLS ([email protected]) is Liaison Librarian to College of Allied Health Sciences, Laupus Library, East Carolina University, 600 Moye Boulevard, Greenville, NC 27834.
APPENDIX: SYSTEMATIC REVIEW TASK FORCE VISION AND MISSION STATEMENT The Systematic Review Taskforce aims to support research and improve the quality of systematic reviews conducted at the University of Maryland. Initiatives: . . . .
Develop best practices in conducting and supporting systematic reviews. Enhance researchers’ productivity through librarian’s role as expert searcher. Collaborate and build partnerships with diverse constituents throughout the University. Provide librarians with opportunities for authorship and refinement of expert searching skills as members of a systematic review team.
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