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Library Hours

Systematic Reviews

Systematic & Scoping Review Consultation Request

Systematic and scoping reviews require high-level information expertise, and librarians can be a great resource to assist you in the process. Health Sciences librarians offer three levels of services to support the systematic and scoping review process. These are dependent on librarian availability.

 

Methods Consultation  (1-to-2 week notice needed for scheduling)  

Credit given to librarian: Uncredited  

  • Determining whether a systematic review is the right method for the topic  

  • Teach researcher how to determine if an existing systematic review has already answered your research question  

  • Cover what goes into completing a systematic review such as relevant guidelines and standards, PRISMA, JBI, etc. 

  • Talk about Keywords and subjecting headings/controlled vocabulary terms  

  • Discuss using citation managers (e.g. RefWorks,  Zotero, EndNote) or tools such as Covidence to manage citations   

  • Teach the steps to obtain full-text journal articles. 

 

Search Consultation (1-to-2-week notice needed for scheduling)  

Credit given to librarian: Acknowledgement appreciated, but not required  

  • Any/all items from the “Methods Consultation” if needed  

  • Training on comprehensive search techniques, and selecting appropriate databases for the scope and topic of the search  

  • Discuss protocol that was developed by research team (not librarian)  

  • Discuss search strategies that were developed by research team (not librarian)  

  • Demonstrate setting up automated search alerts for topic  

 

Facilitator (1-to-4 weeks required for scheduling initial consult)  

Credit given to librarian: Acknowledgement of librarian required in publication and presentations  

  • Any/all items from the “Methods and Search Consultations” if needed  

  • You must submit a draft of your protocol when selecting this option 

  • Collaborating with the systematic review team to construct and review search strategies for rigor. Team members (not librarian) actually conduct searches.  

  • Librarian helps to create search strategy in one selected database, and then guides team on translating their search strategies to the additional databases that the team wishes to include.  

  • Librarian guides team members on searching the Grey Literature  

 

OSU Health Sciences Library librarians will not:  

  • Perform manual searches of journal tables of contents or article bibliographies.  

  • Perform data extraction.  

  • Call outside investigators who are completing studies on your topic.  

  • Pay inter-library loan costs.  

  • Facilitate article translation services.  

  • Pay article translation fees.  

  • Pay fees for searching databases not available through The Ohio State University Libraries database subscriptions.  

  • Pay and or advise on bibliographic management software not licensed by The Ohio State University Libraries or OSUWMC.  

  • Pay article publication fees.  

 
Please complete this survey to request librarian services for assistance with a systematic review: