RUSQ vol. 58, no. 1 (Fall 2018

Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 2008

Project objectives 1. Develop a cadre of community health nursing students who are knowledgeable in accessing and evaluating health education materials and who would use and share these skills in practice in the community 2. Develop a pilot project, based on the needs assessment, to increase patient health education by improving access to quality reading-level and language-appropriate materials in two Chicago Department of Public Health public health clinics serving inner-city, low-income, predominately Latino populations 3. Increase access to and knowledge about quality health information resources for health care practitioners working in two inner city clinics

Journal of the Medical Library Association, 2018

Objectives: The Medical Library Association (MLA) Systematic Review Project aims to conduct systematic reviews to identify the state of knowledge and research gaps for fifteen top-ranked questions in the profession. In 2013, fifteen volunteer-driven teams were recruited to conduct the systematic reviews. The authors investigated the experiences of participants in this large-scale, volunteer-driven approach to answering priority research questions and fostering professional growth among health sciences librarians.Methods: A program evaluation was conducted by inviting MLA Systematic Review Project team members to complete an eleven-item online survey. Multiple-choice and short-answer questions elicited experiences about outputs, successes and challenges, lessons learned, and future directions. Participants were recruited by email, and responses were collected over a two-week period beginning at the end of January 2016.Results: Eighty (8 team leaders, 72 team members) of 198 potential...

Library and Information Research, 2012

This article is about the use of systematic reviews as a research methodology in library and information studies (LIS). A systematic review is an attempt to gather all of the research on a given topic in order to answer a specific question. They have been used extensively in the health care field and have more recently found their way into the social sciences, including librarianship. Examples of the use of systematic reviews in LIS illustrate the benefits and challenges to using this methodology. Included is a brief description of how to conduct a review and a reading list for further information.

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 2009

This commentary presents a rationale for undertaking systematic reviews in library and information practice. As library and information practitioners have the skills to undertake systematic reviews, it is questioned why there are not more in the field. The barriers and challenges to undertaking systematic reviews are discussed.

2010

Medical reviews have been popular for decades ; in the past, it was sufficient for review authors to be experts in their field, and no special information skills were necessary to find relevant articles. Nevertheless, with the stea dy growth of published medical research in the last 25 years it has become obvious that clinic al expertise has to be combined with systematic approach to the literature to produce re liabl , high-quality reviews with evidencebased conclusions. According to Sauerland and Seile r [27], systematic reviews are easy to identify due to their outline which includes a meth odology section with a detailed description of the search strategy, study selection criteria, c ritical appraisal procedure and data synthesis. The emergence of systematic reviews does not enevit ably mean that traditonal, narrative review articles are useless. The practical signific ance of narrative reviews is in their broader scope; if written properly, they can offer a valuab le, current e...

Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association / Journal de l'Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada, 2016

Systematic review searching is becoming an increasing part of the day-today work of health librarians. The University of Alberta John W. Scott Health Sciences Library offers a monthly three-hour "Introduction to Systematic Review Searching" workshop to researchers at the University of Alberta. Over the four years that the program has been offered, participants have completed evaluations at the end of each session. Based on these evaluations, the content and the delivery of the workshop have been refined, and the value of the sessions to the participants has been affirmed.

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 2019

Objective - To explore the prevalence of systematic reviews (SRs) and librarians’ involvement in them, and to investigate whether librarian co-authorship of SRs was associated with lower risk of bias. Methods - SRs by researchers at University of Oslo or Oslo University Hospital were counted and categorized by extent of librarian involvement and assessed for risk of bias using the tool Risk of Bias in Systematic Reviews (ROBIS). Results - Of 2,737 identified reviews, 324 (11.84%) were SRs as defined by the review authors. Of the 324 SRs, 4 (1.23%) had librarian co-authors, in 85 (26.23%) librarians were acknowledged or mentioned in the methods section. In the remaining 235 SRs (72.53%), there was no clear evidence that a librarian had been involved. Librarian co-authored SRs were associated with lower risk of bias compared to SRs with acknowledgement or no participation by librarians. Conclusion - SRs constitute a small portion of published reviews. Librarians rarely co-author SRs a...

Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 2021

Objective: In regard to locating clinical trials for a systematic review, limited information is available about how librarians locate clinical trials in biomedical databases, including (1) how much information researchers provide librarians to assist with the development of a comprehensive search strategy, (2) which tools librarians turn to for information about study design methodology, and (3) librarians' confidence levels in their knowledge of study design methodology. A survey was developed to explore these aspects of how a medical librarian locates clinical trials when facilitating systematic reviews for researchers. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a 21-question survey was sent to medical librarians via several email listservs during April 2020. Respondents were limited to librarians who make the decisions on search terms for systematic reviews. Results: Responses (n=120) indicated that librarians were often asked to search for various types of clinical trials. How...

2015

Effects of librarian provided services in healthcare settings: A systematic review. OBJECTIVE: To assess the effects of librarian-provided services in healthcare settings on patient, healthcare provider, and researcher outcomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medline, CINAHL, ERIC, LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts), and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched from inception to June 2013. Studies involving librarianprovided services for patients encountering the healthcare system, healthcare providers, or researchers were eligible for inclusion. All librarian-provided services in healthcare settings were considered as an intervention, including hospitals, primary care settings, or public health clinics. RESULTS: Twenty-five articles fulfilled our eligibility criteria, including 22 primary publications and three companion reports. The majority of studies (15/22 primary publications) examined librarians providing instruction in literature searching to healthcare trainees, and measured literature searching proficiency. Other studies analyzed librarian-provided literature searching services and instruction in question formulation as well as the impact of librarian-provided services on patient length of stay in hospital. No studies were found that investigated librarians providing direct services to researchers or patients in healthcare settings. CONCLUSIONS: Librarian-provided services directed to participants in training programs (eg, students, residents) improve skills in searching the literature to facilitate the integration of research evidence into clinical decisionmaking. Services provided to clinicians were shown to be effective in saving time for health professionals and providing relevant information for decision-making. Two studies indicated patient length of stay was reduced when clinicians requested literature searches related to a patient's case.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2020

The meta-synthesis method has received increased interest in social science research, but relatively few metasynthesis studies have been conducted in the library and information science (LIS) field. The purpose of this study was to analyze 44 LIS-related meta-synthesis studies in terms of contribution, meta-synthesis methodology, and research topics. The results revealed that there are four types of contributions of meta-synthesis research: isolated findings, non-dynamic relationships, dynamic relationships, and models. Moreover, a variety of methods have been used to search, select, analyze, and synthesize the individual studies. Finally, although meta-synthesis studies have been conducted on some LIS topics (e.g., health informatics, library user services, and information management), it has been an undervalued method for other research topics. Recommendations are offered to encourage the use of this method and to guide researchers to conduct more rigorous meta-synthesis studies on LIS topics.