Joyce, hello.
I attended the Evidence Synthesis Institute about three years ago. I am the liaison to Social Work at the U of Kentucky, and their Doctorate in Social Work students complete a systematic review as part of their degree requirements. The DSW program just launched at UK three years ago, and since they require a SR, this has produced the huge increase in requests for help with social work SRs.
Every summer, I do one-on-one research consultations with about 80 DSW students for their systematic reviews. They realize that they need to do searches that are more structured, systematic, and reach out to me for advice on doing the search. I do a personalized research consultation with them and focus on databases to search, keywords and subject headings, and Boolean strategies. Sometimes I also teach them how to use EndNote software to manage their citations. And sometimes I meet with a student more than once, usually to focus on searching gray literature.
I am not a co-author with the DSW students. I just do what I call a "research consultation on steroids" with them.
But I have now been part of two teams of social work professors on systematic reviews, and I am co-author on the systematic reviews we are publishing. However, I have only had two requests in the three years I have worked at UK and it was these two from social work professors. I did help one team of psychology students with a systematic review during COVID. I am also the liaison to Sociology, and they have not requested help with systematic reviews.
With other social sciences at UK, it is also kind of sparse. Other social science librarians have been asked to help with one business systematic review, one communication systematic review. And that might be it.
For the medical librarians at UK, it is a much different story. They serve the colleges in medicine and health, as well as the researchers at UK Healthcare and many research institutes on campus. They coordinate our formal systematic review service, and they end of serving on systematic review teams much more often than we do in social sciences. They have also created a pretty robust
research guide. Clarification: the systematic review request form the service offers has a section to choose their discipline; these cover all disciplines and are routed to other librarians based on subject area (I have only received one request for a social work SR through this form during the 3 years I have worked here).
Our science and engineering librarians have now attended the Evidence Synthesis Institute and are gearing up for more systematic review requests in their disciplines.
I hope this helps, and please let me know if I can answer any other questions. Best,
Margie Ruppel, MLS (she/her/hers) Social Sciences Librarian
Liaison to Social Work, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Gender & Women's Studies
UK Libraries | William T. Young Library
Read My Work
Original Message:
Sent: 8/28/2023 10:23:00 AM
From: Jessica Hagman
Subject: RE: Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences
Hi Joyce! Thanks for bringing this up. We have a couple of folks who consult on systematic reviews though until recently it's been mostly health topics. I think a colleague who works with psychology also has some experience with this, but as you a tell it's pretty informal. I've always just made referrals the few times it has come up for me, but this does feel like something to learn more about. I wonder if there are any folks here with experience who could talk about reviews in the social sciences for one of our discussion groups?
------------------------------
Jessica Hagman
Social Sciences Research Librarian
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
She/Her/Hers
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: Aug 23, 2023 02:05 PM
From: Joyce Martin
Subject: Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences
Hi all,
I recently attended the Evidence Synthesis Institute (focused on systematic review services outside the health sciences) taught by librarians from University of Minnesota and Cornell University. Here at ASU Library our social sciences division is seeing an uptick in the number of faculty and teams asking librarians to assist with aspects of their systematic reviews, although we have not established a formal service. What are others experiences? Are you seeing an increase? Does your library offer a formal service? Just in health sciences, or across disciplines? I would love to hear thoughts.
| Cornell | remove preview |
| | LibGuides: A Guide to Evidence Synthesis: Cornell University Library Evidence Synthesis Service | | LibGuides: A Guide to Evidence Synthesis: Cornell University Library Evidence Synthesis Service | | View this on Cornell > |
|
|
.
| Umn | remove preview |
| | Systematic review and evidence synthesis | | Librarians partner with researchers to conduct evidence syntheses. These are syntheses of all previously conducted research on a topic and represent the highest level of evidence in research. The service is available to U of M researchers. | | View this on Umn > |
|
|
------------------------------
Joyce Martin
Librarian, Head of Social Science Division
Arizona State University Libraries
She/Her/Hers
------------------------------