Eddie, I’d like to phone a friend… Search help for your systematic and scoping reviews
Just like tv quiz show contestants, we all have times when we’re stuck on the answer, and just want to phone a friend.
Many review guidelines recommend that researchers reach out to their librarians for advice with their complex systematic literature searches, and in some cases, include them on the research team. We can be your phone-a-friend!
Our Search Support for Systematic and Systematic-Like Reviews has options from online self-help through to proof-reading of searches (for HDRs and researchers), and mediated searches for research groups (where we’ll work with you to develop and run the search).
We came across this blog post on Why you should make friends with a librarian, and how librarians on research teams lead to successful reviews. We whole-heartedly agree! Before you reach out to your librarian, it’s worth:
- Clarifying your topic so that you can tell us what you’re wanting to find. You can use frameworks such as PICO or SPIDER to help.
- Finding a few key articles, similar to what you’d want to find in the search results – these are great to help build the search.
- Send the draft protocol for some background.
- Check your timelines.
- Consider co-authorship for your librarian.
So, if you have a review coming up, pick up the phone and call us!