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Research Assistance

Before Your First Meeting with a Librarian

If you request assistance with a systematic review, you’ll be asked the series of questions below. Why does the library ask these questions? Systematic reviews require a significant amount of librarian time and effort. We ask the questions below to avoid situations in which a librarian makes a significant scholarly contribution to a review project, only to lose touch with the investigator, be left unclear about the status of the project, what to do with the products of his/her work, or how to plan for future involvement in the project.

  • Have you determined that there are no existing systematic reviews that address your question?
  • What is your research question? Is it in PICO format?
  • Is this a team effort?
  • Are you following the PRISMA guidelines, or another set of guidelines?
  • Do you plan to use a citation management tool or screening software to manage the search results?
  • Do you plan to publish? If so, what are some journals you plan to submit to?
  • How will the librarian be given credit?
  • Which databases will be searched? 
  • What is your expected timeline for this part of the systematic review?
  •  Do you want any search limitations (i.e., language, date of publication, etc.)?
References

IOM (Institute of Medicine). 2011. Finding What Works in Healthcare: Standards for Systematic Reviews. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman D, and The PRISMA Group (2009). Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: The PRISMA statement. PloS Med 6(7):e1000097.Doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/

Adapted from: Getting ready for a systematic review: things to consider. HSLS Systematic Review Program. Health Sciences Library System-University of Pittsburgh. https://hsls.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=1265534

How to Schedule an Initial Meeting

All systematic and scoping reviews projects begin with "kick-off" meeting between the review team and the participating librarian to clarify the scope of the project, introduce the participants, and set the review's parameters. Systematic and scoping reviews typically require a team of researchers, generally take three months (or longer) to complete, and typically result in a published article.

To schedule a "kick-off" meeting fill out our Ask a Question form,  or email library@rush.edu. Our reference librarians are available Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. All times are Central Time (CST/CDT). Please be aware that our ability to assist you with your systematic or scoping review is subject to librarian availability.