The case of the disappearing librarians: analyzing documentation of librarians' contributions to systematic reviews

Ref ID 849
First Author A. Brunskill
Journal JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
Year Of Publishing 2022
URL https://jmla.pitt.edu/ojs/jmla/article/view/1505
Keywords • Team
• Author
• Protocols
• Expertise
• Searching
• Non-Cochrane reviews
Problem(s) • Literature searches not validated by information specialist
Number of systematic reviews included 206
Summary of Findings From 209 systematic reviews and meta-analyses whose registered protocols mentioned librarian involvement registered in PROSPERO between 2017 and 2018. Of the 209 included reviews 28% had a librarian co-author, 41% named a librarian in the acknowledgements section, and 78% mentioned the contribution of a librarian within the body of the review. However, mentions of a librarian within the included review were often generic (“a librarian”) and in 31% of all reviews analysed no librarian was specified by name. In 9% of the reviews, there was no reference to a librarian found at all.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? N/A
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No