Hardin Library offers free systematic searching services to University of Iowa faculty, fellows, residents, staff, and students. Please see the descriptions for each level of service* for more information.
LEVEL 1
Audience: All researchers
Credit: Acknowledgement of the librarian's contribution may be appropriate
Service: Training in areas such as evidence synthesis and review types and methodologies, searching sources, effective database searching, and citation management tools
LEVEL 2
Audience: All researchers
Credit: Acknowledgement of the librarian's contribution
Service: Training as needed plus peer review of or ongoing consulting for researcher-developed searches
LEVEL 3
Audience: Reserved for faculty and staff projects
Credit: Librarian is a coauthor**
Service: Librarian may perform all or many of these tasks: assist with protocol development, generate search terms, design search strings, execute searches, manage citations, remove duplicates, develop a flow diagram, write the search methodology, find full text, review the manuscript prior to submission, and respond to peer review comments related to the search
*The appropriate level of service and credit may vary by project. Your librarian will discuss these topics with you in more detail.
**For guidance about authorship roles, please see Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Medical Library Association's Statement on Librarian Authorship.
Projects completed with librarian support have been associated with higher quality search strategies and reporting of search methods.
Li, L., Tian, J., Tian, H., Moher, D., Liang, F., Jiang, T., Yao, L., & Yang, K. (2014). Network meta-analyses could be improved by searching more sources and by involving a librarian. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 67(9), 1001–1007. View full text
Koffel, J. B. (2015). Use of recommended search strategies in systematic reviews and the impact of librarian involvement: A cross-sectional survey of recent authors. PloS One, 10(5), e0125931. View full text
Rethlefsen, M. L., Farrell, A. M., Osterhaus Trzasko, L. C., & Brigham, T. J. (2015). Librarian co-authors correlated with higher quality reported search strategies in general internal medicine systematic reviews. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 68(6), 617–26. View full text