Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: At the University of Toronto (UofT), librarian involvement in a variety of reviews and grant proposals happens largely and primarily on an ad-hoc basis. The role of health sciences and medical librarians as expert searchers is well established and recognized, yet librarians can, and have, also been called upon to navigate other components of the research process (Dudden 2011). Involvement includes but is not limited to: project manager, research coordinator, and process/protocol expert.
Librarian involvement is not only recommended, but has become a requirement for grants from key funding agencies, such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), for a proposal to be considered complete and admissible (CIHR 2010). This is wonderful news, but are we prepared?
Objectives: The objective of this study is to develop a sustainable set of service standards in order to clarify the roles and tasks to be performed by librarians in research initiatives such as systematic reviews, but perhaps more importantly, scoping and realist reviews, as support requests for these newer, less familiar, methodologies have become increasingly common.
Methods: We will gather and organize pre-established protocols for each type of research study and disseminate them widely. An environmental scan will be performed to learn more about how librarians at UofT are currently supporting research teams’ reviews. This knowledge can then be shared among our colleagues and incorporated into the content of our instruction portfolio.
Results: The results of this initiative and anecdotal gathering are ongoing and will be presented at the Colloquium.
Conclusions: Librarians offer significant contribution and insight beyond their searching skills; they can successfully act as project managers, process experts, and disseminators of protocols (communicators). Their role continues to evolve. Above all our goal remains to have an open and honest conversation on what librarians and information specialists’ experiences have been so far in these type of initiatives, what our roles are and what they should be.
Librarian involvement is not only recommended, but has become a requirement for grants from key funding agencies, such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), for a proposal to be considered complete and admissible (CIHR 2010). This is wonderful news, but are we prepared?
Objectives: The objective of this study is to develop a sustainable set of service standards in order to clarify the roles and tasks to be performed by librarians in research initiatives such as systematic reviews, but perhaps more importantly, scoping and realist reviews, as support requests for these newer, less familiar, methodologies have become increasingly common.
Methods: We will gather and organize pre-established protocols for each type of research study and disseminate them widely. An environmental scan will be performed to learn more about how librarians at UofT are currently supporting research teams’ reviews. This knowledge can then be shared among our colleagues and incorporated into the content of our instruction portfolio.
Results: The results of this initiative and anecdotal gathering are ongoing and will be presented at the Colloquium.
Conclusions: Librarians offer significant contribution and insight beyond their searching skills; they can successfully act as project managers, process experts, and disseminators of protocols (communicators). Their role continues to evolve. Above all our goal remains to have an open and honest conversation on what librarians and information specialists’ experiences have been so far in these type of initiatives, what our roles are and what they should be.