Research Guides: Systematic and Structured Literature Review Service: Overview

Notice About Review Services

The University Libraries are in the process of re-evaluating and rebuilding services in the wake of extreme organizational restructuring. Consequently, we have a large number of librarian vacancies impacting our ability to provide expertise in support of systematic reviews and other related research syntheses (rapid, scoping, umbrella reviews, and meta-analysis).

Currently, faculty in the Health Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Schools may complete a review request form and schedule a consultation with our Reviews Librarian.

We appreciate your patience as we work to build capacity for full-scale support of these projects. We regret that we do not have the level of service previously provided at this time.

About Review Services

The Medical Sciences Library supports evidence-based practice and research by providing guidance and expertise to those conducting structured literature reviews, such as systematic, scoping, integrative, or rapid reviews.

Request a consultation

Services for Texas A&M Students

Currently, we are not staffed to support individual consultations for students working through the review process. We are in the process of developing a training module for students paired with open office hours to facilitate peer-learning and reach as many students as possible.

We anticipate launching this program during the spring semester of 2024 and will update this page with more information, so please check back. You can also complete the "Join Interest List" form below to be placed on a wait list.

These sessions will be open to any student in the Health Sciences or Veterinary Medicine Schools.

Services for Unaffiliated Users

Those seeking assistance with reviews that are not affiliated with Texas A&M University may request support through our Center for Systematic Reviews and Research Syntheses. This is a fee-based service.

Services for Texas A&M Faculty

Review support is available for all Texas A&M faculty in the health sciences and veterinary medicine, or affiliates working directly with a faculty member, intending to publish a final manuscript . The items below detail .tasks a librarian may provide through the process.

Our full-featured service for TAMU faculty includes the following steps:

Initial Consultation

Discuss team roles, the review question, and a timeline
Provide guidance on the review process and protocol development
Search for existing reviews or protocols related to the topic
Perform a limited initial literature search to assess feasibility
Determine level of librarian involvement (on-going discussion) see Authorship tab

Search Development and Execution

Help refine the research question, eligibility criteria and define search concepts
Develop and refine the initial search strategy in collaboration with the team
Identify databases appropriate for the topic
Translate and execute search across all databases
Develop and execute a gray literature search strategy if applicable
Assist in identifying key journals for handsearching or table of contents browsing
Provide citation chaining of included articles (backward citation chaining is sometimes called ancestry searching or bibliography)

Citation Delivery and article retrieval

Compile and remove duplicate citations
Provide top-level numbers for the PRISMA flow diagram
Transfer citations to team for review
Provide full-text articles through Get It For Me services
Assist with obtaining "hard to find" full-text articles

Manuscript Development and Submission

Assist in identifying an appropriate target journal for publication of protocol and / or review
Provide full and formatted search strategy for the appendix as required by publisher or PRISMA guidelines
Write and deliver manuscript sections related to the search methodology

Additional Support

Helping to identify software for the review team
Guidance in project and data management for the review