In support of Evidence Synthesis
By Lynn Warner, Research & Health Sciences Librarian, Melissa Previtera, Academic & Research Services Specialist, and Aja Bettencourt-McCarthy, Science-Engineering Global Services Librarian
UC Libraries is excited to share information about our growing network dedicated to supporting evidence synthesis.
What is Evidence Synthesis?
Evidence synthesis is a name given to a wide range of advanced reviews – from systematic reviews to scoping reviews and bibliometric analyses. Evidence synthesis originated in the health sciences as a means of leveraging discoveries across a range of clinical trials to inform best practices. Since then, evidence synthesis methods have spread beyond the health sciences where they have been used to guide research and inform policies in the social and physical sciences as well as in engineering and business.
One of the features of many evidence synthesis methods is the focus on comprehensive, robust and reproducible searching, and this is where librarians can help! Research shows that reviews that include librarians tend to be stronger (Whitney et.al., 2024), and best practices highly recommend librarian participation when research teams are developing their searches. Librarian expertise helps to ensure that the research team is selecting the right databases, using the correct terminology, and formatting the search with the appropriate syntax. In short – librarians are databases and search experts!
History of Library Support for Evidence Synthesis at UC
UC Libraries support for evidence synthesis projects began in the Health Sciences Library where a small team developed and launched a systematic review service to aid teams of health science researchers through the review process. They also developed library guides, self-paced modules and Systematic Review cohorts to teach researchers best practices and methodology required for these hefty projects. Despite being a small unit, this group supported close to 150 reviews between 2022 and 2025.
In response to the spread of advanced reviews outside the health sciences – systematic reviews conducted in disciplines outside the health sciences at UC increased by 84% from 2015 to 2025 according to reviews indexed in Scopus – UC Libraries began exploring ways to expand evidence synthesis support.
New & Current Initiatives
To meet the growth of evidence synthesis, UC Libraries has expanded both education and researcher support. This spring the Libraries is offering a series of workshops exploring evidence synthesis and systematic reviews in detail. Sessions begin with a general introduction and then walk through many of the steps in the systematic review process in detail. The Libraries has also centralized and expanded the support model for evidence synthesis. This new Evidence Synthesis Network provides support for all disciplines at UC. From music to biology and everything in between, our new team offers a tiered level of support for reviews being conducted by a UC individual, except those for class projects or assignments.
Our team can:
- guide teams through best practices including the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses guideline,
- create robust and reproducible database specific search strings
- assist with using Covidence and citation managers.
Need help or want to learn more about Evidence Synthesis? Be sure to join our spring workshop series, explore our resources, check out our brand-new web page and of course email our team with questions.
References
Whitney, R., Shih, M. C., Gordis, T., Nguyen, S. A., Meyer, T. A., & Brennan, E. A. (2024). Effect of librarian collaboration on otolaryngology systematic review and meta-analysis quality. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 112(3), 261–274. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2024.1774
