Systematic Review as a Research Method in Library and Information Science

Introduction

The rapid advancements of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have resulted in an exponential increase in the amount of available information and forced librarians to change their practices. The increasing popularity of ICTs, new ways of communicating research and the transformation in scientific publishing have also posed new challenges for librarians. Information scientists need to rethink and redefine their role in terms of addressing users’ needs and thus use advanced technological skills (Vassilakaki & Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, 2014). Systematic reviews (SRs) are increasingly being produced and published (Chasin & Scholta, 2015). There has been a sharp rise in the publication of SRs due to the increased call for evidence-based research; high publication rate of primary studies, growing number of scientist organizations promoting SRs, and high number of tools available to conduct review (Foster & Foster, 2015). The upsurge in reviews has led to more researchers seeking the assistance of librarians (Foster & Foster, 2015). According to Xu, Kang and Song, (2015), all primary research must be preceded by a SR. SR is defined as a systematic way of collecting, critically evaluating, integrating, and presenting findings from across multiple research studies on a research question or topic of interest (Pati et al., 2018).

SRs help information scientists to keep up-to-date with scientific information since they combine information from several existing publications on a given topic (Don, Cnor & Faan, 2016). As information scientists, library staff could act in a more entrepreneurial style and seek out ways to add value to their roles and show the impact of their work and to do so they must go beyond the traditional parameters of the library. They need to respond more acutely to their users’ needs, and develop capabilities to build better profiles of their users, for example through continual needs analysis (Delaney & Bates, 2015). Therefore, SRs provides several opportunities to librarians such as potential income, increased use of library services, research output, and alignment with the new roles of academic libraries (Gore & Jones, 2015).

Information scientists are more and more appealed to participate in the production of SRs (Gore & Jones, 2015). The information scientist are urged to participate in SRs due to the ever-increasing volume of digital information and the constant development of tools to generate and access information require information scientists to operate as information consultants and facilitators (Vassilakaki & Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, 2014). Furthermore, Information scientists need to reconsider their role in the learning process at higher levels due to increased competition among universities for developing successful graduates, hiring prominent academics and finding research funds, skills development, and the adoption of changes in the learning and research organizations (Vassilakaki & Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, 2014).

SRs have often been mainly associated with the field of health science (Don et al., 2016). Health sciences librarians have been involved with SRs since this genre of publication emerged during the 1990s. Since then, librarians have been most widely known for their prowess in searching for the evidence needed to create SRs. Even during the early years, however, librarians and other information scientists were involved in other aspects of the SR process (Spencer & Eldredge, 2018). Further, the first books on the reviews were published by researchers in the field of education, social sciences, and political science (Xu, Kang and Song, 2015; Trudel et al., 2015; Petticrew, 2001). However, SRs are gaining their prominence in other fields as well, including astronomy to zoology, library and information studies and information systems.