ArticleJournal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA2022
The case of the disappearing librarians: analyzing documentation of librarians' contributions to systematic reviews.
Article in Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Taking it a step farther: acknowledging librarians' systematic review work in the promotion or tenure process.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2026Article
- Searches as data: archiving and sharing search strategies using an institutional data repository.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: The study aimed to analyze the documented role of a librarian in published systematic reviews and meta-analyses whose registered protocols mentioned librarian involvement. The intention was to identify how, or if, librarians' involvement was formally documented, how their contributions were described, and if there were any potential connections between this documentation and basic metrics of search reproducibility and quality. Methods: Reviews whose PROSPERO protocols were registered in 2017 and 2018 and that also specifically mentioned a librarian were analyzed for documentation of the librarian's involvement. Language describing the librarian and their involvement was gathered and coded, and additional information about the review, including search strategy details, was also collected. Results: A total of 209 reviews were found and analyzed. Of these, 28% had a librarian co-author, 41% named a librarian in the acknowledgements section, and 78% mentioned the contribution of a librarian within the body of the review. However, mentions of a librarian within the review were often generic ("a librarian") and in 31% of all reviews analyzed no librarian was specified by name. In 9% of the reviews, there was no reference to a librarian found at all. Language about librarians' contributions usually only referenced their work with search strategy development. Reviews with librarian coauthors typically described the librarian's work in active voice centering the librarian, unlike reviews without librarian coauthors. Most reviews had reproducible search strategies that utilized subject headings and keywords, but some had flawed or missing strategies. Conclusion: Even among this set of reviews, where librarian involvement was specified at the protocol level, librarians' contributions were often described with minimal, or even no, language in the final published review. Much room for improvement appears to remain in terms of how librarians' work is documented.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.