Librarians as Methodological Peer Reviewers for Systematic Review Manuscript Submissions to Journals

This study investigates librarian involvement in the peer review process of biomedical journals, specifically how frequently librarians are asked to review the methodologies of systematic review manuscripts and what traits are associated with those who are invited to review

Librarians as methodological peer reviewers for systematic reviews: results of a survey

Abstract Background: Developing a comprehensive, reproducible literature search is the basis for a high-quality systematic review (SR). Librarians and information professionals, as expert searchers, can improve the quality of systematic review searches, methodology, and reporting. Likewise, journal editors and authors often seek to improve the quality of published SRs and other evidence syntheses through peer review. Health sciences librarians contribute to systematic review production but little is known about their involvement in peer reviewing SR manuscripts. Methods: This survey aimed to assess how frequently librarians are asked to peer review systematic review manuscripts and to determine characteristics associated with those invited to review. The survey was distributed to a purposive sample through three health sciences information professional listservs. Results: There were 291 complete survey responses. Results indicated that 22% (n=63) of respondents had been asked by journal editors to peer review systematic review or meta-analysis manuscripts. Of the 78% (n=228) of respondents who had not already been asked, 54% (n=122) would peer review, and 41% (n=93) might peer review. Only 4% (n=9) would not review a manuscript. Respondents had peer reviewed manuscripts for 38 unique journals and believed they were asked because of their professional expertise. Of respondents who had declined to peer review (32%, n=20), the most common explanation was ‘not enough time’ (60%, n=12) followed by ‘lack of expertise’ (50%, n=10). The vast majority of respondents (95%, n=40) had ‘rejected or recommended a revision of a manuscript’ after peer review. They based their decision on the ‘search methodology’ (57%, n=36), ‘search write-up’ (46%, n=29), or ‘entire article’ (54%, n=34). Those who selected ‘other’ (37%, n=23) listed a variety of reasons for rejection, including problems or errors in the PRISMA flow diagram; tables of included, excluded, and ongoing studies; data extraction; reporting; and pooling methods. Conclusions: Despite being experts in conducting literature searches and supporting SR teams through the review process, few librarians have been asked to review SR manuscripts, or even just search strategies; yet many are willing to provide this service. Editors should involve experienced librarians with peer review and we suggest some strategies to consider

Healthy and Resilient Communities Evaluation

The Centre for Rural Health , Tasmania was commissioned b Rural Alive and Well (RAW) to conduct an evaluation of RAW’s Healthy and Resilience Communities (HaRC) program. … The HaRC program is one of three mental health and suicide prevention programs delivered to rural Tasmanian communities by RAW. The primary goal of the HaRC program is to enhance mental health and wellbeing community protective factors such as coping capability, resilience and connectedness, to better equip rural Tasmanian communities to react to challenging life experiences