Student, Resident, & Faculty Research Projects

Literature Research Support

Librarians can assist with student, resident or faculty research projects in variety ways: as an advising resource or consultant who helps direct researchers in their search, or in the case of an extensive research project librarians can assist as a member of a research team.  Listed below are a number of ways in which librarians can provide support for research projects:

As a consultant to a student researcher, faculty researcher, or research team, the librarian will:

• Provide guidance with search terms, strategy, and database selection on a variety of literature searches including, but not limited to, program review, grant proposals, committee work and review articles.
• Advise researchers about the possible publication type of review articles (e.g. scoping review, systematic review, etc.) and thus the scope of the search needed.
• Provide guidance on relevant guidelines and standards for conducting, reporting, and appraising research.
• Provide training and support in bibliographic management software (e.g. EndNote, Zotero, etc.) to organize retrieved citations.
• Librarians will conduct some limited and exploratory searches for the researcher as appropriate.
• Acknowledgement of the librarian in any publication is appreciated

As a member of the research team and co-author, the librarian will:

• Locate existing reviews on the topic of interest.
• Help determine the publication type of the final article (e.g. scoping review, systematic review, etc) and thus the scope of the search needed.
• Collaborate on determining the research question and related eligibility criteria.
• Provide guidance on relevant guidelines and standards for conducting, reporting, and appraising research.
• Develop the search strategy in consultation with the research team and conduct or participate in performing the literature searches.
• Identify sources of and search for grey literature, as appropriate.
• Maintain records of all searches.
• Collaborate in manuscript writing and editing, including the methodology section for reviews.
• Provide training in bibliographic management software (e.g. EndNote, Zotero, etc.) to organize retrieved citations.
• Suggest tools and techniques for study screening, de-duplication, and organization of information retrieved.
• Provide guidance through the review process.

*If a research team requests a librarian to become a member of a research team, the library requests that team leadership agree to the library’s MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) regarding authorship.

Please click on the below link to request a virtual library consultation:
Consultation Request Form