Campus-wide examination of evidence synthesis publication output

Abstract

Introduction: A team of three librarians and an MLIS student collaborated to examine evidence synthesis (ES) articles published by authors affiliated with a single university campus. The team established the null hypothesis that at Indiana University Indianapolis and Indiana University School of Medicine, ES projects are only published by authors affiliated with health sciences disciplines. Additionally, the team established a second null hypothesis that librarian co-authorship only occurs in ES publications by campus-affiliated authors in health sciences disciplines. Methods: The librarians built a Scopus search strategy to capture ES articles with at least one author affiliated with IU Indianapolis. The search used the date range 2021 – 2025 to account for the publication of PRISMA-S in 2020. “Author affiliation and methods” screening was conducted independently by two reviewers in Covidence. Data extraction recorded whether publications included a librarian coauthor and identified the school within IU Indianapolis of each affiliated author. For authors within the School of Medicine, the affiliated department was also recorded. Discussion: Next steps for the project include a second round of data extraction looking for search quality indicators in each article based on elements outlined in PRISMA-S and the general PRISMA guidelines. By examining ES projects conducted by authors affiliated with IU Indianapolis, the null hypotheses could be rejected if ES publications occurring outside of the health science disciplines are identified with librarian co-authors. Libraries on the IU Indianapolis can potentially use quantitative data on ES publications by campus-affiliated authors as evidence for hiring and training more librarians on systematic searching. This presentation won the "Excellence in Research" award for papers at the Midwest Chapter of Medical Librarians Association 2025 Annual Conference.