Subject Guides: Reviewing the literature: Library support

Library support for reviews

The library provides support for reviews in the following areas.

Book an appointment

For support and advice on conducting your review, Masters by Research students, HDR candidates, professional staff and academics can book an appointment with the Liaison Librarian (Reviews protocols).

Reviews librarian booking form

Masters by coursework and Honours students can book an appointment with their campus liaison librarian.

Search strategy peer review

The library offers a peer review service for search strategies for reviews. This is available for one complete search strategy for one database per evidence synthesis project. It is available to staff only. It is not available for projects that will be submitted for assessment, such as theses.

The library recommends that you have your search strategy developed as completely as possible to gain the most out of this service. If you wish to meet with the reviews librarian before submitting a peer review request in order to refine or develop your search strategy, please book an appointment.

Your search strategy will be tested for reproducibility (the librarian can copy what you did and find the same number of results) and reviewed by using the PRESS checklist (McGowan et al., 2016). Please note, the librarian is not a discipline expert so may not be aware of all relevant search terms for the concepts.

The library aims to complete the peer review within five working days of receiving the request. If this timeframe is not possible due to librarian workload or other commitments, you will be informed by email with an expected completion date.

To submit a request, please download and complete the form below, and return by email to Erin Roga.

McGowan, J., Sampson, M., Salzwedel, D. M., Cogo, E., Foerster, V., & Lefebvre, C. (2016). PRESS Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies: 2015 Guideline Statement. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 75, 40-46. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2016.01.021

Search strategy peer review request form

Webinar recordings

Recordings of library webinars related to reviews are below. You may need to log in with your Fedaration details to access them.

Methodology and reporting guidance for reviews (recorded April 29 2025)
EndNote for reviews (recorded April 17, 2025)
What review is right for you? (recorded May 6 2025)
Understanding the PRISMA flow diagram (recorded 15 May 2025)
Documenting and reporting the search (recorded May 21 2025)
Make reviews great again! (recorded May 28 2025)
Reviewing the literature: Choosing a framework and developing concepts
Search frameworks help structure searches for reviews and are one of the first steps in developing the search strategy.
Reviewing the literature: Using seed papers to develop more keywords
Known articles (or seed papers) that are relevant to the review topic are a useful way of finding additional keywords.
Reviewing the literature: Finding subject headings and more keywords
Subject headings are important to include in a search strategy for a review to make sure it is a comprehensive search, and they can also identify additional key words.
Reviewing the literature: Combining terms and using advanced operators
Search terms need to be combined correctly to give relevant and comprehensive results, and advanced search operators will also be useful.
Reviewing the literature: Searching a key database to test the search strategy
When the search strategy has been developed, it needs to be tested on a key database to ensure it works.
Reviewing the literature: Evaluating the search strategy
The search strategy should be evaluated before conducting the final search to make sure it is comprehensive and gives relevant results.
Reviewing the literature: Translating the search for other databases
Each database uses different subject headings, field codes and advanced operators. These will need to be altered in the search strategy for it to work correctly in each database.
Reviewing the literature: Finding grey literature
It is increasingly common to include grey literature in reviews, but it can be challenging to find.
Reviewing the literature: Citation tracking of included articles
When the screening of the results has been completed, and the included articles are selected, their references and newer articles that cite them need to be identified to determine if they meet the inclusion criteria.
Reviewing the literature: Reporting the search using PRISMA
The search needs to be described in your review to ensure it is replicable and it makes up the beginning of the flow chart that documents the search and screening process.