Page MJ, Shamseer L, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Sampson M, Tricco AC, Catalá-López F, Li L, Reid EK, Sarkis-Onofre R, Moher D.Epidemiology and Reporting Characteristics of Systematic Reviews of Biomedical Research: A Cross-Sectional Study. PLoS Med. 2016 May 24;13(5):e1002028 Systematic reviews can help decision makers interpret research findings in the overload of published biomedical literature. However if a systematic review is not done well, or not reported correctly, its value is lost. The authors found that there was a huge increase in the number of systematic reviews being published, in the last three decades, but...when it came to the methods / reporting:At least…

Haddaway NR, Collins AM, Coughlin D, Kirk S.The Role of Google Scholar in Evidence Reviews and Its Applicability to Grey Literature Searching.PLoS One. 2015 Sep 17;10(9):e0138237A very interesting article that touches upon GS in several contexts, including tracing its improvements over the years. The authors also discuss the debates about how GS works and then also about how  useful it is in finding grey literature for conducting evidence reviews. The article concludes that GS is indeed a useful supplement in searches for evidence, particularly grey literature so long as its limitations are recognised. The authors recommend that the assessment of results from Google…

Kirtley, S.Impactful librarians: identifying opportunities to increase your impactJournal of EAHIL 2015; Vol. 11 (4): 23-28Shona Kirtley suggests how librarians can be highly responsive to research needs of their library users. She specially stresses on creating more awareness of and training people to use the EQUATOR guidelines for reporting various forms of research. Very simply put, if people push up their knowledge about these guidelines, their writing skills and their article appraisal skills become very strong. The article has emerged from the comments in the Lancet Series on Research, where there is a discussion on increasing value and reducing waste in…