Evidence Synthesis Services: A Review of Offerings at ARL Libraries

Managers who are developing evidence synthesis services for subjects outside of the health sciences may look to peer institutions and the literature to gain information about how other libraries are structuring their services. This paper gathers the information from the literature, input from a conference roundtable with librarians supporting evidence synthesis, and conducts an environmental scan of ARL library websites for evidence of existing services offered outside of medical and health science subjects. The trends presented in the literature and supported by the environmental scan are summarized to highlight the most common practices. Many challenges were revealed during the roundtable such as workload issues, steep learning curves, and mental drain. Libraries can benefit from the multitude of innovative approaches highlighted in this paper, adopting those that best match local demands and context.