Leveraging Existing Services to Support Evidence Synthesis Researchers Outside of the Health Sciences

The author presents a case study for the development of an evidence synthesis service serving researchers outside of the health sciences at a large academic library. The purpose of this project was to highlight the importance of integrating existing core services and workflows that create seamless delivery of evidence synthesis support and yield quality service. The paper provides decisions that university libraries must consider as they are planning the implementation of these services. The research-intensive nature of evidence synthesis projects provides liaison librarians with a perfect entry to deliver high-quality and relevant services, especially to graduate students and researchers. Through this work, libraries will demonstrate strong evidence for their engagement and contributions to research on campus. Librarians interested in supporting this latest type of research can use this study to gain a sense of where their own professional strengths fit within this new functional area and plan how to enter this developing research space. This study may be of interest to administrators, reference and instruction librarians, and librarians serving graduate students. Issues are presented in a way that surfaces difficult topics, which will help guide planning conversations between supervisors and librarians regarding workload assignments.