Treadwell's Service for Systematic, Scoping and Other Reviews

We are at capacity for projects and are not accepting any new review requests. 

If we've reached maximum capacity with projects, you can learn how to execute the search yourself, using our course:

• How to Perform Literature Searches for Systematic, Scoping and Other Reviews (requires an MGB username and password to log in)

Or you might be able to leverage a librarian at a different institution if someone on your team has another affiliation. Finally, you could hire a contract librarian if you have the funds available. Listed below are ways to find an independent contract worker to perform the literature search:

• Hire a private outside organization such as Systematic Review Consultants or Effective Evidence
• Post a call for work to the Medical Librarians listserv or Cochrane Information Retrieval Methods listserv

Treadwell offers two service levels for comprehensive reviews (including but not limited to: scoping, systematic, rapid and integrative reviews and meta-analyses). The name of each level reflects the credit the librarian will receive for their intellectual contribution to the project. Involving a librarian is widely recommended by major research organizations.

Once you have decided which level you would like, complete our intake form to get started.

Acknowledgement Level

We complete part of the literature search.

• Hour-long consultation meeting
• Create a search for one of the required databases (Medline)
• Suggest databases for extending the search 

Co-authorship Level

We perform the entire literature search.

• All acknowledgment level services
• Fill out sections in the protocol relating to the search
• Create searches for all required databases
• Deduplicate and upload results into Covidence 
• Create PRISMA-compliant methods section and appendix
• Review manuscript and draft responses to peer reviewers or editors 

Peer reviewing a Medline search will amount to acknowledgment credit. Rather than editing your search directly, we'll offer feedback. For databases in addition to or other than Medline, we will recommend our co-authorship level.

Since individualized teaching for review searching can't be realistically done, the library instead has a self-paced module on how to design and execute a literature search for any review. The course is available for enrollment below. You'll need to sign in using your MGB username and password:

• How to Perform Literature Searches for Systematic, Scoping and Other Reviews

1. Credit must be given to the librarian for their work on the project.
2. First author or project lead must be a full-time MGH employee.
3. The service will not be available if maximum capacity has been reached.
4. The librarian retains the right to change tiers to accurately reflect the work being conducted, as well as refuse co-authorship.
5. If you request more than one project, they will be worked on sequentially. 
6. Out of consideration for the other teams waiting for our help, if we do not receive timely responses from your team, your project may be placed on temporary hold.