We are continuing to introduce you our speakers for the IFLA Social Sciences Libraries’ webinar Systematic Review Success: An Introductory Workshop for Librarians & Information Professionals 

Fourth presenter is Andrey E. Guskov (Novosibirsk & Moscow, Russia).

Guskov Andrey Evgenievich, Ph. D., Head of the Laboratory of Scientometrics and Science Communication of the Russian Research Institute of Economics, Politics and Law in Science and Technology (Moscow). Director of State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2016-2021. Deputy Director for Research at the Institute of Computing Technologies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2011-2014.
Area of interests: scientometrics, information systems for research, large language models.

The theme of the presentation:
Large Language Models for Writing Scientific Reviews

Abstract: The presentation discusses the use of large language models (LLMs) in the preparation of systematic reviews, highlighting their potential to significantly improve both efficiency and quality. It shows the capabilities of LLMs to perform key roles in the preparation of reviews, including the selection of relevant literature, the classification of articles into thematic topics relevant to the review, the extraction of key findings and other relevant data from full texts, and the drafting of the review manuscript. By integrating LLMs into the systematic review process, researchers can significantly reduce the time required to prepare reviews, while improving the overall quality of the reviews. These advance promises to revolutionize the field of scientific research and information science by making the laborious task of literature reviewing more manageable and accurate.

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We invite you to attend our webinar on June 5, Wednesday, 10 am-11:30 am EST. Please check your time zone.
Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/IFLASocSciWebinar1

We are continuing to introduce you our speakers for the IFLA Social Sciences Libraries’ webinar Systematic Review Success: An Introductory Workshop for Librarians & Information Professionals 

Third presenter is Anna Leonard (Namibia).

Anna Leonard is a Senior Librarian: Research and Scholarly Communication and a part-time lecturer at the University of Namibia (UNAM). She is a doctoral student at the University of South Africa.

The theme of the presentation:
Conducting Systematic Reviews in a Limited Resourced Country: A Namibian Experience

Abstract: In recent years, there has been a growing emphasis on evidence-based practice in healthcare and other fields. Systematic reviews play a crucial role in synthesizing existing evidence to inform policy and practice. However, conducting systematic reviews in a limited-resourced setting presents knowledge, unique experiences, and challenges. The presentation will delve into the unique obstacles encountered by researchers conducting systematic reviews in limited-resourced contexts like Namibia. Some of the challenges faced by researchers include limited skills to carry out systematic reviews, scarcity of local published grey literature, and access to information resources, databases, and systematic review tools (Covidence, Rayyan, Epp-Reviewer, etc.). Researchers need to use adaptable methods and strategies to ensure that systematic review studies from limited resources maintain quality, rigor, and credibility. Based on personal observations and experiences, the presentation will highlight different approaches and make recommendations for improving systematic reviews in Namibia and other limited-resourced countries.

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We invite you to attend our webinar on June 5, Wednesday, 10 am-11:30 am EST. Please check your time zone.
Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/IFLASocSciWebinar1

We are continuing to introduce you our speakers for the IFLA Social Sciences Libraries’ webinar Systematic Review Success: An Introductory Workshop for Librarians & Information Professionals 

Second presenter is Ryan Harris (North Carolina, USA).

Ryan Harris, MLIS, AHIP serves as the Associate Dean for Public Services at the J. Murrey Atkins Library, University of North Carolina Charlotte. In this role he provides strategy and leadership in a variety of Public Services including research, instruction, circulation and resource sharing. Ryan has actively supported systematic reviews in his current and past work covering topics including medicine, social work, and education.

The theme of the presentation:
Implementing an Interdisciplinary Systematic Review Service

Abstract: An academic library that serves a wide variety of departments and programs was approached by the Associate Dean for Research from its College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) about piloting a formal systematic review service. Some systematic review support had been done on an ad hoc basis for the CHHS faculty, supported by the subject librarian for health and human services, and the Department of Special Education and Child Development, supported by the Associate Dean for Public Services, but a formal service was not offered. The Dean of the CHHS was interested in its faculty doing more systematic reviews and was willing to provide funding to provide access to systematic review screening software. Due to workload demands it was determined that a pilot program would be offered to provide formal support for systematic reviews. Librarians would work with several research teams to develop and execute search strategies, help with the screening software, provide documentation of searches, and assist in writing the methodology. Librarians would be included as co-authors in any publications resulting from this pilot program. In order to gauge interest in this type of service, a workshop was developed by librarians and offered to faculty at CHHS. This workshop provided an overview of systematic reviews, including the definition of a systematic review, an overview of various systematic review standards, question development, the literature search process, the review process, various available tools for risk of bias assessment, and activities including evaluation of research questions and of existing published systematic reviews. Faculty interested in participating in the program had to submit a proposal with their research question and research team. Librarians and the associate dean for research reviewed all submissions. After the selection of CHHS faculty to participate in the pilot program, the Associate Dean for Research from the School of Education reached out to librarians to see if there would be the possibility of offering a similar service for education faculty. The pilot program has been going on for the 2022 – 2023 and 2023 – 2024 academic years. Librarians have worked with 19 research teams since the launch of the pilot.

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We invite you to attend our webinar on June 5, Wednesday, 10 am-11:30 am EST. Please check your time zone.
Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/IFLASocSciWebinar1

We are starting to introduce you our speakers for the IFLA Social Sciences Libraries’ webinar Systematic Review Success: An Introductory Workshop for Librarians & Information Professionals 

First presenter is Muhammad Yousuf Ali (Karachi, Pakistan).

Dr. Muhammad Yousuf Ali is a professional librarian, information literacy trainer, and library researcher. He has completed the PhD 2023, from The Islamia University Bahawalpur, Punjab. He has done M. Phil from Hamdard University Karachi 2016 and MLIS from the University of Karachi with the distinction of 2nd Position, 2008.

Currently, he has been serving as an Associate Librarian at The Aga Khan University, Karachi since January 2017 till date. Before this, he served as Deputy Librarian at SMIU from September 2012 to Jan 2017; also performed Job assignments at the Defence Central Library (DCL), Karachi from Aug 2009 to Aug 2012.

He has written 29 research paper in reputable research journals. His Research area of Interest are Web 2.0, Scholarly Communication, Academic Scholarly Networks Sites, Digital Literacy, and Social Media Networks. Since 2019 he has been working as a member of the IFLA Social Science Libraries Standing Committee (2nd term till 2027).

The theme of the presentation:
Systematic Review in the Realm of Social Science

Abstract: Systematic review is the core methodology to carry out evidence-based literature synthesis in a systematic way. Systematic review is very popular methodology in the field of Health/Medical Sciences The first systematic review was published in 1753 by James Lind, who provided a summary of evidence on scurvy (Egger et al., 2022). The term “systematic review” was first introduced in social sciences in the 1930s to summarize previous studies that tested a hypothesis (Moosapour et al., 2021).

Today Systematic review is not limited only to health science and now days systematic review conducted in the core subjects of social science, like Education, Economics, Journalism, Health Science etc. Last one-decade social science there is substantial growth of systematic review the field of social sciences. In this discussion discuss how to carry out systematic review in the field of social sciences and role of the social science librarian in the building of search strategy and literature search and retrieved the studies from different databases.

Save the date

We invite you to attend our webinar on June 5, Wednesday, 10 am-11:30 am EST. Please check your time zone.
Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/IFLASocSciWebinar1