When available, the GVSU Health Sciences Librarians perform assistance for comprehensive literature searching projects. Typically the librarians instruct research teams about the review process, help draft the search strategy, and, when appropriate, conduct the search in multiple databases and provide the results in a citation management tool like Zotero or in a CSV file or Excel spreadsheet.

If you are a student assigned with a research project, reach out to your librarian. Librarians will help you with learning how to construct a search strategy, select databases, and select a citation manager.

Range of services, dependent on librarian availability:

• Advice on formulation of search questions
• Education and guidance on review types
• Guidance with systematic review steps and tools
• Advice on databases/sources selection for specific topics
• Instruction in database platforms available at GVSU
• Instruction in search techniques and methods
• Basic introductory instruction on bibliographic citation software, Zotero, to manage and share results
• Development and documentation of formal, comprehensive strategies for reproducible searches
• Assistance in translation of strategies for each database platform
• Writing search methods according to PRISMA or other appropriate guidelines