Building the Systematic Review Core in an academic health sciences library.

BACKGROUND: The authors present efforts to build capacity at our institution for conducting systematic reviews and other forms of evidence synthesis through partnerships and a recharge model. This report describes how we successfully created and launched a for-fee systematic review core at our library. CASE PRESENTATION: Throughout 2014 and 2015, library leadership proposed different models for getting institutional and financial support for librarians and staff to better support university researchers conducting systematic reviews. Though well received, initial requests for financial support were not funded. The executive director of the Health Sciences Library released two years' worth of salary and benefits to fund an evidence synthesis and retrieval librarian position. With this new position, the team formed a charge-back core facility in partnership with our university's Clinical Translation and Science Award hub. A series of procedural decisions and operational changes helped the group achieve success. Within eighteen months after launching the Systematic Review Core, we reached maximum capacity with more than twenty ongoing reviews. DISCUSSION: Assigning a dollar value to our expertise put us on par with other subject matter experts on campus and actually drove demand. We could act as paid consultants in research projects and shifted the perception of librarians from service providers to research partners. Affiliating with our partners was key to our success and boosted our ability to strengthen our campus' research infrastructure.

Relationship of food insecurity to women's dietary outcomes: a systematic review.

Context: Food insecurity matters for women's nutrition and health. Objective: This review sought to comprehensively evaluate how food insecurity relates to a full range of dietary outcomes (food groups, total energy, macronutrients, micronutrients, and overall dietary quality) among adult women living in Canada and the United States. Data sources: Peer-reviewed databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science) and gray literature sources from 1995 to 2016 were searched. Data extraction: Observational studies were used to calculate a percentage difference in dietary intake for food-insecure and food-secure groups. Results: Of the 24 included studies, the majority found food-insecure women had lower food group frequencies (dairy, total fruits and vegetables, total grains, and meats/meat alternatives) and intakes of macro- and micronutrients relative to food-secure women. Methodological quality varied. Among high-quality studies, food insecurity was negatively associated with dairy, fruits and vegetables, grains, meats/meats alternatives, protein, total fat, calcium, iron, magnesium, vitamins A and C, and folate. Conclusions: Results hold practical relevance for selecting nutritional targets in programs, particularly for nutrient-rich foods with iron and folate, which are more important for women's health.

Building capacity to encourage research reproducibility and #MakeResearchTrue.

BACKGROUND: Research into study replication and reporting has led to wide concern about a reproducibility crisis. Reproducibility is coming to the attention of major grant funders, including the National Institutes of Health, which launched new grant application instructions regarding rigor and reproducibility in 2015. STUDY PURPOSE: In this case study, the authors present one library's work to help increase awareness of reproducibility and to build capacity for our institution to improve reproducibility of ongoing and future research. CASE PRESENTATION: Library faculty partnered with campus research leaders to create a daylong conference on research reproducibility, followed by a post-conference day with workshops and an additional seminar. Attendees came from nearly all schools and colleges on campus, as well as from other institutions, nationally and internationally. Feedback on the conference was positive, leading to efforts to sustain the momentum achieved at the conference. New networking and educational opportunities are in development. DISCUSSION: Libraries are uniquely positioned to lead educational and capacity-building efforts on campus around research reproducibility. Costs are high and partnerships are required, but such efforts can lead to positive change institution-wide.