Happy Peer Review week! Despite many criticisms and calls for reform1,2,3 peer review remains an intrinsic part of the academic scholarly lifecycle. Like faculty, librarians are deeply involved in peer review – both receiving peer review on our own scholarship and volunteering our peer review services to journals.
In particular, librarians are skilled at reviewing methodologies and search strategies for evidence syntheses papers like scoping and systematic reviews. In evidence synthesis, the quality of the literature search, and the clarity with which it is reported, are foundational! Research from Cushing/Whitney Medical Library librarians has shown that librarians could play a larger role in the peer review process4.
If you are a journal editor, you can use the Librarian Peer Reviewer Database to find qualified and available librarians to review aspects of submitted manuscripts. “Segmented peer review” is an excellent way of involving librarians in partial peer review of manuscripts5, as few individual peer reviewers have the knowledge to evaluate all aspects of team science manuscripts.
Yale librarians are also available to consult on all aspects of scholarly publishing.
References
1. Gerwing TG, Allen Gerwing AM, Avery-Gomm S, Choi C-Y, Clements JC, Rash JA. Quantifying professionalism in peer review. Research Integrity and Peer Review [Internet]. 2020 Jul 24
2. Gerwing TG, Allen Gerwing AM, Choi C-Y, Avery-Gomm S, Clements JC, Rash JA. Re-evaluation of solutions to the problem of unprofessionalism in peer review. Research Integrity and Peer Review [Internet]. 2021 Feb 16
3. Brainard J. The $450 question: Should journals pay peer reviewers? Science [Internet]. 2021 Mar 1
4. Grossetta Nardini HK, Batten J, Funaro MC, Garcia-Milian R, Nyhan K, Spak JM, et al. Librarians as methodological peer reviewers for systematic reviews: results of an online survey. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2019;4:23.
5. Nyhan K, Nardini HKG. Evidence synthesis papers would benefit from segmented peer review. Translational Oncology [Internet]. 2021 May 1