Cornell librarian honored for work on evidence synthesis

Every year, the American College and Research Libraries-a division of the American Library Association-gives out its Section Awards that "honor the very best in academic and research librarianship."

Announced April 2, this year's awardees include Cornell University Library's Matt Kibbee, who received the University Libraries Section (ULS) Outstanding Professional Development Award together with partner librarians from the University of Minnesota and Carnegie Mellon University who lead the Evidence Synthesis Institute (ESI).

"The core planning team of the Evidence Synthesis Institute have developed a remarkable contribution to the professional development of librarians by recognizing the need to grow the skills of librarians supporting the fast-developing demand for evidence synthesis projects, especially beyond the health sciences," wrote Scott Marsalis, director of the research areas of sciences, agriculture, and engineering at the University of Minnesota Libraries, in his letter nominating the ESI team for the award.

Evidence synthesis in a nutshell

As explained in a Cornell University Library LibGuide, evidence synthesis "refers to any method of identifying, selecting, and combining results from multiple studies." Examples of evidence synthesis include scoping reviews, which map out existing studies to help identify gaps in knowledge about a given topic, as well as systematic reviews, which gather studies to answer a specific research question.

Gathering and making sense of evidence can be a matter of life or death, according to Kibbee, who leads Cornell University Library's evidence synthesis service.

"If it's making a medical decision, making a decision around policy, or making a decision around standards of practice, then you want the process of gathering and evaluating information to be much, much better," Kibbee said. "You want to make sure that you have no room for bias, that you're not missing important information, and that you're synthesizing everything in a responsible way because people's lives can actually depend on the outcome."

Teamwork at Cornell and beyond

Kibbee described his team of research and evidence synthesis librarians at Cornell University Library as "embedded" partners of scholars whose intensive research projects have vital real-world impact.

Last year, for example, Kibbee co-authored a scoping review on the effects of nature immersion on individuals with autism-a research project led by Nancy Wells, senior associate dean for research and graduate studies in Cornell's College of Human Ecology, and with collaborators that included Cornell undergraduate and graduate students, along with researchers from Texas A&M and the non-profit The Center of Discovery.

Most recently, a member of Kibbee's team, Elizabeth DiGiovine, also co-authored a review on the health and nutritional impacts of alternatives to typical animal-sourced foods with Cornell undergrads and graduate students, and researchers from the non-profit Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Each member of the Cornell evidence synthesis service team-which includes Lindsay Bahureksa and Jim Morris-Knower-also contributes their expertise to teaching for ESI's annual symposium and conference, as well as creating modules for ESI's free, asynchronous online course that's openly accessible to librarians and scholars around the world.

"With her background in biomedical engineering, Lindsay can really talk about the process of data extraction and how to evaluate studies for risks of bias," Kibbee said. "Elizabeth's background is in physical therapy, and she is able to share perspectives from the practitioner and researcher side […], and Jim often does a panel in which he talks about the soft skills involved in evidence synthesis and shares tips and tricks and strategies for working with different researchers in different fields."

As tools and methods for evidence synthesis continue to grow, Kibbee and his team look forward to working with librarians and researchers in a wide range of study-from social sciences and psychology to public policy and anthropology.

"Evidence synthesis is a methodology that works in almost any discipline," said Kibbee, whose own research interests include early modern drama and poetry, and the intersections of the sciences and the humanities. "I'm really interested in growing our scope and inviting more researchers in more fields into this really exciting work."

Learn more about Cornell University Library's evidence synthesis service.