College & Research Libraries ( C&RL ) is the official, bi-monthly, online-only scholarly research journal of the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association.

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Barbara Kissa is a PhD Student at University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, email: [email protected] .

Zoe Georganta is Professor at University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, email: [email protected] .

Elias Gounopoulos is Assistant Professor at University of Western Macedonia, Kozani, Greece, email: [email protected] .

Fotis Kitsios is Professor at University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, email: [email protected] .

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Exploring the Cost Effectiveness of Services in Academic Libraries: A Case Study with the Use of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing

Barbara Kissa, Zoe Georganta, Elias Gounopoulos, and Fotis Kitsios *

Over the past decade, the financial crisis has led to reduced government funding for academic libraries in Greece. Now more than ever, it is imperative for library managers to improve their knowledge and understanding of cost behavior, in order to effectively deliver high quality services at decreasing costs. To do so, they need to apply clearly-defined costing methods, such as Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC), that allow them to identify the various costs involved in the library processes. In our study, we applied the TDABC method at the medium-sized library of the University of Macedonia (UoM), in Thessaloniki, Greece, to evaluate the costs of the Inter-library Loans (ILL) services. Since the library managers did not adopt a cost allocation method, the cost estimation of the UoM ILL services was rather simplistic and rudimentary. Our research provides empirical evidence of the advantages of TDABC in an academic library setting. Namely, the TDABC method can help library administrators decide how to successfully allocate the available resources and improve the efficiency of the library processes.

Ιntroduction

The global economic crisis has affected the academic libraries in Europe and the USA. 1 Due to limited state funding and an increasing cost of information, academic library managers need to apply effective costing methods to improve the allocation of library resources and offer high quality services at diminishing costs. 2 They need to use reliable management techniques based on effective information regarding cost assessments and library processes. 3

Many studies have applied cost analysis for university library services using contemporary costing methodologies such as Activity-Based Costing (ABC) or Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC). 4 ABC is a useful management tool for academic library managers, because it informs them about the costs of services and cost drivers. The ABC system was introduced by Cooper and Kaplan in the mid-1980s as an alternative costing system and was first applied to manufacturing companies. According to the ABC system, the cost of resources is allocated to activities using cost guides (i.e. number of book orders, number of loans between libraries, number of machine hours, etc.), and the cost of activities is allocated to cost objects based on the relevant cost guides. 5

Although the ABC system can be a sufficient costing method, there are several limitations. Firstly, ABC can take a long time to implement due to the complexity of the activities. Secondly, ABC includes only one cost driver per activity. In reality, there is more than one cost driver per activity. Thirdly, library managers need to update the results regularly, which makes ABC implementation more costly. 6

In 2003, Kaplan and Anderson introduced TDABC as a time-driven, improved version of the ABC method that would overcome the difficulties of implementing and constantly updating the ABC system. TDABC is faster to update and uses time as the only cost driver. TDABC is considered an easy-to-implement method since it only estimates for each activity two simple parameters: 1) The cost/time unit of the resource (i.e., personnel, library management system) and 2) the time units (usually estimated in minutes) required to perform an activity by the resource. 7

TDABC method is considered a management accounting innovation that allows managers with no experience in accounting science to perform cost analysis activities efficiently. 8 In fact, many researchers consider TDABC to be a simple, easy-to-learn and easy-to-apply costing system for libraries. However, there are only a few studies that evaluate whether the technique of TDABC is effective for the most important library services like lending, cataloguing, acquisition, and the interlibrary loan (ILL) services. 9

The aim of our study is to evaluate the application of the TDABC method to the academic library of the University of Macedonia (UoM), Thessaloniki, Greece, to estimate the costs of ILL services.

The UoM serves approximately 9,120 undergraduate students and offers eight undergraduate and 39 master’s and doctoral degrees. According to the Carnegie classification of institutions of higher education, the university is considered a middle-sized university and is representative of the Greek Universities since most of them (i.e., 43–45%) are also middle-sized. 10 The UoM library may also be considered a representative case study for the Greek academic libraries since the procedures and policies applied in the Greek academic libraries are almost the same.

Although TDABC could improve the cost management of many library processes, we have focused our research/analysis on the inter-library loan services. As the number of interlibrary loans has increased in recent years, ILL is considered a popular service among academic libraries. 11 However, the existing cost analysis of ILL often either overestimates or underestimates the costs associated with these services. Although the cost of simple and complicated ILL requests vary significantly, most studies divide ILL cost by the number of ILL transactions (requests). 12 Hence, allocating the same cost to different type of requests produces inaccurate cost estimates. 13

The results of our in-depth TDABC cost analysis may help library managers better understand the origin of ILL services’ costs. The UoM library managers cannot allocate cost for each library service, so they have to accept inaccurate and rough cost estimations. Moreover, the detailed TDABC results with costs, time, and resources for each activity will help them optimize processes and understand which activities need to be improved or discarded. The results of our study will help library administrators make optimal decisions for the efficient allocation of library resources.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: in the literature review section, we present the TDABC technique. In the methods and results section, we describe the TDABC implementation steps for the ILL process at the UoM library. Finally, in the two last sections we discuss the findings of our study and the implications and contribution for library practice.

Literature Review

Academic libraries must provide high quality and cost-effective services. The cost effectiveness of the library services must be assessed with efficient cost analysis methods. However, the total cost of the library services is usually estimated by traditional costing systems rather simplistically, as the sum of direct costs (i.e., material and labor) and indirect costs (i.e., a percentage of overheads).

Conventional costing systems are considered cost-efficient if indirect costs are low and the range of services is limited. Nowadays, the indirect costs have become more significant compared to the direct costs, especially in organizations with a wide range of services such as libraries. 14 As a result, the traditional costing systems cannot provide accurate cost information to library managers.

Activity-based costing (ABC) is an alternative costing technique that aims to correct the restrictions of traditional methods by evaluating the cost of the activities for each process. 15 Thus, ABC helps determine which activities are significant or expensive. 16 However, ABC is primarily based on subjective information. The preferred method of data collection is through interviews, in which the organisation’s employees state the percentage of time they spend on different activities of each process. 17 Another disadvantage of the ABC system is that it needs to be updated very often to reflect current practice, which further increases its operating cost. 18

To overcome the difficulties of implementing and constantly updating the ABC system, Kaplan and Anderson introduced TDABC as an improved version of the ABC method. 19 TDABC records analytical information for each activity, such as duration, frequency, and the staff who carried out each activity. The TDABC method provides detailed cost data through process maps, which essentially outline a sequence of activities. 20 The time to perform each activity is measured via direct observation.

TDABC uses a simple time equation to estimate the duration of the process, which is calculated as the sum of the time of the activities in the process. The time equation can evaluate all the possible scenarios for each process (i.e., different combination of activities). The costs are assigned to the cost object by multiplying the cost per time unit of the resource by the time required to perform the activities. 21 The TDABC method provides significant information on inefficient activities, that may need to be eliminated to reduce costs. For example, the application of TDABC to a multinational distributor of scientific products helped them transform 1,200 activities to just 200 department processes. 22

TDABC was applied in various business fields such as manufacturing, banks, hospitality, healthcare, and nonprofit organizations such as libraries. Everaert et al. used the TDABC method to evaluate the cost of the logistic processes of a wholesaler company in Belgium. While the application of the ABC method ignored the complexity of operations and misallocated 55 percent of all costs, TDABC provided a detailed cost analysis. Thus, the company managers could evaluate more accurately the profitability for each customer. This new information helped them improve the company’s profitability by introducing new discount policies and renegotiating contracts with customers and suppliers. 23 Keel et al. reviewed the empirical application of TDABC to the health care sector. TDABC can evaluate efficiently and accurately the cost of the complex processes and achieve operational improvement. Thus, it should be gradually incorporated into functional systems to control the cost and create value in health care. 24

Given its simplicity and efficiency, many researchers have chosen to apply the TDABC method to evaluate one or more services at academic libraries. Stouthuysen et al. applied TDABC in order to reduce the cost of activities connected with the acquisition process in a university library in Belgium. 25 Kont focused her analysis on the same process at two Estonian university libraries, 26 while Sigüenza-Guzmán et al. presented the use of TDABC for a library cataloguing process at a Belgian library. 27 They have also used TDABC to analyze lending and returning processes at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven). Kissa et al. have applied the TDABC method to the lending processes at the UoM library, Greece. 28 All of the above researchers conclude that the TDABC method seems to be a cost management technique that provides credible cost information for the most important library services.

For many years, ILL has been considered a very important process for an academic library as, “ it is generally used to fill the gap between academic libraries collections and what their patrons actually need .” 29 The first major cost study for ILL services, was conducted during 1974 from Vernon Palmour et al. for the association of Research Libraries (ARL). While the volume of ILL transactions more than doubled in the previous five years, the academic libraries did not equally share the costs. The researchers surveyed 189 academic libraries and examined various ways to finance interlibrary loans. They recommended the use of coupons sold by a central clearing house. 30

ILL is still a popular service among academic libraries. Lars Leon and Nancy Kress researched twenty-three medium-to-large academic libraries in the United States. They evaluated the cost of resource-sharing services, such as ILL borrowing and lending copies and loans. They concluded that the largest cost is staff cost. 31 Recently, the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC ) introduced a free internet-based tool (i.e., OCLC Interlibrary Loan Cost Calculator) that may be used as a real-time ILL cost calculator in order to help library administrators and practitioners better understand the costs associated with sharing collections. 32

However, very few researchers have used the TDABC method to evaluate ILL service at an academic library. 33 Moreover, the estimated ILL cost is actually difficult to compare. 34 Marc-André Simard et al. reviewed ILL cost studies from 1997 through 2017. 35 They found that, due to methodology problems, the ILL cost per transaction varied significantly from $3.75 up to $100.00. For example, some researchers counted only the filled ILL requests, while others counted both filled and unfilled ILL requests. However, Jackson’s estimation of ILL cost at $17.50 remains the guideline for most researchers and librarians because she examines ILL with methodological rigor. 36

In 2007, Pernot et al. provided a whole new approach based on TDABC by calculating the cost data for every activity of the ILL processes. 37 This in-depth TDABC analysis was implemented at the ILL services of the Arenberg Library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium. According to the results of that study, TDABC could decrease the cost management of the library services given that it breaks down the cost per transaction. Thus, TDABC can improve the library processes by estimating the activities which are costly and with no added value. However, no further research has been conducted based on ILL’s TDABC cost analysis.

Methods and Results

The aim of our research is to evaluate the implementation of TDABC at an academic library. In particular, we have implemented the TDABC method to estimate the cost of the ILL service. Since it is not feasible for the library to buy everything its patrons request, ILL is considered one of the most important and difficult library services. This service provides patrons with quick access to information whenever they need it. 38 As a result, accurate cost estimation is important because the operating costs of this service are high, and the requests are very time-consuming to process. Furthermore, ILL is a service which requires experienced staff with high linguistic and digital skills.

The academic library studied was the UoM library, Thessaloniki, Greece. The UoM library is operated by approximately 20 full-time-equivalent employees (FTE). The number of registered users is estimated to be about 8,270 per academic year. In order to provide ILL services efficiently, the UoM library is a member of the Hellenic Interlibrary Loan Network (HILL-net) and the ILL Service of Scientific and Technological Libraries National Network. This cooperation with other Greek libraries is an effective way to overcome budgetary constraints. 39 The UoM library also cooperates with the Document Supply Service of the British Library (BLDSS) and a cooperative German document delivery service called Subito. The aforementioned partnerships reduce Library Management System (LMS) costs (i.e., hardware, software and networking) and accounting costs (i.e., clearance, accounting and payments).

However, there is no accurate and detailed cost analysis for each library service. 40 All the library costs are processed in the central accounting system of the University of Macedonia through the budget-reporting system. There is also no cost allocation for individual library services, such as ILL. Moreover, all ILL cases are estimated at the same cost, without taking into account different types of ILL requests or different types of providers.

We implemented TDABC method combining qualitative and quantitative methods to ensure the reliability of our results. Our mixed method analysis may increase the rigor and enrich the findings of our research.

In the next paragraphs we thoroughly explain the six-step application of TDABC at the UoM library. 41 According to our analysis of the UoM ILL service, we have identified four different ILL processes. Each ILL process is a sequence of activities and may have several scenarios or cases. Each activity is described with a letter abbreviation (i.e., a, b, c …k). In detail:

Step 1: Identify the most important ILL processes

We have thoroughly studied the UoM library guide, which describes the library processes. We then interviewed the UoM ILL staff and the UoM library manager using open questions. The ILL processes were identified by separating outgoing and incoming requests. In particular, the UoM library borrows items that are not available in its collections from other libraries (outgoing requests), or lends items from its collections to other libraries or patrons (incoming requests). If the ILL requests are for books, they are entered to the Institutional Research Information System (IRIS) ILL system. If the ILL requests are for journal articles, they are entered to the ILL system of the National Documentation Center (NDC). As a result, we have identified the main activities for each ILL process and the task that each staff member undertakes in these processes.

We have identified four main ILL processes, which include various activities and sub-activities. These processes are: 1) Incoming requests for books, 2) Incoming requests for articles, 3) Outgoing requests for books and 4) Outgoing requests for articles.

Step 2: Estimate the total cost of each resource group

The cost data were based on real data provided by the financial and human resources manager. We also derived cost data from various UoM library reports. All the financial data like labor costs, library management system costs, and overhead costs were collected for the year 2018.

According to the annual UoM accounting reports, the total annual cost of library services includes both direct and indirect costs.

The direct costs are:

  • Labor costs: The personnel assigned to the above processes represent 1.5 full-time employees (FTE). The total monthly cost is about € 2,026 and the total yearly cost is about € 24,312*1.5= € 36,468
  • Library management system costs, which include hardware (e.g., Radio-frequency identification [RFID] technology) and software (e.g., specialized software for ILL services) costs. The yearly cost is approximately € 7,220

The indirect costs are:

  • Staff overhead costs (e.g., management, accounting, cleaning, utilities, stationery material). It is approximately € 85,083
  • Library management system overhead costs (e.g., leasing photocopier, depreciation of equipment [e.g. electronic, furniture]). It is approximately € 21,805

Step 3: Estimate the time of each resource group (practical capacity time)

Practical capacity is specified without the assessment of idle time, which may be: maintenance, vacation, illness, education and meetings, or other. 42 We have estimated the practical capacity of each resource group at 80% of theoretical time capacity for people, and at 85% for machines (excluding maintenance and repair time). 43 This approach was selected to simplify the cost calculations of our study.

According to the Greek labor legislation, staff must work forty hours per week (theoretical capacity). We have calculated the practical capacity as follows:

80% × 40 hours/week × 52 weeks/year × 60 min/hour = 80% × 124,800 min = 99,840 min/year.

According to step 2, there are 1.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) for the ILL processes, thus the practical capacity time for staff is 99,840 min/year * 1.5 = 149,760 min/year. The 1.5 FTE is related to the work of three employees. The first employee responsible for the ILL service is working 100 percent of her/his time, while the second and third are working 30 percent and 20 percent of their time respectively. The UoM library is open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for weekdays, and from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for Saturdays. This time accounts in total for 66.5 hours per week and represents the theoretical time capacity for LMS. Thus, the practical capacity for LMS is = 66.5 hours × 85% ×52 weeks/year ×60 min/hour = 176,358 min/year.

Step 4: Calculate the unit cost of each resource group

The cost per time unit (1) is equal to the total cost of the resource (step 2) divided by the practical capacity (step 3) 44 :

Cost per time unit = total cost of the resource/practical capacity (1)

The staff and LMS costs include the staff and LMS overhead costs respectively. The resulting costs are presented in table 1.

The highest cost is the staff labor cost (0.80 €/ min). As shown in step 2, that is because of the high direct staff and staff overhead costs (36,468 € and 85,083 € respectively).

Steps 5 and 6: Estimate the total time (step 5) and the cost/activity (€) and total cost (step 6) for all the different cases of each ILL process

In the last two steps, we have modeled the workflow of each ILL process using Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and estimated the total time and cost for each process. The ILL processes are: ILL incoming requests for 1) books (figure 1) or 2) articles (figure 2), and ILL outgoing requests for: 3) books (figure 3) or 4) articles (figure 4).

In step 5 we calculated the time required to complete one unit of an activity for each one of the four main ILL processes. The time data was gathered via direct observation with the excellent cooperation and contribution of the ILL staff. We carried out the data collection using a stopwatch. The data collection lasted for the whole academic year 2018–2019 (October 2018–September 2019) to cover all the different cases of ILL requests at the UoM library. To avoid bias, we validated the results by repeating the data collection several times for all cases. The total number of observations was large (140). We have estimated the average time for each activity to facilitate time calculations. 45

In step 6 we estimated the cost for each process. We estimated the cost/activity (€) and total cost for all the cases of each ILL process by multiplying the unit cost of each resource group (step 4) by the time required to perform the activity (step 5). 46 We created four cost tables (tables 2–5) (Appendix A) to calculate the cost for each one of the four main ILL processes mentioned in step 1. In particular, table 2 and table 3 (Appendix A) estimate the explicit costs for the incoming requests of books and articles respectively, while table 4 and table 5 (Appendix A) estimate the costs for the outgoing requests of books and articles accordingly. We calculated and presented separately the cost of the standard and optional activities for each process. At the end of each cost table (Appendix A), we calculated the cost of all the possible cases (i.e., case A, case B, case C, etc.) for each ILL process. For simplicity’s sake, in the detailed analysis of each process that follows and in the tables in Appendix A, requests are treated as requests for a single item, with the understanding that requests may be made for multiple items at the same time. Requests for multiple items would, understandably, take more time.

I. Incoming requests for books (figure 1)

The UoM library staff check the IRIS system daily for new requests. When they receive a new request, they search for the requested book (activity a time: 1.72 min). If the UoM library does not possess the requested item, the ILL staff respond negatively through the IRIS system to the library that requested the book (activity d time: 2 min). If they find the book, they enter the request to the KOHA (Open source library automation software) and IRIS lending management systems (activity b time: 3.72 min). Then, they deliver the book in one of two ways: 1) if the borrowing library is located in the same city (i.e., Thessaloniki), the book is delivered from the UoM library (activity e time: 0.58 min), or 2) if the borrowing library is located outside the city, the book is delivered by a courier service (activity f time: 2.70 min).

After the successful delivery of the book, the UoM library staff close the request. If the collaborating library is located in the same city, the patron returns the material to the UoM library with no charge. If the material is returned by a courier service, the patron has to pay for the courier costs. The UoM library staff receive the book and return it to the shelf. They also update the KOHA and IRIS systems about the completion of the ILL process (activity c time: 3.46 min).

The resulting equation in minutes for the total time of incoming requests is as follows:

SUM1 = a + b + c + [( e {if the borrowing library is in the same city} + d {if the requested item is not available} + f {if the borrowing library is located outside the city}]

There are three cases related to the incoming requests for books:

Case A : If the borrowing library is located in the same city:

SUM1 of case A = a + b + e + c = 1.72+3.72 + 0.58 + 3.46 = 9.48 min

Case B: If the borrowing library is not located in the same city:

SUM1 of case B = a + b + c + f = 1.72+3.72 + 3.46 + 2.70 = 11.6 min

Case C: If the library of the University of Macedonia does not possess the requested item:

SUM1 of case C = a +d = 1.72+2= 3.72 min

The cost of the ILL process for the incoming requests for books depends on the location of the cooperating library (table 2). If the borrowing library is located in the same city, the ILL process cost is 20.9% less compared to the cost when the borrowing library is located in another city. According to our results, the two standard activities of lending (a) and returning (b) the books are the most costly. The cost of these activities is €2.97 and €3.32 respectively.

II. Incoming requests for articles (figure 2)

The UoM library staff receive a lending request by email from the ILL system of the NDC. They search for the requested article in the library collections (activity a time: 3.06 min). If they cannot find it, they record the request and inform the ILL NDC system (activity d time: 1.41 min).

If they find the article as a hardcopy, they must copy, scan, and convert it to a digital format (activity e time: 11.51 min). If they find the article in a digital format, they just download it (activity f time: 0.41).

They then deliver the requested article through the library file upload service ( https://fs.lib.UoM.gr/ ) (activity b time: 1.49 min).

After the successful delivery of the article, the UoM library staff close the request in the ILL NDC system (activity c time: 1.33 min). The article remains in the possession of the collaborating libraries.

The resulting equation in minutes for the total time of incoming requests for an article is as follows:

SUM1 = a + b + c + [ e {if article in hardcopy} + d {if the requested item, is not available} + f {if article in digital format}]

There are three different cases concerning the incoming requests for articles:

Case A : Incoming request for article, if the article is available in hard copy:

SUM1 of case A = a + b + c + e = 3.06+1.49 +1.33 + 11.51 = 17.39 min

Case B: Incoming request for article, if the article is available in digital format:

SUM1 of case B = a + b + c + f = 3.06+1.49 + 1.33 + 0.41 = 6.29 min

Case C: Incoming requests for article, if the UoM library does not possess the requested item:

SUM1 of case C = a +d = 3.06 + 1. 41 = 4.47 min

The most expensive activity of the incoming requests for articles (table 3) is when the UoM library staff have to convert the hardcopy article to a digital format (Case A cost = €16.70). The TDABC analysis shows that the cost of the case A is about 64% higher, compared to the case (Case B) where the article is available on a digital format (€6.04). The activity’s cost is high (Activity e), because the time consumed to scan the article and convert it to a digital format is also high (11.51 min).

If the UoM library does not have the article, the staff respond negatively to the requesting library. In that case, the process cost is €4.29.

III. Outgoing requests for books (figure 3)

The patron checks the UoM Library’s catalog to verify that the requested item is not included in the UoM library collections. Then, a request is completed in the ILL IRIS system.

The UoM library staff check the IRIS system daily for new outgoing requests. If they find a new request, they first search and confirm that the book is not available in the UoM library collections, and that if it is available, it is not freely available online (activity a time: 2.48 min).

Subsequently, the UoM library staff search for the requested book in the collections of the cooperating libraries that are located in the same city (i.e., Thessaloniki). If they find the requested book, they forward the request to the cooperating libraries (activity f time: 1.49 min). If they do not find the book, they check the collections of other cooperating Greek libraries through the collective catalog of Greek academic libraries library systems. If they find it in a Greek library which is not located in Thessaloniki, they forward the request to the cooperating library through the IRIS system (activity g time: 3.34 min). The patron must pay the fee and the shipping costs in advance and in-person (activity h time: 3.5 min). According to the UoM library rules, the patron cannot pay in another way, such as e-banking.

If the UoM library staff do not locate the book in a Greek library, they check the collections from a foreign library using the BLDSS and Subito systems.

If they find it, they ask the patron to pay the expenses in advance. If the patron agrees, staff member forwards the request via BLDSS and Subito and updates the IRIS system (activity i time: 4.2 min). If the cooperating library responds negatively, the UoM ILL staff mark the request as unavailable and update the IRIS system (activity e time: 4.17 min).

At the end of the process, the UoM library staff issue a payment receipt and deliver the requested book to the patron. If the item is handled by the cooperating library in the same city, the patron receives a message to collect the book from the cooperating library.

If the item is handled by a cooperating Greek library outside of the city, the UoM library staff can expect to receive the book by courier (estimated delivery time: 1 to 3 days). If the request is handled from a foreign library, the staff checks the order status through the BLDSS and Subito systems and waits for the arrival of the requested book (estimated delivery time: 1 to 3 weeks). When the library staff receive the requested book, they issue a payment receipt for the ILL fee (activity k time: 1.25 min). In these two last cases, the staff also issue an invoice through IRIS and notify the patron to pick up the book from the UoM library (activity c time: 3.33 min).

Finally, the patron returns the book to the UoM library. In case of delay, the UoM library staff is informed via IRIS and reminds the patron to return the book on time (activity j time: 1.2 min). When staff receives the book, they pack it and return it to the collaborating library (activity d time: 3.49 min). After the completion of the ILL process, the library staff update the IRIS system (activity b time: 1.23 min).

The resulting equation in minutes for the total time of outgoing requests for a book is as follows:

SUM1 = a + b + [ f + {if the book is located in the collections of a cooperating library which is located in the same city} + g {if the book is located in the collections of a Greek library which is not located in the same city} + i + k { if the book is located abroad} + e { If the requested item isn’t available}+ c + d + h { if the book is located in the collections of a Greek library which is not located in the same city and abroad}+ j {if the patron delays the return of the book}]

There are three cases related to the outgoing requests for books:

Case A: if the book is located in the collections of a cooperating library which is located in the same city:

SUM1 of case A = a + b + f = 2.48 + 1.23 + 1.49 = 5.20 min

Case B: if the book is located in the collections of a Greek library which is not located in the same city:

SUM1 of case B = a + b + c + d + g + h = 2.48 + 3.33 + 3.49 + 1.23 + 3.34 + 3.5 = 17.37 min

Case C : if the book is located in the collections of a foreign library:

SUM1 of case C = a + b + c + d + i + k + h = 2.48 + 3.33 + 3.49 + 1.23 + 4.2 + 1.25 + 3.5 = 19.48 min

The geographic location of the cooperating library is the most important factor in estimating the cost of outgoing requests for books (table 4). The TDABC analysis shows that if the borrowing library is located in the same city (Thessaloniki), only two activities are involved in the ILL process. In this case, the patron borrows and returns the book to the collaborating library without the participation of the library staff. Thus, the process cost remains low (case A). If the borrowing library is located abroad, the process cost is 12.28% higher (case C) compared to the case where the collaborating library is located in another Greek city (case B).

IV. Outgoing requests for articles (figure 4)

When the UoM library staff receive an outgoing request for an article, they check for the requested item in the same way as an outgoing request for a book. When they receive a new request in the IRIS system, they first search and confirm that the article is not available in the UoM library collections and that it is also not freely available online (activity a time: 2.48 min).

Then, the UoM library staff search for the requested article through the NDC. If they find it, they forward the request and update the IRIS system (activity b time: 3.17 min).

If the UoM library staff do not find the article through the NDC, they check the collections from a foreign library using the BLDSS and Subito systems. If they find it, they forward the request through the BLDSS and Subito, and update the IRIS system (activity g time: 4.2 min).

The staff receive the article electronically, issue an invoice, and handle the request through the IRIS system. Then, the patron gets an automated message to receive the article.

The staff prints the article, issues a receipt, and delivers the article to the circulation office where the patron can receive it (activity c time: 3.4 min). The patron pays the ILL fee in-person in advance (activity e time: 3.5 min). The article remains in the possession of the patron and is not returned. The library staff update the IRIS system after the completion of the ILL process (activity d time: 1.23 min). If the cooperating library responds negatively, the UoM ILL staff state that the request is unavailable and update the IRIS system (activity f time: 4.17 min).

The resulting equation in minutes for the total time of outgoing requests for articles is as follows:

SUM1 = a + b + c + d + e + [ f {if negative} + g {if the article is located in the collections of a foreign library}]

There are three cases related to the incoming requests for articles:

Case A: if the article is located in the collections of the NDC:

SUM1 of case A : = a + b + c + d + e = 2.48 + 3.17 + 3.4 + 1.23 + 3.5 = 13.78 min

Case B: if the article is located in the collections of a foreign library:

SUM1 of case B : = a +b+ g + c + d + e = 2.48+3,17 + 4.2 +3.4 + 1.23 + 3.5 = 17,98 min

Case C : if the article is not found

SUM1 of case C : = a + b + g + f = 2.48 + 3.17 + 4.2 + 4.17 = 14.02 min

The geographic location of the cooperating library is a cost determinant. Thus, when the article is found abroad (case B), the process cost is rising (€16.69), compared to the process cost (case A) when the article is located in the collections of the National Documentation Center (NDC) (table 5).

As reported by the results (tables 2, 3, 4 and 5), the borrowing and outgoing request costs for books range from €4.79 to €16.24, while the corresponding costs for articles range from €12.66 to €16.69. The lending and incoming request costs for books range from €2.98 to €9.83, while the respective costs for articles range from €4.29 to €16.70.

In this research, we have evaluated the costs of the ILL services at the UoM library in Thessaloniki, Greece. We applied the TDABC method based on the six steps identified by Everaert et al. 47 Our case study showed how a widely applied costing method (i.e., Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing [TDABC]) can evaluate the most important library services, such as the ILL, in an accurate and easy-to-understand way.

The TDABC analysis provides library managers with a detailed costing analysis for each ILL process. As a result, TDABC may help managers reengineer the library processes by identifying the most inefficient or/and expensive activities. For example, in our analysis, the lending (activity b in table 2) and return (activity c in table 2) activities of the process: Incoming requests for books (figure 1) are relatively more time consuming. Since these repetitive activities are considered costly in terms of labor cost, the UoM library managers could automate them with the use of robotic services. Labor cost is the most important cost resource group (table 1), as also reported in previous studies. 48 The ILL cost may be reduced by assigning simple activities to trainee students (SLE), and educate staff on site or by web-based learning. 49,50

Our ILL cost analysis may also help library managers sufficiently assess the ILL costs and compare them to what the library charges for ILL services. This comparison may help the library administration to accurately estimate the cost efficiency of the IIL processes and change the patron charges accordingly, if necessary. For example, in our analysis, ILL charges do not cover ILL costs in some cases. If the patron is a registered member of the UoM library, the library charges a much smaller fee (i.e. 6 € for book orders) compared to the charge to external users for the exact same process (i.e. €26 – €42). According to our results, the cost of the process ranges from €4.79 to €16.70.

However, our study has a few limitations. The applicability of our results is limited due to various factors such as the size of the library, the different library networks, the software used, and the availability of staff. The study is also limited to public research universities, and may not apply to private higher education institutions.

A suggestion for future research is to analyze ILL processes in other large academic libraries in Greece and/or abroad using the TDABC method. In this way, we can compare the results of our research with TDABC implementation at other domestic and foreign libraries. Another suggestion is to perform a TDABC analysis of other important academic library services, such as the acquisition service. Although the purchase costs for this service are easy to estimate, the associated acquisition expenses are difficult to evaluate. The use of TDABC may provide important insights for cost improvement.

Conclusions

Our research provides empirical evidence about the effectiveness of the TDABC method in the cost evaluation of a complicated process (i.e. ILL) of an academic library. The TDABC method is effective for library services, since it may evaluate each case of a process with complex time drivers. The TDABC analysis provides managers with accurate, visualized, detailed, and easy to understand information, helping them identify the most and least important (i.e. non-value-added) activities.

The library managers may read and understand the TDABC analysis data effortlessly, given our study’s easy-to-understand time equations, cost tables and BPMN diagrams. By implementing a thorough activity analysis, they can evaluate key data such as disaggregated costs per case, and identify which activities are the most time consuming and expensive. The interpretation of the results may also help the managers improve the efficiency of the library processes by saving time and cost. Moreover, they could perform a what-if analysis by adding or removing activities in time equations to evaluate the impact of changes in a process.

In conclusion, this case study contributes to the cost accounting literature by highlighting the usefulness of the TDABC technique in practice. It shows how TDABC may assist library administrators to make strategic decisions about the improvement of the cost effectiveness of the library processes.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the UoM library staff for their excellent cooperation and support, and especially Mrs. Elisavet Tsanaktsidoy (head of the UoM library) and Mrs. Georgia Gogeraki.

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3. Kristof Stouthuysen, Michael Swiggers, Anne-Mie Reheul, and Filip Roodhooft, “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for a Library Acquisition Process: A Case Study in a Belgian University,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services 34, no. 2–3 (2010): 83–91; Lorena Sigüenza Guzmán, Alexandra Van Den Abbeele, Joos Vandewalle, Henri Verhaaren, H., and Dirk Cattrysse, “Recent Evolutions in Costing Systems: A Literature Review of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing,” Review of Business and Economic Literature 58, no. 1 (2013): 34–64.

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9. Stouthuysen et al., “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for a Library Acquisition Process: A Case Study in a Belgian University,” 83–91; Kate-Riin Kont and Signe Jantson, “Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC): Applicable Methods for University Libraries?” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 6, no. 4 (2011): 107; Kate-Riin Kont, “What Do Acquisition Activities Really Cost? A Case Study in Estonian University Libraries,” Library Management 36, no. 67 (2015): 511–34; Lorena Siguenza-Guzman, Alexandra Van den Abbeele, Joos Vandewalle, Henri Verhaaren, and Dirk Cattrysse. “Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to Support Library Management Decisions: A Case Study for Lending and Returning Processes,” The Library Quarterly 84, no. 1 (2014): 76–98; Barbara Kissa, Antonios Stavropoulos, Dimitra Karagiorgou, and Elisavet Tsanaktsidou, “Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to Improve the Managerial Activities of Academic Libraries,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 45, no. 5 (2019): 102055.

10. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, “Carnegie Classifications,” available online at https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/classification_descriptions/size_setting.php [accessed 15 April 2022]; Hellenic Authority for Higher Education, “Εισήγηση του Ανώτατου Συμβουλίου της ΕΘΑΑΕ προς το ΥΠΑΙΘ για την κατανομή της ετήσιας τακτικής χρηματοδότησης του 2022 στα ΑΕΙ,” available online at https://www.ethaae.gr/el/nea/anakoinoseis/289-eisigisi-katanomis-xrimatodotisis-2022 [accessed 15 April 2022].

11. Marylin M. Roche, “ARL/RLG Interlibrary Loan Cost Study: A Joint Effort by the Association of Research Libraries and the Research Libraries Group,” Association of Research Library 11, no. 5, (1993); Nitecki A. Danuta and Patricia Renfro, “Borrow Direct: A Case Study of Patron-Initiated Interlibrary Borrowing Service,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 30, no. 2 (2004): 132–135.

12. Joan Stein, “Measuring the Performance of ILL and Document Supply: 1986 to 1998,” Performance Measurement and Metrics 2, no. 1 (2001): 11–72; Mary E. Jackson, “The North American Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Project: Improving ILL/DD Services”, Interlending & Document Supply 25, no. 1 (1997): 8–10; Mary E. Jackson, “Assessing ILL/DD Services Study: Initial Observations”, ARL Bimonthly Report 230/231 , (2003): 21–22; Pentti Vattulainen, “Performance οf Interlending in Nordic Academic Libraries,” (2003), Report for NORDINFO Board, available online at: http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/nvbf/perform.pdf [accessed 15 April 2022]; Wang Mei-Ling, and Chieh Yang, “Performance Measurement of Interlibrary Loan for University Libraries in Taiwan in the Digital Age,” Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries 6, no. 1 (2019): 113–13.

13. Pernot Eli, Filip Roodhooft, and Alexandra Van den Abbeele, “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for Inter-Library Services: A Case Study in a University,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 33, no. 5 (2007): 551–560.

14. Jennifer Ellis-Newman and Peter Robinson, “The Cost of Library Services: Activity-Based Costing in an Australian Academic Library,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 24, no. 5 (1998): 373–379; Guzmán et al., “Recent Evolutions in Costing Systems,” 34–64.

15. Cooper and Kaplan, “The Promise—and Peril—of Integrated Cost Systems,” 109–120.

16. Gregory Wegmann and Stephen Nozile, “The Activity-Based Costing Method Developments: State-of-the Art and Case Study in the IT Supply Chain of an International Group,” International Conference on Information and Management Sciences 7 , (2009).

17. Kaplan and Anderson, “The Innovation of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing,” 5–15.

18. Andrew Goddard and Kean Ooi, “Activity-Based Costing and Central Overhead Cost Allocation in Universities: A case study,” Public Money & Management 18, no. 3 (1998).

19. Kaplan and Anderson, “The Innovation of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing,” 5–15.

20. Zuleyha Cidav, David Mandell, Jeffrey Pyne, Rinad Beidas, Geoffrey Curran, and Steven Marcus, “A Pragmatic Method for Costing Implementation Strategies Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing,” Implementation Science 15, no. 1 (2020); Thomas H. Davenport. Process Innovation: Reengineering Work Through Information Technology, Harvard Business Press, 1993; Sina Akhavan, Lorrayne Ward, and Kevin J. Bozic, “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing More Accurately Reflects Costs in Arthroplasty Surgery,” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 474 , no. 1 (2015); Yoshimi Anzai, Marta E. Heilbrun, Derek Haas, Luca Boi, Kirk Moshre, Satoshi Minoshima, Robert Kaplan, and Vivian S. Lee, “Dissecting Costs of CT Study: Application of TDABC (Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing) in a Tertiary Academic Center,” Academic Radiology 24, no. 2, (2017): 200–208.

21. Kaplan and Anderson, Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing ; Robert S. Kaplan and Steven R. Anderson. Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing: A Simpler and More Powerful Path to Higher Profits , Harvard Business Press, 2007; Sirirat Somapa, Martine Cools, and Wout Dullaert, “The Development of Time Driven Activity-Based Costing Models: A Case Study in a Road Transport and Logistics Company,” Current Issues in Shipping, Ports and Logistics , (2011): 431–445.

22. Kaplan and Anderson, Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing.

23. Patricia Everaert, Werner Bruggeman, Gerrit Sarens, Steven R. Anderson, and Yves Levant, “Cost Modeling in Logistics Using Time‐Driven ABC,” International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 38, no. 3 (2008): 172–191.

24. George Keel, Carl Savage, Rafiq Muhammad, Pamela Mazzocato, “Time-driven Activity-Based Costing in Health Care: A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Health Policy 12 1 , no.7 (2017): 755–763.

25. Stouthuysen et al., “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for a Library Acquisition Process: A Case Study in a Belgian University,” 83–91.

26. Kont, “What Do Acquisition Activities Really Cost? A Case Study in Estonian University Libraries,” 511–34.

27. Lorena Siguenza-Guzman, Alexandra Van den Abbeele, and Dirk Cattrysse, “Improving Library Management by Using Cost Analysis Tools: A Case Study for Cataloguing Processes,” LIBER Quarterly 23, no. 3 (2014): 160–83.

28. Kissa et al., “Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to Improve the Managerial Activities of Academic Libraries.”

29. Marc-Andre Simard, Jason Priem, and Heather Piwowar, “How Much Does an Interlibrary Loan Request Cost? A Review of The Literature,” In Arxiv.Org, 2021, retrieved April 12, 2022, from https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.04281v1 .

30. Vernon E. Palmour, Edwin E. Olson, Nancy K. Roderer, Association of Research Libraries, Methods of Financing Interlibrary Loan Services (Westat 1974).

31. Lars Leon, and Nancy Kress, “Looking at Resource Sharing Costs,” Interlending & Document Supply, (2012): 81–87; Mei-Ling et al., “Performance Measurement of Interlibrary Loan for University Libraries in Taiwan in the Digital Age”.

32. OCLC ( Online Computer Library Center ), “OCLC Interlibrary Loan Cost Calculator” (2022), available online at https://www.oclc.org/research/areas/systemwide-library/interlibrary-cost-calculator.html [accessed 14 April 2022].

33. Pernot et al., “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for Inter-Library Services,” 551–60.

34. Stein, “Measuring the Performance of ILL and Document Supply: 1986 to 1998,” 11–72; Jackson, “The North American Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Project: Improving ILL/DD Services,” 8–10; Jackson, “Assessing ILL/DD Services Study: Initial Observations,” 21–22; Pentti Vattulainen, “Performance of Interlending in Nordic Academic Libraries,” Report for NORDINFO board, available online at: http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/nvbf/perform.pdf [accessed 11 February 2022]; Leon and Kress, “Looking at Resource Sharing Costs,” 81–87; Mei-Ling and Yang, “Performance Measurement of Interlibrary Loan for University Libraries in Taiwan in the Digital Age,” 113–134.

35. Simard, et al., “How Much Does an Interlibrary Loan Request Cost?”

36. Claire Creaser, “Assessing ILL/DD Services: New Cost‐effective Alternatives,” Interlending & Document Supply 33 , no. 3, (2005); Pernot et al., “Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing for Inter-Library Services,” 551–60.

37. Elizabeth A. Fuseler, “Providing Access to Journals—Just in Time or Just in Case?” College & Research Libraries News 55, no. 3 (1994): 130–148.

38. Filippos Tsimpoglou, “The Interlibrary Loan Network in Greece: A Model that Survives in the Digital Era,” Interlending & Document Supply 32, no. 3 (2004): 169–175; Dimitrios Kouis, George Veranis, Eleni Papadatou, and Nikolaos Mitrou, “Operational and Financial Aspects for Delivering a Consortium Shared LMS - The MITOS Project,” Journal of Library Administration 58, no. 5 (2018): 482–502.

39. Kissa et al., “Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to Improve the Managerial Activities of Academic Libraries.”

40. Everaert et al., “Cost Modeling in Logistics Using Time‐Driven ABC,” 172–191.

41. Kate-Riin Kont, and Signe Jantson, “Organizational Commitment in Estonian University Libraries: A Review and Survey,” New Review o f Academic Librarianship 20, no. 3 (2014): 296–319 .

42. Everaert et al., “Cost Modeling in Logistics Using Time‐Driven ABC,” 172–191

43. Kaplan and Anderson, “The Innovation of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing,” 5–15.

44. Ibid.

45. Siguenza-Guzan et al., “Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to Support Library Management Decisions,” 76–98.

46. Rifat Yilmaz, “Creating The Profit Focused Organization Using Time-Driven Activity Based Costing,” EABR & TLC conferences proceedings (2008), available online at: https://Ssrn.Com/Abstract=3191228 [accessed 02 April 2022].

47. Everaert et al., “Cost Modeling in Logistics Using Time‐Driven ABC,” 172–191.

48. Roche, “ARL/RLG Interlibrary Loan Cost Study: A Joint Effort by the Association of Research Libraries and the Research Libraries Group;” Nitecki and Renfro, “Borrow Direct: A Case Study of Patron-Initiated Interlibrary Borrowing Service;” Stein, “Measuring the Performance of ILL and Document Supply: 1986 to 1998;” Claire Creaser, “Assessing ILL/DD Services: New Cost‐effective Alternatives.”

49. Kindra Becker-Redd, Kirsten Lee, and Caroline Skelton, “Training Student Workers for Cross-Departmental Success in an Academic Library: A New Model”, Journal of Library Administration 58, no. 2 (2018): 153–165.; Miriam L. Matteson and Emily Hankinson. “Getting Off on the Right Foot: Psychological Contracts, Socialization Theory and Library Student Workers,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 44, no. 4 (2018): 486–492.

50. Elias Gounopoulos, Sotirios Kontogiannis, Ioannis Kazanidis, Stavros Valsamidis, “A Framework for the Evaluation of Multilayer Web Based Learning,” Paper ID #16, Panhellenic Conference on Informatics (PCI) proceedings, 2016, Patra, Greece.

* Barbara Kissa is a PhD Student at University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, email: [email protected] : Zoe Georganta is Professor at University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, email: [email protected] ; Elias Gounopoulos is Assistant Professor at University of Western Macedonia, Kozani, Greece, email: [email protected] ; Fotis Kitsios is Professor at University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece, email: [email protected] . ©2024 Barbara Kissa, Zoe Georganta, Elias Gounopoulos, and Fotis Kitsios, Attribution-NonCommercial ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) CC BY-NC.

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Library Review

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Article publication date: 5 July 2013

Marketing supports the reaching of organizational goals by focusing on the identification and satisfaction of customer needs, thus it can also contribute considerably in achieving the objectives of non‐profit organizations such as libraries. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the literature on the incorporation of marketing notions and the implementation of marketing techniques in library management. It reviews definitions, present different opposing views, marketing issues, social media and Web 2.0 and opinions on the adoption of marketing in a non‐profit organization environment, and examines different successful examples of marketing implementation, concentrating on the gains resulting from such a move.

Design/methodology/approach

A thorough literature search on various databases and on various aspects of this topic was reviewed. The literature review is organised on emerging themes directly drawn from the literature, thematically and chronologically within each section. It aims to identify the changing perspectives, the current challenges, and the benefits offered by examining information science specialists' views. The main marketing concepts are identified throughout a strategic planning approach, which has been recommended as the most successful by the majority of researchers.

This paper examines and clarifies the existing misunderstandings and difficulties in library and information services marketing, and stresses the importance of its adoption in this contemporary competitive environment. It examines library marketing in six sections: misconceptions regarding library marketing, main challenges and reasons as to why the adoption of marketing concepts is an integral part of the strategic planning, reports on the international library organizations, provides a description of the implementation of strategic marketing and planning processes, presents some library marketing approaches and examines the contemporary technological opportunities for library marketing in the digital era, such as the use of Web 2.0 tools.

Originality/value

The paper broadens the library marketing literature by gathering researchers' scientific views and advice and identifies the main implementation concerns derived from the earlier and more recent relevant literature. Moreover, for the first time, IT records issues concerning library marketing, social media and Web 2.0.

  • Library management
  • Social media
  • Library services
  • Information services
  • Library and information services
  • Library marketing concepts
  • Strategic library marketing
  • Marketing mix
  • Library 2.0

Garoufallou, E. , Siatri, R. , Zafeiriou, G. and Balampanidou, E. (2013), "The use of marketing concepts in library services: a literature review", Library Review , Vol. 62 No. 4/5, pp. 312-334. https://doi.org/10.1108/LR-06-2012-0061

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Literature Review: A Definition

What is a literature review, then.

A literature review discusses and analyses published information in a particular subject area.   Sometimes the information covers a certain time period.

A literature review is more than a summary of the sources, it has an organizational pattern that combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant.

But how is a literature review different from an academic research paper?

While the main focus of an academic research paper is to support your own argument, the focus of a literature review is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of others. The academic research paper also covers a range of sources, but it is usually a select number of sources, because the emphasis is on the argument. Likewise, a literature review can also have an "argument," but it is not as important as covering a number of sources. In short, an academic research paper and a literature review contain some of the same elements. In fact, many academic research papers will contain a literature review section. What aspect of the study (either the argument or the sources) that is emphasized determines what type of document it is.

( "Literature Reviews" from The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill )

Why do we write literature reviews?

Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you have limited time to conduct research, literature reviews can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone.

For professionals, they are useful reports that keep them up to date with what is current in the field.

For scholars, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the writer in his or her field. Literature reviews also provide a solid background for a research paper's investigation.

Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers.

Journal Articles on Writing Literature Reviews

  • Research Methods for Comprehensive Science Literature Reviews Author: Brown,Barry N. Journal: Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship Date: Spring2009 Issue: 57 Page: 1 more... less... Finding some information on most topics is easy. There are abundant sources of information readily available. However, completing a comprehensive literature review on a particular topic is often difficult, laborious, and time intensive; the project requires organization, persistence, and an understanding of the scholarly communication and publishing process. This paper briefly outlines methods of conducting a comprehensive literature review for science topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR];
  • Research: Considerations in Writing a Literature Review Authors: Black,K. Journal: The New Social Worker Date: 01/01; 2007 Volume: 14 Issue: 2 Page: 12 more... less... Literature reviews are ubiquitous in academic journals, scholarly reports, and social work education. Conducting and writing a good literature review is both personally and professionally satisfying. (Journal abstract).
  • How to do (or not to do) A Critical Literature Review Authors: Jesson,Jill; Lacey,Fiona Journal: Pharmacy Education Pub Date: 2006 Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Pages:139 - 148 more... less... More and more students are required to perform a critical literature review as part of their undergraduate or postgraduate studies. Whilst most of the latest research methods textbooks advise how to do a literature search, very few cover the literature review. This paper covers two types of review: a critical literature review and a systematic review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
  • Conducting a Literature Review Authors: Rowley,Jennifer; Slack,Frances Journal: Management Research News Pub Date: 2004 Volume: 27 Issue: 6 Pages:31-39 more... less... Abstract: This article offers support and guidance for students undertaking a literature review as part of their dissertation during an undergraduate or Masters course. A literature review is a summary of a subject field that supports the identification of specific research questions. A literature review needs to draw on and evaluate a range of different types of sources including academic and professional journal articles, books, and web-based resources. The literature search helps in the identification and location of relevant documents and other sources. Search engines can be used to search web resources and bibliographic databases. Conceptual frameworks can be a useful tool in developing an understanding of a subject area. Creating the literature review involves the stages of: scanning, making notes, structuring the literature review, writing the literature review, and building a bibliography.

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1. Introduction

Not to be confused with a book review, a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.

2. Components

Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:

  • Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?
  • Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored
  • Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic
  • Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature

Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:

  • An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review
  • Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those in support of a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative theses entirely)
  • Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others
  • Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research

In assessing each piece, consideration should be given to:

  • Provenance—What are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence (e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?
  • Objectivity—Is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
  • Persuasiveness—Which of the author's theses are most/least convincing?
  • Value—Are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

3. Definition and Use/Purpose

A literature review may constitute an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation, or may be a self-contained review of writings on a subject. In either case, its purpose is to:

  • Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review
  • Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration
  • Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in, previous research
  • Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies
  • Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
  • Point the way forward for further research
  • Place one's original work (in the case of theses or dissertations) in the context of existing literature

The literature review itself, however, does not present new primary scholarship.

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Land Acknowledgement

The land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe. The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, comprised of the descendants of indigenous people taken to missions Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast, is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historical trauma.

The land acknowledgement used at UC Santa Cruz was developed in partnership with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band Chairman and the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program at the UCSC Arboretum .

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Conducting a Literature Review

  • Getting Started
  • Define your Research Question
  • Finding Sources
  • Evaluating Sources
  • Organizing the Review
  • Cite and Manage your Sources

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Literature Reviews   (The Writing Center, U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Explains what literature reviews are and offer insights into the form and construction of literature reviews in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Source: Kevin H. (2018)  How to write a literature review . Wordvice.  https://wordvice.com/how-to-write-a-literature-review/ . 

  • Literature Review: Learning to Write a Systematic Review of Literature by the University of South Carolina Upstate Library

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What is a Literature Review?

A literature review is a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the principal research about the topic being studied. Your literature review should contain the following information:

  • The most pertinent studies and important past and current research and practices in the field
  • An overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic
  • An explanation to your readers as to how your research fits within a larger field of study.

The review helps form the intellectual framework for the study.

17 - what is a literature review from Joshua Vossler on Vimeo .

At its core, a literature provides a summary of existing knowledge on a subject or topic and identifies areas where research is lacking: missing information, incomplete studies or studies that draw conflicting conclusions, or perhaps even outdated methods of research.

This can be especially helpful if you intend to conduct research of your own on this topic; by explaining where the previous studies have fallen short or leave openings for further examination, you provide a strong foundation and justification for the research project you intend to embark on.

Literature reviews can stand on their own as an article or assignment for a class, or they can serve as an introduction to a larger work, such as an article describing a study or even a book. They can also vary in granularity: a literature review in the beginning of an article might only summarize the largest or most influential studies, while an academic literature review will not only describe the research so far but look for common themes, analyze the quality of the research, and explain gaps where further research is needed.

Parts of a Literature Review

When preparing your literature review, keep these questions in mind:

  • What is your literature review about?
  • Why are you studying this topic?
  • How will you organize your sources? (You could group them by themes or subtopics, or perhaps keep them in chronological order. The way you present your sources is important, so make sure you think hard about this!)
  • What are the major themes/subtopics that you discovered when reading your sources?
  • Where could more research be done to increase our understanding of this topic?

For each individual source, be prepared to analyze:

  • Who were the key researchers and what are their qualifications?
  • How was the research conducted?
  • The similarities and differences between this source and the others in your literature review
  • How this source contributes to greater understanding of the topic as a whole
  • Any questions you have about the research done, which could identify opportunities for further study

When preparing your literature review, examine these elements and determine which ones would be best for your paper. (Tip: If you're not sure which parts of the literature review to include, ask your professor!)

  • Next: Define your Research Question >>
  • Last Updated: Dec 19, 2022 1:17 PM
  • URL: https://libraryservices.acphs.edu/lit_review

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Health Sciences Literature Reviews

  • Literature review services
  • Types of Reviews
  • Steps in the Evidence Synthesis process
  • Search Filters & Tools
  • Databases & Gray Literature
  • Screening tools & Data extraction
  • Citation Management
  • University Resources
  • Health and Biomedical Library Services

About BUL's Health Sciences Literature Review Service

The Department of Health and Biomedical Library Services (HBLS) offers support to researchers at Brown University who work on literature review projects in the health sciences. The following information outlines service eligibility, levels of service that can be requested, expected timeframes for deliverables, and an intake form to request review support. Demand for this service is high. While we will respond to your request relatively quickly, it may be several weeks from the time a request is received before results are delivered.

After reviewing the below guidelines, please complete the intake form below. The intake form is required for all projects at the Level 2 of our service.

You may direct your questions to [email protected] , and a member of the HBLS team will get back to you as soon as possible.

Service Eligibility

Faculty, staff, students, and researchers affiliated with Brown University (including residents, fellows, and clinical faculty of the Warren Alpert Medical School) undertaking literature review and evidence synthesis projects in the health and medical sciences are eligible to use this service.  

For students doing independent research , one or two 1-hr consultations are typically enough to help define the question and develop the search strategies.

For larger team projects, we will typically start with an intake interview to define the scope of the project and determine levels of service, timelines and expectations.

Levels of Service

Librarians provide two levels of support for health sciences literature reviews and evidence syntheses: (1) basic consultation service and (2) librarians as review team members. 

(1) Basic Consultation Service:

Librarians can work with students, faculty, staff, and other researchers on a consultation basis to:

  • Help define the research question and determine the most appropriate type of review for it.
  • Run a preliminary search to find relevant or pre-existing reviews on the research topic.
  • Recommend appropriate literature databases for the research topic.
  • Provide guidance on constructing a comprehensive literature search strategy for the topic.
  • Provide guidance on using a citation management tool (Zotero, EndNote), and/or using Covidence for screening and data extraction.

*NOTE: More than 2 hours of effort supporting a review project at this level typically results in an acknowledgement in the manuscript. This usually includes any combination of the following: multiple consultations or email responses, in-depth critiques of a comprehensive search strategy (or revisions to existing searches), and preliminary guidance on the development of the review protocol. If further support is being required by the review team, the following level of service would be more appropriate.

(2) Librarians as Review Team Members:

Librarians can also collaborate with researchers as part of the review team to provide further support. This level of service qualifies the librarian for co-authorship on the manuscript, in keeping with ICMJE's definition of the role of authors . Librarian services at this level include any combination of the following: 

  • Provide guidance on developing and registering a review protocol in PROSPERO or other protocol registries.
  • Collaborate with researchers to determine relevant literature databases and grey literature sources to be used, along with appropriate search parameters.
  • Construct a comprehensive literature search strategy and translate it across multiple literature databases and gray literature sources, as appropriate.
  • Document and report on the literature search methodology in accordance with PRISMA-S Reporting Guidelines .
  • Manage, export, and deliver search results for screening by the review team via Covidence or other determined screening or citation management tool. 
  • Save, update, edit, and re-run searches, as appropriate.
  • Identifies another librarian or information specialist to peer-review the primary search strategy according to the PRESS 2015 Guidelines .
  • Provide guidance on reporting the methods in accordance with appropriate reporting guidelines (for example, PRISMA 2020 Guidelines ). 

Does your project qualify for this service?

The Health Sciences Literature Review Support Service will support the following projects:

  • Research projects for publications, either funded or not
  • Grant applications
  • Theses, dissertations, capstones, and other coursework

Due to staff capacity and high demand for this service, we will not be able to work on multiple concurrent projects from the same PI

Expected Timeframe

Literature searches for evidence synthesis projects can be time- and labor-intensive to conduct in accordance with relevant guidelines and standards. Searching for grey literature can further increase search timelines. In addition, librarians are often working on multiple projects at any given time. Researchers are encouraged to reach out to a librarian for assistance with their literature review projects as early as possible . It may take the librarian 2-3 months from the first meeting to deliver results to the research team, depending on the number of projects in the queue and the complexity of the search being requested.

Health Sciences Literature Review Service: Intake Form

  • Next: Types of Reviews >>
  • Last Updated: Mar 7, 2024 2:40 PM
  • URL: https://libguides.brown.edu/Reviews

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The use of marketing concepts in library services: a literature review

Profile image of Emmanouel Garoufallou

2013, Library Review

Related Papers

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Satishkumar Naikar , Sayed Ahmed Inamdar

The creation of libraries and information centres reflects the realization that marketing of information products and services is a crucial component of administration, particularly for readers' expected levels of satisfaction. Taking this into consideration, the study outlines all the procedures and tactics that may be used when selling information products and services. Additionally, it looks into the intent, viability, and actual application of Web 2.0 in the marketing and promotion of library resources and services. The idea of marketing does not come to mind when we think of library operations. But because of the literature's explosive expansion and the widespread use of information technology, marketing has become a crucial instrument for promoting library services and goods. An institution set up to provide services is a library.

library services literature review

Dr. Raj Kumar Bhardwaj

This conceptual paper reviews literature on marketing of library products and services, and discusses various ways and means for the same. Several marketing techniques to promote the usage of library resources and services have been highlighted in the literature. It is seen that majority of libraries do not have a marketing culture. It is recognised that libraries need to formulate marketing plan along with financial budget on a yearly basis so that library resources can be utilised optimally. Libraries in developing countries have been struggling to conduct outreach programmes to market their resources and services. Latest technologies such as, Web 2.0 and mobile services have opened up new avenues to do marketing in efficient and cost effective ways. Therefore, libraries should not leave any stone unturned to apply the latest technologies in promotion of resources and services amongst the stakeholders. The funding agencies must formulate guidelines for marketing the library resources and services so that the library resources can be utilised optimally.

lorena abangan

The growing underutilization of library resources and services has prompted colleges and universities to apply marketing strategies like social media to keep libraries relevant and responsive to their stakeholders' needs. This phenomenological study aimed to explore librarians' challenges and strategies in marketing academic libraries in Davao region using social media. Data were gathered through key informant interviews with nine librarians who were purposively selected based on the study’s inclusion criteria. Results showed that social media marketing has become a trend among libraries and entails challenges. Five themes emerged: accessibility, no clear social media marketing plan, lack of user engagement, additional tasks, and issues and concerns in library social media. Librarians used common marketing strategies such as library orientation and instruction and cited innovative strategies and best practices in promoting their library through social media. Lastly, librarians have gained insights in marketing academic libraries using social media, presented into four themes: enhanced library image, improved library services, gaining new skills, and developing a sense of responsibility. To further strengthen social media use in academic libraries, librarians are urged to formulate and intensify a social media marketing plan as a basis for future library social media marketing activities.

Materials of "Innovations in National Libraries as the Basis of Changes and the Direction of Development", International Scientific-Practical Conference dedicated to the 95th anniversary of Azerbaijan National Library, Baku, 27-28 September 2018

Vafa Mammadova

The paper covers the topic of marketing of library information services, which is an essential part of modern librarianship, and lists some of the specific marketing strategies and tools to enhance the activities of libraries as non-profit entities. Steps of promotional activities for different library products and services, as well as events are put together to help beginners to have better understanding of what library marketing comprises.

The Serials Librarian

Tonia Graves

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN BUSINESS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES : ISSN 2222-6990

Duratul Afifah

Digital marketing techniques are becoming more common in our advancing technology currently. Some of popular digital marketing techniques such as search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games. The purpose of this study is to gain the performance of digital marketing regarding to the social media usage in the library environment such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and other platforms connectivity and communication related to user satisfaction in library environment. This paper enables librarians and stakeholder of the library to have a better understanding on the social media phenomenon in libraries.

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Literature review: your definitive guide

library services literature review

Joanna Wilkinson

This is our ultimate guide on how to write a narrative literature review. It forms part of our Research Smarter series . 

How do you write a narrative literature review?

Researchers worldwide are increasingly reliant on literature reviews. That’s because review articles provide you with a broad picture of the field, and help to synthesize published research that’s expanding at a rapid pace .

In some academic fields, researchers publish more literature reviews than original research papers. The graph below shows the substantial growth of narrative literature reviews in the Web of Science™, alongside the percentage increase of reviews when compared to all document types.

library services literature review

It’s critical that researchers across all career levels understand how to produce an objective, critical summary of published research. This is no easy feat, but a necessary one. Professionally constructed literature reviews – whether written by a student in class or an experienced researcher for publication – should aim to add to the literature rather than detract from it.

To help you write a narrative literature review, we’ve put together some top tips in this blog post.

Best practice tips to write a narrative literature review:

  • Don’t miss a paper: tips for a thorough topic search
  • Identify key papers (and know how to use them)
  • Tips for working with co-authors
  • Find the right journal for your literature review using actual data
  • Discover literature review examples and templates

We’ll also provide an overview of all the products helpful for your next narrative review, including the Web of Science, EndNote™ and Journal Citation Reports™.

1. Don’t miss a paper: tips for a thorough topic search

Once you’ve settled on your research question, coming up with a good set of keywords to find papers on your topic can be daunting. This isn’t surprising. Put simply, if you fail to include a relevant paper when you write a narrative literature review, the omission will probably get picked up by your professor or peer reviewers. The end result will likely be a low mark or an unpublished manuscript, neither of which will do justice to your many months of hard work.

Research databases and search engines are an integral part of any literature search. It’s important you utilize as many options available through your library as possible. This will help you search an entire discipline (as well as across disciplines) for a thorough narrative review.

We provide a short summary of the various databases and search engines in an earlier Research Smarter blog . These include the Web of Science , Science.gov and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Like what you see? Share it with others on Twitter:

[bctt tweet=”Writing a #LiteratureReview? Check out the latest @clarivateAG blog for top tips (from topic searches to working with coauthors), examples, templates and more”]

Searching the Web of Science

The Web of Science is a multidisciplinary research engine that contains over 170 million papers from more than 250 academic disciplines. All of the papers in the database are interconnected via citations. That means once you get started with your keyword search, you can follow the trail of cited and citing papers to efficiently find all the relevant literature. This is a great way to ensure you’re not missing anything important when you write a narrative literature review.

We recommend starting your search in the Web of Science Core Collection™. This database covers more than 21,000 carefully selected journals. It is a trusted source to find research papers, and discover top authors and journals (read more about its coverage here ).

Learn more about exploring the Core Collection in our blog, How to find research papers: five tips every researcher should know . Our blog covers various tips, including how to:

  • Perform a topic search (and select your keywords)
  • Explore the citation network
  • Refine your results (refining your search results by reviews, for example, will help you avoid duplication of work, as well as identify trends and gaps in the literature)
  • Save your search and set up email alerts

Try our tips on the Web of Science now.

2. Identify key papers (and know how to use them)

As you explore the Web of Science, you may notice that certain papers are marked as “Highly Cited.” These papers can play a significant role when you write a narrative literature review.

Highly Cited papers are recently published papers getting the most attention in your field right now. They form the top 1% of papers based on the number of citations received, compared to other papers published in the same field in the same year.

You will want to identify Highly Cited research as a group of papers. This group will help guide your analysis of the future of the field and opportunities for future research. This is an important component of your conclusion.

Writing reviews is hard work…[it] not only organizes published papers, but also positions t hem in the academic process and presents the future direction.   Prof. Susumu Kitagawa, Highly Cited Researcher, Kyoto University

3. Tips for working with co-authors

Writing a narrative review on your own is hard, but it can be even more challenging if you’re collaborating with a team, especially if your coauthors are working across multiple locations. Luckily, reference management software can improve the coordination between you and your co-authors—both around the department and around the world.

We’ve written about how to use EndNote’s Cite While You Write feature, which will help you save hundreds of hours when writing research . Here, we discuss the features that give you greater ease and control when collaborating with your colleagues.

Use EndNote for narrative reviews

Sharing references is essential for successful collaboration. With EndNote, you can store and share as many references, documents and files as you need with up to 100 people using the software.

You can share simultaneous access to one reference library, regardless of your colleague’s location or organization. You can also choose the type of access each user has on an individual basis. For example, Read-Write access means a select colleague can add and delete references, annotate PDF articles and create custom groups. They’ll also be able to see up to 500 of the team’s most recent changes to the reference library. Read-only is also an option for individuals who don’t need that level of access.

EndNote helps you overcome research limitations by synchronizing library changes every 15 minutes. That means your team can stay up-to-date at any time of the day, supporting an easier, more successful collaboration.

Start your free EndNote trial today .

4.Finding a journal for your literature review

Finding the right journal for your literature review can be a particular pain point for those of you who want to publish. The expansion of scholarly journals has made the task extremely difficult, and can potentially delay the publication of your work by many months.

We’ve written a blog about how you can find the right journal for your manuscript using a rich array of data. You can read our blog here , or head straight to Endnote’s Manuscript Matcher or Journal Citation Report s to try out the best tools for the job.

5. Discover literature review examples and templates

There are a few tips we haven’t covered in this blog, including how to decide on an area of research, develop an interesting storyline, and highlight gaps in the literature. We’ve listed a few blogs here that might help you with this, alongside some literature review examples and outlines to get you started.

Literature Review examples:

  • Aggregation-induced emission
  • Development and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome engineering
  • Object based image analysis for remote sensing

(Make sure you download the free EndNote™ Click browser plugin to access the full-text PDFs).

Templates and outlines:

  • Learn how to write a review of literature , Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison
  • Structuring a literature review , Australian National University
  • Matrix Method for Literature Review: The Review Matrix , Duquesne University

Additional resources:

  • Ten simple rules for writing a literature review , Editor, PLoS Computational Biology
  • Video: How to write a literature review , UC San Diego Psychology

Related posts

For better insights, assess research performance at the department level.

library services literature review

Getting the Full Picture: Institutional unification in the Web of Science

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2024 Journal Citation Reports: Changes in Journal Impact Factor category rankings to enhance transparency and inclusivity

library services literature review

Writing a Literature Review: Home

Decorative header.

      A literature review is a guide to the published information on a topic. While a literature review summarizes each author’s ideas and contributions, it is not just an alphabetical or numbered list. Sources are usually grouped into subtopics or ideas important to the topic. For example, a review of the literature on crop circles might be divided into specific geographic areas or it might represent the skeptic’s viewpoint as well as the believer’s.

     Here is an excerpt from The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill:

A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period.

A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis. A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant.

     Literature reviews are very valuable to researchers who need an overview of what’s been written about a topic, but they do not count as scholarly journal articles when you are collecting sources for a term paper.

WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW: CHOOSING A TOPIC

      I f you have to write a literature review, you need to take care that the topic you choose is neither too broad or too narrow. You could spend the rest of your life doing a literature review on war whereas a literature review on women in the Gulf War might be adequately addressed in several pages. Conversely, you might choose a topic and discover that almost nothing has been written about it. Consult with a reference librarian or your professor to be certain you’ve chosen wisely.

WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW: SELECTION CRITERIA

      N ext, decide what types of literature will be included. Will you use books, journal articles, magazine articles, newspaper articles, web sites, and/or something else? How old should the material be? How many items will be included?

WRITING A LITERATURE REVIEW: THESIS STATEMENT

      T he thesis statement for a literature review argues neither for or against a particular position but for a particular perspective on the literature. Continuing on with our example of crop circles, a possible thesis statement might be:

The phenomenon known as “crop circles” has become worthy of investigation by the scientific community.

The hallmarks of scientific literature on hoaxes are revealed in the literature on the phenomenon known as “crop circles.”

SAMPLE LITERATURE REVIEWS

  • Enrichment for Captive TIgers(Panthera tigris): Current Knowledge and Future Directions

Notice how the literature reviews below address different, specific aspects of oil spills:

  • Offshore Oil Spill Response Practices and Emerging Challenges
  • Oil Spills and Their Impacts on Sand Beach Invertebrate Communities: A Literature Review
  • Oil Spill Detection by Satellite Remote Sensing

A Crop Circle

Aerial photo of a crop circle.

  • What is "The Literature"?

FURTHER ASSISTANCE

      T here is a lot more to writing a literature review than can be easily covered in this guide. Get all the details you can from your professor. Find a literature review to use as a model. Consult one of these books or Web sites:

  • Preparing Literature Reviews : Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches by M. Ling Pan.
  • Writing Literature Reviews : a Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences by Jose L. Galvan.
  • The UNC Writing Center: Literature Reviews
  • The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It
  • Social Work Literature Review Guidelines

Thin dark red line.

  • Last Updated: Nov 23, 2020 12:18 PM
  • URL: https://libguides.csusb.edu/literaturereview

University of Texas

  • University of Texas Libraries

Literature Reviews

  • What is a literature review?
  • Steps in the Literature Review Process
  • Define your research question
  • Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
  • Choose databases and search
  • Review Results
  • Synthesize Results
  • Analyze Results
  • Librarian Support

What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

  • Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
  • Explain why this review has taken place;
  • Articulate a position or hypothesis;
  • Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

  • Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
  • Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

  • Organizes or describes a topic
  • Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

  • It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
  • It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
  • It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
  • It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Meryl Brodsky : Communication and Information Studies

Hannah Chapman Tripp : Biology, Neuroscience

Carolyn Cunningham : Human Development & Family Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

Larayne Dallas : Engineering

Janelle Hedstrom : Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Ed Leadership & Policy ​

Susan Macicak : Linguistics

Imelda Vetter : Dell Medical School

For help in other subject areas, please see the guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

  • October 26, 2022 recording
  • Last Updated: Oct 26, 2022 2:49 PM
  • URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

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Literature Review: Library Guides

Consultations.

Subject specialist librarians provide support for students doing advanced research.  They are eager to work with you by phone, via email, or in person.

To schedule an appointment for a consultation, use this page to find a convenient time to talk.

Citing sources and creating bibliographies

Check out this guide for the basics of citation in the most commonly used styles (MLA, APA, and Chicago).

Your subject specialist librarian is an invaluable source of help for tricky citations (unusual formats, citation elements missing, understanding DOI's, etc.).

We also have online guides for popular citation managers:

Boot camp slides and video links

  • Research is a Conversation (UNLV)
  • Grant Man! How to do a literature review (Northwestern) [Book Igloo 2:53-4:00]
  • What is a literature review? (UCLA)
  • Citation chaining (UNSW)
  • Synthesis for Literature Review (Utah)
  • Literature Review -Grad Academy Boot Camp, 2/2/24

Other guides with lit review advice

  • Write a Literature Review (UCSC) List of questions to answer about selected sources; links to example review paragraph.
  • Learn how to write a review of literature (Wisconsin-Madison) Outline with example reviews
  • Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide (UCONN) Concise advice for each stage in a literature review
  • Demystifying the Literature Review (Cornell) Includes templates of diagram for building a search, research log
  • Organizing and Creating Information: Literature Reviews (Brown) Includes sample outline for literature review
  • Literature Reviews (U Texas - Austin) Good breakdown of tasks in all stages
  • What is a literature review? In Scientific Inquiry in Social Work.
  • Literature Reviews for Education and Nursing Students
  • Evidence Synthesis and Systematic Reviews (Temple) Defines specific types of review

Scholarly Communications And Data Services

  • Bibliometrics and Altmetrics

Advice and Handbooks

UNLV access only

  • Literature Review Project Planner (Sage) Frequently asked questions about literature reviews

Databases to search for models

Published review essays and annotated bibliographies.

To map out research in a discipline or identify work that other scholars claim is significant, look for a published review essay.  These might be in handbooks or companions, in certain specialized disciplinary encyclopedias, or they might turn up as journal articles. 

Think of these essays as maps to help you navigate existing scholarship. They will reflect the interests and values of their creators but they'll also help orient you to important trends or schools of thought. You can adapt or challenge their organizational schemes and assumptions! 

Subject guides

Subject Guides

Check the main guide for your discipline to identify the most comprehensive index of current scholarship. 

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

  • 5. The Literature Review
  • Purpose of Guide
  • Design Flaws to Avoid
  • Independent and Dependent Variables
  • Glossary of Research Terms
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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

  • Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
  • Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
  • Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
  • Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

  • Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
  • Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
  • Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
  • Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
  • Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
  • Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
  • Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
  • Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

  • An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
  • Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
  • An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
  • Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

  • Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
  • Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
  • Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
  • Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
  • Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

  • Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
  • Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
  • History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
  • Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
  • Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
  • Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

  • Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
  • You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
  • Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
  • Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
  • Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
  • Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
  • Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

  • How are they organizing their ideas?
  • What methods have they used to study the problem?
  • What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
  • What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
  • How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

  • Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
  • Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
  • Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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  • How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

  • Search for relevant literature
  • Evaluate sources
  • Identify themes, debates, and gaps
  • Outline the structure
  • Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

  • Quick Run-through
  • Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

  • Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
  • Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
  • Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
  • Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
  • Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

Literature review guide

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

  • Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
  • Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
  • Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
  • Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

  • Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
  • Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
  • Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

  • Your university’s library catalogue
  • Google Scholar
  • Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
  • Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
  • EconLit (economics)
  • Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

  • What question or problem is the author addressing?
  • What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
  • What are the key theories, models, and methods?
  • Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
  • What are the results and conclusions of the study?
  • How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

  • Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
  • Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
  • Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
  • Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
  • Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

  • Most research has focused on young women.
  • There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
  • But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

  • Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
  • Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
  • Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

  • Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
  • Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
  • Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
  • Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

  • Sampling methods
  • Simple random sampling
  • Stratified sampling
  • Cluster sampling
  • Likert scales
  • Reproducibility

 Statistics

  • Null hypothesis
  • Statistical power
  • Probability distribution
  • Effect size
  • Poisson distribution

Research bias

  • Optimism bias
  • Cognitive bias
  • Implicit bias
  • Hawthorne effect
  • Anchoring bias
  • Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

  • To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
  • To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
  • To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
  • To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
  • To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

  • An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
  • A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
  • Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
  • Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
  • Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
  • Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
  • Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

  • Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
  • Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

  • Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
  • Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
  • Qualitative versus quantitative research
  • Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
  • Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
  • Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

  • It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
  • Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
  • Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
  • Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.

Cover of Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach

Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet].

Chapter 9 methods for literature reviews.

Guy Paré and Spyros Kitsiou .

9.1. Introduction

Literature reviews play a critical role in scholarship because science remains, first and foremost, a cumulative endeavour ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). As in any academic discipline, rigorous knowledge syntheses are becoming indispensable in keeping up with an exponentially growing eHealth literature, assisting practitioners, academics, and graduate students in finding, evaluating, and synthesizing the contents of many empirical and conceptual papers. Among other methods, literature reviews are essential for: (a) identifying what has been written on a subject or topic; (b) determining the extent to which a specific research area reveals any interpretable trends or patterns; (c) aggregating empirical findings related to a narrow research question to support evidence-based practice; (d) generating new frameworks and theories; and (e) identifying topics or questions requiring more investigation ( Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou, 2015 ).

Literature reviews can take two major forms. The most prevalent one is the “literature review” or “background” section within a journal paper or a chapter in a graduate thesis. This section synthesizes the extant literature and usually identifies the gaps in knowledge that the empirical study addresses ( Sylvester, Tate, & Johnstone, 2013 ). It may also provide a theoretical foundation for the proposed study, substantiate the presence of the research problem, justify the research as one that contributes something new to the cumulated knowledge, or validate the methods and approaches for the proposed study ( Hart, 1998 ; Levy & Ellis, 2006 ).

The second form of literature review, which is the focus of this chapter, constitutes an original and valuable work of research in and of itself ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Rather than providing a base for a researcher’s own work, it creates a solid starting point for all members of the community interested in a particular area or topic ( Mulrow, 1987 ). The so-called “review article” is a journal-length paper which has an overarching purpose to synthesize the literature in a field, without collecting or analyzing any primary data ( Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2006 ).

When appropriately conducted, review articles represent powerful information sources for practitioners looking for state-of-the art evidence to guide their decision-making and work practices ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, high-quality reviews become frequently cited pieces of work which researchers seek out as a first clear outline of the literature when undertaking empirical studies ( Cooper, 1988 ; Rowe, 2014 ). Scholars who track and gauge the impact of articles have found that review papers are cited and downloaded more often than any other type of published article ( Cronin, Ryan, & Coughlan, 2008 ; Montori, Wilczynski, Morgan, Haynes, & Hedges, 2003 ; Patsopoulos, Analatos, & Ioannidis, 2005 ). The reason for their popularity may be the fact that reading the review enables one to have an overview, if not a detailed knowledge of the area in question, as well as references to the most useful primary sources ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Although they are not easy to conduct, the commitment to complete a review article provides a tremendous service to one’s academic community ( Paré et al., 2015 ; Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Most, if not all, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of medical informatics publish review articles of some type.

The main objectives of this chapter are fourfold: (a) to provide an overview of the major steps and activities involved in conducting a stand-alone literature review; (b) to describe and contrast the different types of review articles that can contribute to the eHealth knowledge base; (c) to illustrate each review type with one or two examples from the eHealth literature; and (d) to provide a series of recommendations for prospective authors of review articles in this domain.

9.2. Overview of the Literature Review Process and Steps

As explained in Templier and Paré (2015) , there are six generic steps involved in conducting a review article:

  • formulating the research question(s) and objective(s),
  • searching the extant literature,
  • screening for inclusion,
  • assessing the quality of primary studies,
  • extracting data, and
  • analyzing data.

Although these steps are presented here in sequential order, one must keep in mind that the review process can be iterative and that many activities can be initiated during the planning stage and later refined during subsequent phases ( Finfgeld-Connett & Johnson, 2013 ; Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ).

Formulating the research question(s) and objective(s): As a first step, members of the review team must appropriately justify the need for the review itself ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ), identify the review’s main objective(s) ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ), and define the concepts or variables at the heart of their synthesis ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ; Webster & Watson, 2002 ). Importantly, they also need to articulate the research question(s) they propose to investigate ( Kitchenham & Charters, 2007 ). In this regard, we concur with Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey (2011) that clearly articulated research questions are key ingredients that guide the entire review methodology; they underscore the type of information that is needed, inform the search for and selection of relevant literature, and guide or orient the subsequent analysis. Searching the extant literature: The next step consists of searching the literature and making decisions about the suitability of material to be considered in the review ( Cooper, 1988 ). There exist three main coverage strategies. First, exhaustive coverage means an effort is made to be as comprehensive as possible in order to ensure that all relevant studies, published and unpublished, are included in the review and, thus, conclusions are based on this all-inclusive knowledge base. The second type of coverage consists of presenting materials that are representative of most other works in a given field or area. Often authors who adopt this strategy will search for relevant articles in a small number of top-tier journals in a field ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In the third strategy, the review team concentrates on prior works that have been central or pivotal to a particular topic. This may include empirical studies or conceptual papers that initiated a line of investigation, changed how problems or questions were framed, introduced new methods or concepts, or engendered important debate ( Cooper, 1988 ). Screening for inclusion: The following step consists of evaluating the applicability of the material identified in the preceding step ( Levy & Ellis, 2006 ; vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). Once a group of potential studies has been identified, members of the review team must screen them to determine their relevance ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). A set of predetermined rules provides a basis for including or excluding certain studies. This exercise requires a significant investment on the part of researchers, who must ensure enhanced objectivity and avoid biases or mistakes. As discussed later in this chapter, for certain types of reviews there must be at least two independent reviewers involved in the screening process and a procedure to resolve disagreements must also be in place ( Liberati et al., 2009 ; Shea et al., 2009 ). Assessing the quality of primary studies: In addition to screening material for inclusion, members of the review team may need to assess the scientific quality of the selected studies, that is, appraise the rigour of the research design and methods. Such formal assessment, which is usually conducted independently by at least two coders, helps members of the review team refine which studies to include in the final sample, determine whether or not the differences in quality may affect their conclusions, or guide how they analyze the data and interpret the findings ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2006 ). Ascribing quality scores to each primary study or considering through domain-based evaluations which study components have or have not been designed and executed appropriately makes it possible to reflect on the extent to which the selected study addresses possible biases and maximizes validity ( Shea et al., 2009 ). Extracting data: The following step involves gathering or extracting applicable information from each primary study included in the sample and deciding what is relevant to the problem of interest ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Indeed, the type of data that should be recorded mainly depends on the initial research questions ( Okoli & Schabram, 2010 ). However, important information may also be gathered about how, when, where and by whom the primary study was conducted, the research design and methods, or qualitative/quantitative results ( Cooper & Hedges, 2009 ). Analyzing and synthesizing data : As a final step, members of the review team must collate, summarize, aggregate, organize, and compare the evidence extracted from the included studies. The extracted data must be presented in a meaningful way that suggests a new contribution to the extant literature ( Jesson et al., 2011 ). Webster and Watson (2002) warn researchers that literature reviews should be much more than lists of papers and should provide a coherent lens to make sense of extant knowledge on a given topic. There exist several methods and techniques for synthesizing quantitative (e.g., frequency analysis, meta-analysis) and qualitative (e.g., grounded theory, narrative analysis, meta-ethnography) evidence ( Dixon-Woods, Agarwal, Jones, Young, & Sutton, 2005 ; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

9.3. Types of Review Articles and Brief Illustrations

EHealth researchers have at their disposal a number of approaches and methods for making sense out of existing literature, all with the purpose of casting current research findings into historical contexts or explaining contradictions that might exist among a set of primary research studies conducted on a particular topic. Our classification scheme is largely inspired from Paré and colleagues’ (2015) typology. Below we present and illustrate those review types that we feel are central to the growth and development of the eHealth domain.

9.3.1. Narrative Reviews

The narrative review is the “traditional” way of reviewing the extant literature and is skewed towards a qualitative interpretation of prior knowledge ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). Put simply, a narrative review attempts to summarize or synthesize what has been written on a particular topic but does not seek generalization or cumulative knowledge from what is reviewed ( Davies, 2000 ; Green et al., 2006 ). Instead, the review team often undertakes the task of accumulating and synthesizing the literature to demonstrate the value of a particular point of view ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ). As such, reviewers may selectively ignore or limit the attention paid to certain studies in order to make a point. In this rather unsystematic approach, the selection of information from primary articles is subjective, lacks explicit criteria for inclusion and can lead to biased interpretations or inferences ( Green et al., 2006 ). There are several narrative reviews in the particular eHealth domain, as in all fields, which follow such an unstructured approach ( Silva et al., 2015 ; Paul et al., 2015 ).

Despite these criticisms, this type of review can be very useful in gathering together a volume of literature in a specific subject area and synthesizing it. As mentioned above, its primary purpose is to provide the reader with a comprehensive background for understanding current knowledge and highlighting the significance of new research ( Cronin et al., 2008 ). Faculty like to use narrative reviews in the classroom because they are often more up to date than textbooks, provide a single source for students to reference, and expose students to peer-reviewed literature ( Green et al., 2006 ). For researchers, narrative reviews can inspire research ideas by identifying gaps or inconsistencies in a body of knowledge, thus helping researchers to determine research questions or formulate hypotheses. Importantly, narrative reviews can also be used as educational articles to bring practitioners up to date with certain topics of issues ( Green et al., 2006 ).

Recently, there have been several efforts to introduce more rigour in narrative reviews that will elucidate common pitfalls and bring changes into their publication standards. Information systems researchers, among others, have contributed to advancing knowledge on how to structure a “traditional” review. For instance, Levy and Ellis (2006) proposed a generic framework for conducting such reviews. Their model follows the systematic data processing approach comprised of three steps, namely: (a) literature search and screening; (b) data extraction and analysis; and (c) writing the literature review. They provide detailed and very helpful instructions on how to conduct each step of the review process. As another methodological contribution, vom Brocke et al. (2009) offered a series of guidelines for conducting literature reviews, with a particular focus on how to search and extract the relevant body of knowledge. Last, Bandara, Miskon, and Fielt (2011) proposed a structured, predefined and tool-supported method to identify primary studies within a feasible scope, extract relevant content from identified articles, synthesize and analyze the findings, and effectively write and present the results of the literature review. We highly recommend that prospective authors of narrative reviews consult these useful sources before embarking on their work.

Darlow and Wen (2015) provide a good example of a highly structured narrative review in the eHealth field. These authors synthesized published articles that describe the development process of mobile health ( m-health ) interventions for patients’ cancer care self-management. As in most narrative reviews, the scope of the research questions being investigated is broad: (a) how development of these systems are carried out; (b) which methods are used to investigate these systems; and (c) what conclusions can be drawn as a result of the development of these systems. To provide clear answers to these questions, a literature search was conducted on six electronic databases and Google Scholar . The search was performed using several terms and free text words, combining them in an appropriate manner. Four inclusion and three exclusion criteria were utilized during the screening process. Both authors independently reviewed each of the identified articles to determine eligibility and extract study information. A flow diagram shows the number of studies identified, screened, and included or excluded at each stage of study selection. In terms of contributions, this review provides a series of practical recommendations for m-health intervention development.

9.3.2. Descriptive or Mapping Reviews

The primary goal of a descriptive review is to determine the extent to which a body of knowledge in a particular research topic reveals any interpretable pattern or trend with respect to pre-existing propositions, theories, methodologies or findings ( King & He, 2005 ; Paré et al., 2015 ). In contrast with narrative reviews, descriptive reviews follow a systematic and transparent procedure, including searching, screening and classifying studies ( Petersen, Vakkalanka, & Kuzniarz, 2015 ). Indeed, structured search methods are used to form a representative sample of a larger group of published works ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Further, authors of descriptive reviews extract from each study certain characteristics of interest, such as publication year, research methods, data collection techniques, and direction or strength of research outcomes (e.g., positive, negative, or non-significant) in the form of frequency analysis to produce quantitative results ( Sylvester et al., 2013 ). In essence, each study included in a descriptive review is treated as the unit of analysis and the published literature as a whole provides a database from which the authors attempt to identify any interpretable trends or draw overall conclusions about the merits of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods or findings ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In doing so, a descriptive review may claim that its findings represent the state of the art in a particular domain ( King & He, 2005 ).

In the fields of health sciences and medical informatics, reviews that focus on examining the range, nature and evolution of a topic area are described by Anderson, Allen, Peckham, and Goodwin (2008) as mapping reviews . Like descriptive reviews, the research questions are generic and usually relate to publication patterns and trends. There is no preconceived plan to systematically review all of the literature although this can be done. Instead, researchers often present studies that are representative of most works published in a particular area and they consider a specific time frame to be mapped.

An example of this approach in the eHealth domain is offered by DeShazo, Lavallie, and Wolf (2009). The purpose of this descriptive or mapping review was to characterize publication trends in the medical informatics literature over a 20-year period (1987 to 2006). To achieve this ambitious objective, the authors performed a bibliometric analysis of medical informatics citations indexed in medline using publication trends, journal frequencies, impact factors, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term frequencies, and characteristics of citations. Findings revealed that there were over 77,000 medical informatics articles published during the covered period in numerous journals and that the average annual growth rate was 12%. The MeSH term analysis also suggested a strong interdisciplinary trend. Finally, average impact scores increased over time with two notable growth periods. Overall, patterns in research outputs that seem to characterize the historic trends and current components of the field of medical informatics suggest it may be a maturing discipline (DeShazo et al., 2009).

9.3.3. Scoping Reviews

Scoping reviews attempt to provide an initial indication of the potential size and nature of the extant literature on an emergent topic (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Daudt, van Mossel, & Scott, 2013 ; Levac, Colquhoun, & O’Brien, 2010). A scoping review may be conducted to examine the extent, range and nature of research activities in a particular area, determine the value of undertaking a full systematic review (discussed next), or identify research gaps in the extant literature ( Paré et al., 2015 ). In line with their main objective, scoping reviews usually conclude with the presentation of a detailed research agenda for future works along with potential implications for both practice and research.

Unlike narrative and descriptive reviews, the whole point of scoping the field is to be as comprehensive as possible, including grey literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). Inclusion and exclusion criteria must be established to help researchers eliminate studies that are not aligned with the research questions. It is also recommended that at least two independent coders review abstracts yielded from the search strategy and then the full articles for study selection ( Daudt et al., 2013 ). The synthesized evidence from content or thematic analysis is relatively easy to present in tabular form (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Thomas & Harden, 2008 ).

One of the most highly cited scoping reviews in the eHealth domain was published by Archer, Fevrier-Thomas, Lokker, McKibbon, and Straus (2011) . These authors reviewed the existing literature on personal health record ( phr ) systems including design, functionality, implementation, applications, outcomes, and benefits. Seven databases were searched from 1985 to March 2010. Several search terms relating to phr s were used during this process. Two authors independently screened titles and abstracts to determine inclusion status. A second screen of full-text articles, again by two independent members of the research team, ensured that the studies described phr s. All in all, 130 articles met the criteria and their data were extracted manually into a database. The authors concluded that although there is a large amount of survey, observational, cohort/panel, and anecdotal evidence of phr benefits and satisfaction for patients, more research is needed to evaluate the results of phr implementations. Their in-depth analysis of the literature signalled that there is little solid evidence from randomized controlled trials or other studies through the use of phr s. Hence, they suggested that more research is needed that addresses the current lack of understanding of optimal functionality and usability of these systems, and how they can play a beneficial role in supporting patient self-management ( Archer et al., 2011 ).

9.3.4. Forms of Aggregative Reviews

Healthcare providers, practitioners, and policy-makers are nowadays overwhelmed with large volumes of information, including research-based evidence from numerous clinical trials and evaluation studies, assessing the effectiveness of health information technologies and interventions ( Ammenwerth & de Keizer, 2004 ; Deshazo et al., 2009 ). It is unrealistic to expect that all these disparate actors will have the time, skills, and necessary resources to identify the available evidence in the area of their expertise and consider it when making decisions. Systematic reviews that involve the rigorous application of scientific strategies aimed at limiting subjectivity and bias (i.e., systematic and random errors) can respond to this challenge.

Systematic reviews attempt to aggregate, appraise, and synthesize in a single source all empirical evidence that meet a set of previously specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a clearly formulated and often narrow research question on a particular topic of interest to support evidence-based practice ( Liberati et al., 2009 ). They adhere closely to explicit scientific principles ( Liberati et al., 2009 ) and rigorous methodological guidelines (Higgins & Green, 2008) aimed at reducing random and systematic errors that can lead to deviations from the truth in results or inferences. The use of explicit methods allows systematic reviews to aggregate a large body of research evidence, assess whether effects or relationships are in the same direction and of the same general magnitude, explain possible inconsistencies between study results, and determine the strength of the overall evidence for every outcome of interest based on the quality of included studies and the general consistency among them ( Cook, Mulrow, & Haynes, 1997 ). The main procedures of a systematic review involve:

  • Formulating a review question and developing a search strategy based on explicit inclusion criteria for the identification of eligible studies (usually described in the context of a detailed review protocol).
  • Searching for eligible studies using multiple databases and information sources, including grey literature sources, without any language restrictions.
  • Selecting studies, extracting data, and assessing risk of bias in a duplicate manner using two independent reviewers to avoid random or systematic errors in the process.
  • Analyzing data using quantitative or qualitative methods.
  • Presenting results in summary of findings tables.
  • Interpreting results and drawing conclusions.

Many systematic reviews, but not all, use statistical methods to combine the results of independent studies into a single quantitative estimate or summary effect size. Known as meta-analyses , these reviews use specific data extraction and statistical techniques (e.g., network, frequentist, or Bayesian meta-analyses) to calculate from each study by outcome of interest an effect size along with a confidence interval that reflects the degree of uncertainty behind the point estimate of effect ( Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009 ; Deeks, Higgins, & Altman, 2008 ). Subsequently, they use fixed or random-effects analysis models to combine the results of the included studies, assess statistical heterogeneity, and calculate a weighted average of the effect estimates from the different studies, taking into account their sample sizes. The summary effect size is a value that reflects the average magnitude of the intervention effect for a particular outcome of interest or, more generally, the strength of a relationship between two variables across all studies included in the systematic review. By statistically combining data from multiple studies, meta-analyses can create more precise and reliable estimates of intervention effects than those derived from individual studies alone, when these are examined independently as discrete sources of information.

The review by Gurol-Urganci, de Jongh, Vodopivec-Jamsek, Atun, and Car (2013) on the effects of mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments is an illustrative example of a high-quality systematic review with meta-analysis. Missed appointments are a major cause of inefficiency in healthcare delivery with substantial monetary costs to health systems. These authors sought to assess whether mobile phone-based appointment reminders delivered through Short Message Service ( sms ) or Multimedia Messaging Service ( mms ) are effective in improving rates of patient attendance and reducing overall costs. To this end, they conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases using highly sensitive search strategies without language or publication-type restrictions to identify all rct s that are eligible for inclusion. In order to minimize the risk of omitting eligible studies not captured by the original search, they supplemented all electronic searches with manual screening of trial registers and references contained in the included studies. Study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments were performed inde­­pen­dently by two coders using standardized methods to ensure consistency and to eliminate potential errors. Findings from eight rct s involving 6,615 participants were pooled into meta-analyses to calculate the magnitude of effects that mobile text message reminders have on the rate of attendance at healthcare appointments compared to no reminders and phone call reminders.

Meta-analyses are regarded as powerful tools for deriving meaningful conclusions. However, there are situations in which it is neither reasonable nor appropriate to pool studies together using meta-analytic methods simply because there is extensive clinical heterogeneity between the included studies or variation in measurement tools, comparisons, or outcomes of interest. In these cases, systematic reviews can use qualitative synthesis methods such as vote counting, content analysis, classification schemes and tabulations, as an alternative approach to narratively synthesize the results of the independent studies included in the review. This form of review is known as qualitative systematic review.

A rigorous example of one such review in the eHealth domain is presented by Mickan, Atherton, Roberts, Heneghan, and Tilson (2014) on the use of handheld computers by healthcare professionals and their impact on access to information and clinical decision-making. In line with the methodological guide­lines for systematic reviews, these authors: (a) developed and registered with prospero ( www.crd.york.ac.uk/ prospero / ) an a priori review protocol; (b) conducted comprehensive searches for eligible studies using multiple databases and other supplementary strategies (e.g., forward searches); and (c) subsequently carried out study selection, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments in a duplicate manner to eliminate potential errors in the review process. Heterogeneity between the included studies in terms of reported outcomes and measures precluded the use of meta-analytic methods. To this end, the authors resorted to using narrative analysis and synthesis to describe the effectiveness of handheld computers on accessing information for clinical knowledge, adherence to safety and clinical quality guidelines, and diagnostic decision-making.

In recent years, the number of systematic reviews in the field of health informatics has increased considerably. Systematic reviews with discordant findings can cause great confusion and make it difficult for decision-makers to interpret the review-level evidence ( Moher, 2013 ). Therefore, there is a growing need for appraisal and synthesis of prior systematic reviews to ensure that decision-making is constantly informed by the best available accumulated evidence. Umbrella reviews , also known as overviews of systematic reviews, are tertiary types of evidence synthesis that aim to accomplish this; that is, they aim to compare and contrast findings from multiple systematic reviews and meta-analyses ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Umbrella reviews generally adhere to the same principles and rigorous methodological guidelines used in systematic reviews. However, the unit of analysis in umbrella reviews is the systematic review rather than the primary study ( Becker & Oxman, 2008 ). Unlike systematic reviews that have a narrow focus of inquiry, umbrella reviews focus on broader research topics for which there are several potential interventions ( Smith, Devane, Begley, & Clarke, 2011 ). A recent umbrella review on the effects of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with heart failure critically appraised, compared, and synthesized evidence from 15 systematic reviews to investigate which types of home telemonitoring technologies and forms of interventions are more effective in reducing mortality and hospital admissions ( Kitsiou, Paré, & Jaana, 2015 ).

9.3.5. Realist Reviews

Realist reviews are theory-driven interpretative reviews developed to inform, enhance, or supplement conventional systematic reviews by making sense of heterogeneous evidence about complex interventions applied in diverse contexts in a way that informs policy decision-making ( Greenhalgh, Wong, Westhorp, & Pawson, 2011 ). They originated from criticisms of positivist systematic reviews which centre on their “simplistic” underlying assumptions ( Oates, 2011 ). As explained above, systematic reviews seek to identify causation. Such logic is appropriate for fields like medicine and education where findings of randomized controlled trials can be aggregated to see whether a new treatment or intervention does improve outcomes. However, many argue that it is not possible to establish such direct causal links between interventions and outcomes in fields such as social policy, management, and information systems where for any intervention there is unlikely to be a regular or consistent outcome ( Oates, 2011 ; Pawson, 2006 ; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 ).

To circumvent these limitations, Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey, and Walshe (2005) have proposed a new approach for synthesizing knowledge that seeks to unpack the mechanism of how “complex interventions” work in particular contexts. The basic research question — what works? — which is usually associated with systematic reviews changes to: what is it about this intervention that works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and why? Realist reviews have no particular preference for either quantitative or qualitative evidence. As a theory-building approach, a realist review usually starts by articulating likely underlying mechanisms and then scrutinizes available evidence to find out whether and where these mechanisms are applicable ( Shepperd et al., 2009 ). Primary studies found in the extant literature are viewed as case studies which can test and modify the initial theories ( Rousseau et al., 2008 ).

The main objective pursued in the realist review conducted by Otte-Trojel, de Bont, Rundall, and van de Klundert (2014) was to examine how patient portals contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The specific goals were to investigate how outcomes are produced and, most importantly, how variations in outcomes can be explained. The research team started with an exploratory review of background documents and research studies to identify ways in which patient portals may contribute to health service delivery and patient outcomes. The authors identified six main ways which represent “educated guesses” to be tested against the data in the evaluation studies. These studies were identified through a formal and systematic search in four databases between 2003 and 2013. Two members of the research team selected the articles using a pre-established list of inclusion and exclusion criteria and following a two-step procedure. The authors then extracted data from the selected articles and created several tables, one for each outcome category. They organized information to bring forward those mechanisms where patient portals contribute to outcomes and the variation in outcomes across different contexts.

9.3.6. Critical Reviews

Lastly, critical reviews aim to provide a critical evaluation and interpretive analysis of existing literature on a particular topic of interest to reveal strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, controversies, inconsistencies, and/or other important issues with respect to theories, hypotheses, research methods or results ( Baumeister & Leary, 1997 ; Kirkevold, 1997 ). Unlike other review types, critical reviews attempt to take a reflective account of the research that has been done in a particular area of interest, and assess its credibility by using appraisal instruments or critical interpretive methods. In this way, critical reviews attempt to constructively inform other scholars about the weaknesses of prior research and strengthen knowledge development by giving focus and direction to studies for further improvement ( Kirkevold, 1997 ).

Kitsiou, Paré, and Jaana (2013) provide an example of a critical review that assessed the methodological quality of prior systematic reviews of home telemonitoring studies for chronic patients. The authors conducted a comprehensive search on multiple databases to identify eligible reviews and subsequently used a validated instrument to conduct an in-depth quality appraisal. Results indicate that the majority of systematic reviews in this particular area suffer from important methodological flaws and biases that impair their internal validity and limit their usefulness for clinical and decision-making purposes. To this end, they provide a number of recommendations to strengthen knowledge development towards improving the design and execution of future reviews on home telemonitoring.

9.4. Summary

Table 9.1 outlines the main types of literature reviews that were described in the previous sub-sections and summarizes the main characteristics that distinguish one review type from another. It also includes key references to methodological guidelines and useful sources that can be used by eHealth scholars and researchers for planning and developing reviews.

Table 9.1. Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

Typology of Literature Reviews (adapted from Paré et al., 2015).

As shown in Table 9.1 , each review type addresses different kinds of research questions or objectives, which subsequently define and dictate the methods and approaches that need to be used to achieve the overarching goal(s) of the review. For example, in the case of narrative reviews, there is greater flexibility in searching and synthesizing articles ( Green et al., 2006 ). Researchers are often relatively free to use a diversity of approaches to search, identify, and select relevant scientific articles, describe their operational characteristics, present how the individual studies fit together, and formulate conclusions. On the other hand, systematic reviews are characterized by their high level of systematicity, rigour, and use of explicit methods, based on an “a priori” review plan that aims to minimize bias in the analysis and synthesis process (Higgins & Green, 2008). Some reviews are exploratory in nature (e.g., scoping/mapping reviews), whereas others may be conducted to discover patterns (e.g., descriptive reviews) or involve a synthesis approach that may include the critical analysis of prior research ( Paré et al., 2015 ). Hence, in order to select the most appropriate type of review, it is critical to know before embarking on a review project, why the research synthesis is conducted and what type of methods are best aligned with the pursued goals.

9.5. Concluding Remarks

In light of the increased use of evidence-based practice and research generating stronger evidence ( Grady et al., 2011 ; Lyden et al., 2013 ), review articles have become essential tools for summarizing, synthesizing, integrating or critically appraising prior knowledge in the eHealth field. As mentioned earlier, when rigorously conducted review articles represent powerful information sources for eHealth scholars and practitioners looking for state-of-the-art evidence. The typology of literature reviews we used herein will allow eHealth researchers, graduate students and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the similarities and differences between review types.

We must stress that this classification scheme does not privilege any specific type of review as being of higher quality than another ( Paré et al., 2015 ). As explained above, each type of review has its own strengths and limitations. Having said that, we realize that the methodological rigour of any review — be it qualitative, quantitative or mixed — is a critical aspect that should be considered seriously by prospective authors. In the present context, the notion of rigour refers to the reliability and validity of the review process described in section 9.2. For one thing, reliability is related to the reproducibility of the review process and steps, which is facilitated by a comprehensive documentation of the literature search process, extraction, coding and analysis performed in the review. Whether the search is comprehensive or not, whether it involves a methodical approach for data extraction and synthesis or not, it is important that the review documents in an explicit and transparent manner the steps and approach that were used in the process of its development. Next, validity characterizes the degree to which the review process was conducted appropriately. It goes beyond documentation and reflects decisions related to the selection of the sources, the search terms used, the period of time covered, the articles selected in the search, and the application of backward and forward searches ( vom Brocke et al., 2009 ). In short, the rigour of any review article is reflected by the explicitness of its methods (i.e., transparency) and the soundness of the approach used. We refer those interested in the concepts of rigour and quality to the work of Templier and Paré (2015) which offers a detailed set of methodological guidelines for conducting and evaluating various types of review articles.

To conclude, our main objective in this chapter was to demystify the various types of literature reviews that are central to the continuous development of the eHealth field. It is our hope that our descriptive account will serve as a valuable source for those conducting, evaluating or using reviews in this important and growing domain.

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  • Cite this Page Paré G, Kitsiou S. Chapter 9 Methods for Literature Reviews. In: Lau F, Kuziemsky C, editors. Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach [Internet]. Victoria (BC): University of Victoria; 2017 Feb 27.
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McGoogan Sessions: Types of Literature Reviews with Danielle and Kim

McGoogan Sessions: Types of Literature Reviews Date and time: Tuesday, March 12, 2024, noon–1 p.m. CDT Location: Online ( Zoom )

Join Danielle Westmark and Kim Harp, education and research services librarians, at McGoogan Library, on Tuesday, March 12 from noon–1 p.m. CDT to learn about the types of literature reviews from systematic to rapid, the amount of time expected for each review, and what review is right for your topic. This session is intended for all UNMC and clinical partners (Nebraska Medicine and Children’s Nebraska) audiences. Individuals interested in attending can register online via Zoom.

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The Baikal-Amur Mainline is a railway line traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, the 4,234 km (2,305 mile) track runs about 610 to 770 km (380 to 480 miles) north of and parallel to the Trans-Siberian railway.

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At least 60 boomtowns developed around the route, but nowadays a lot of these places are deserted and unemployment in the area is high. The BAM was declared complete in 1991.

A recent major improvement was the opening of the 15.343 km (9.534 mile) Severomuisk Tunnel on 5 December 2003. It is up to 1.5 km (nearly 1 mile) deep. Construction took twenty-seven years to complete. Prior to this, the corresponding route segment was 54 km (34 miles) long, with heavy slopes necessitating the use of auxiliary locomotives.

Of the whole route, the Tayshet-Taksimo sector of 1,469 km (913 miles) is electrified. There are 21 tunnels along the line, with a total length of 47 km (29 miles). There are also more than 4,200 bridges, with a total length of over 400 km (about 260 miles).

The railway now attracts thousands of Western railway enthusiasts each year.  We were the first to explore this Trans Siberian route – previously closed to foreigners. We explored so much that our colleague, Athol Yates, wrote the definitive guide book for this route – BAM Trans Siberian Route – which has been published by “TrailBlazers” in the UK.

Here’s a BBC travel feature, aptly titled A Train to Nowhere in Siberia

RELATED PLACES

Komsomolsk-on-Amur

Komsomolsk-on-Amur

Irkutsk

Severobaikalsk

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COMMENTS

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    1. Introduction. Not to be confused with a book review, a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.

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    Keywords Library management, Social media, Web 2.0, Library services, Information services, Library and information services, Library marketing concepts, Strategic library marketing, Marketing mix, Libraries, 7Ps, Library 2.0 Paper type Literature review Library Review Vol. 62 No. 4/5, 2013 pp. 312-334 This article is a revised and expanded ...

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    A literature review is a guide to the published information on a topic. While a literature review summarizes each author's ideas and contributions, it is not just an alphabetical or numbered list. Sources are usually grouped into subtopics or ideas important to the topic. For example, a review of the literature on crop circles might be ...

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    A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays).

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    On October 25, 2022, the Tyndinskiy District Court of the Amur Region convicted Vladimir, Mikhail, Valeriy, and Sergey. Vladimir, Valeriy, and Sergey each received prison sentences of six years and six months. Mikhail received a prison sentence of six years and two months. All four brothers were immediately taken into custody from the courtroom.

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    The Baikal Amur Mainline (BAM) The Baikal-Amur Mainline is a railway line traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, the 4,234 km (2,305 mile) track runs about 610 to 770 km (380 to 480 miles) north of and parallel to the Trans-Siberian railway. The route of the present-day BAM was first considered in the 1880s as an option for the ...