Effective Multidisciplinary Search Strategies for Assistance Animals: A Librarian's Perspective

Abstract

Successful search strategies are based on good background knowledge and a focused clinical research question. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of research involving assistance animals means there is no one universal database to answer all research questions. The topic of assistance animals can yield better results when creating subheadings based on discipline focus. Subheadings have been divided into ethicolegal, sociocultural, psychobehavioral, and medical/veterinary. Each subheading, or discipline, has their own specific databases that will yield higher relevant content than others. Contacting local academic librarians and utilizing search guides created by those librarians can lead to successful search strategies. The goal of this article is to create a template for successful search strategies in assistance animals. Eighty-nine subject guides curated by academic librarians are reviewed to identify strong databases for each topic of ethicolegal, sociocultural, pscyhobehavioral, and medical/veterinary topics in relationship to assistance animals. A live subject guide has been created and maintained at https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/guide/assistance-animals/

Search Characteristics and Reporting of Systematic Reviews of Animal Experiments: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Vriezen et al [11] found that only 39.5% (15/38) of reviews additionally supplemented the search with reference lists in the study, and only 36.8% (14/38) supplemented with grey literature. Nesdill et al [12,13] brie y described the basic characteristics of databases commonly used for searching animal studies but did not elaborate on the speci c methods for formulating the search strategies or implementing the SRs/MAs of animal experiments. In addition, although a number of researchers have set forth suggestions for the search procedure for the SRs/MAs in animal research [14] , they have generally only utilized their accumulated experience of searching without elaborating a standardized search process in detail, nor systematically explaining the problems within the search process and improvements in the integrity of the results.…”