Librarians working in healthcare in the late 1990s had the considerable privilege, and indeed pleasure, of witnessing and participating in a revolutionary paradigm, which was to place information management, its associated skills and technologies at centre stage of the delivery of appropriate and effective care. That paradigm, variously identified as ‘evidence-based medicine’, ‘evidence-based healthcare’ or ‘evidence-based practice’ placed a premium on the retrieval of rigorous and reliable evidence to inform clinical decision making.

Had this been the full impact of this new model for ongoing discovery and lifelong learning then you, the reader, probably working in an information sector outside healthcare, would have no need even to open this edited book on evidence based information practice. The fact that you have opened this book bears testimony to the migration of the ‘evidence-based’ model to other sectors including education, social work and management. It also attests to an increasing interest in the evidence base for our own practice. Although much of the trail has been blazed from within the healthcare sector, and is necessarily represented as such in this book, we contend (and many colleagues agree) that this model is equally valid for the sector within which you are working. What is required is the application of the tools and techniques to your specific area of practice, be it in libraries, museums or archives, and its sensitive adaptation to your local culture and environment.

Each Part of the book employs a different approach according to its subject content: