"Through seeking we may learn and know things better. But as for certain truth, no man hath known it, for all is but a woven web of guesses." 

.......Xenophanes, 6 th century BC

"I shall let the little I have learnt go forth into the day in order that someone better than I may guess the truth, and in his work may prove and rebuke my error. At this I shall rejoice that I was yet a means whereby this truth has come to light." 

.......Albrecht Dürer 1528

As these quotations from Xenophanes and Albrecht Dürer remind us, our best guesses about the truth - for example, about the true effects of various kinds of health care interventions - may often be wrong. The amount and the quality of evidence available to us will almost always be less than we might wish; but choices and decisions have to be made nevertheless. Choices and decisions in health care and health research must take into account information from a variety of sources. Whether the decisions relate to the health care of an individual person or a whole community, needs, priorities and resources are likely to vary. 

Although many people now consider systematic reviews of research about the effects of health care essential for improving decisions in health care and research, other considerations will always have to be taken into account as well. If you believe that decisions should be informed by the results of research, we predict that you will find the contents of the Cochrane Library helpful. We think that it is the best single source of reliable evidence about the effects of health care in the world. If information relevant to your needs cannot be found in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews , then you will often find relevant material in the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness . And if there are no relevant systematic reviews of research evidence yet available in either of these two databases, then you will almost always find relevant studies among the tens of thousands of records in the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register.

Like most other libraries, the Cochrane Library is receiving additional material continuously. Unlike most other libraries, however, mistakes in the material contained in the Cochrane Library can be corrected - an important advantage of publishing using electronic media and one which we believe would have been appreciated by Albrecht Dürer. We hope that you - the users of the Cochrane Library - will improve the material it contains, in particular by using the Comments and Criticisms System to help those who prepare and maintain Cochrane reviews. They aim to provide nothing less than the best possible syntheses of existing research on the effects of health care.

Key Benefits

• Cochrane Library is Evidence-Based Medicine
• Guarantees most recent up-to-date systematic reviews
• Evidence are gained from hundreds of clinical trails
• Evidence are stored in massive databases to assist you in dealing best way with illness

Capabilities

More and more patients are demanding to know exactly what the evidence is for the success of a particular treatment and recommendation. Cochrane delivers that information. This database library can be supplied to you Online and in CD-Rom format. Additionally this CD-Rom's can be installed on major network installations within your own private hospitals or medical centres.

• ON-LINE

  ON-LINE Web access directly to Cochrane Database Servers in Australia.

• CD-ROM's

  CD-ROM's supplied quarterly for one year subscriptions from Health Communication Network. 

• MEDLINE PRO

  Additional Medline Pro which provides access to biomedical literature on the web, This includes Medline, Aidsline, Cancerlit, BioethicsLine and HealthSTAR all at one cost.