Abstract: ferret \'fer(t\ n. & v. - n. 1. a small half-domesticated polecat, used in catching rabbits, rats, etc. 2. a person who searches assiduously - v. (OED) Cochrane Groups spend time and expense searching for hard copies of trials relevant to their work. Linking lists of the journal holdings of libraries to the citations is a slow task. The objective was to see if the MeerKat v1.0, developed by the Collaboration to assist management and maintenance of trial registers, allowed a semi-automated system of identifying where incoming citations were held. Methods MeerKat is an Access-based system. A further Access table containing lists of journals held in local libraries was constructed. This table was linked to the Imported Citations Table of MeerKat. An Access Query was then generated in order to write a Report that listed the citations available in local libraries and sorted by library, journal, year, issue and shelf mark. Results Once data is imported into an Access-based system, such as MeerKat, the possibilities for relating these to further important and useful data sets become feasible. This experiment, relating information from incoming citations to listings of journals held in local libraries, shows how such a system can, after some initial effort, greatly enhance the efficiency with which an Editorial Base seeks hard copies of relevant studies.