Background: A successful Cochrane Review requires the participation of someone who can be designated as a medical librarian. This often this requires obtaining the services of a medical librarian who is not part of your research team.

Objectives: How to get the most of out of a medical librarian. This presentation will be a guide to getting the best help from a medical librarian. This includes: (1) How to request the aid of a medical librarian (a) What to bring to a first meeting (b) What questions to ask them (c) How to answer the questions that they will ask you (d) How to overcome political/temporal barriers to the participation of your librarian (2) How to assess the abilities and training of a medical librarian (a) How to find out how much they know about systematic reviews and Cochrane Reviews (b) How to help your medical librarian provide the best service possible (training, materials, peer resources) (3) What you want from a medical librarian’s contribution to your Cochrane Review. (a) Reporting results (b) Screening administration (c) Grey literature and hand-searching (d) Guidance on materials and databases (e) Writing appendixes and the Methods section of the Review (f) Tables and figures.