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Cochrane Library

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Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library (named after Archie Cochrane) is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties provided by Cochrane and other organizations. At its core is the collection of Cochrane Reviews, a database of systematic reviews and meta-analyses that summarize and interpret the results of medical research. The Cochrane Library aims to make the results of well-conducted clinical trials readily available and is a key resource in evidence-based medicine.

The Cochrane Library is a subscription-based database, published initially by Update Software and now published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. as part of Wiley Online Library. In many countries, including parts of Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Australia, India, South Africa, and Poland, it has been made available free to all residents by "national provision" (typically a government or Department of Health pays for the license). There are also arrangements for free access in much of Latin America and in "low-income countries", typically via HINARI. All countries have free access to two-page abstracts of all Cochrane Reviews and short plain-language summaries of selected articles.

Cochrane Reviews appear to be relatively underused in the United States for two reasons: 1) Public access to the Cochrane Library in the United States is limited (the state of Wyoming is an exception, having paid for a license to enable free access to Cochrane Reviews for all residents of Wyoming). 2) The government-funded U.S. National Library of Medicine maintains an alternative database MEDLINE, which is free of charge to everyone and has significantly more extensive coverage than Cochrane.

From 26 March to 26 May 2020, the Cochrane Library provided temporary unrestricted access to everyone in every country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cochrane Library consists of the following databases after significant changes in 2018:

The Cochrane Library now also features results from Special Collections and Editorials as well as an option to link out to other reviews compiled by Epistemonikos.

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Protocols, and CENTRAL are produced by Cochrane.

The Cochrane reviews take the format of full-length methodological studies. Cochrane researchers will perform searches of medical and health databases including MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, etc.; a continually updated database of trials called the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL); hand searching, where researchers look through entire libraries of scientific journals by hand and; reference checking of obtained articles in order to identify additional studies that are relevant to the question they are attempting to answer. The quality of each study is carefully assessed using predefined criteria and evidence of weak methodology or the possibility that a study may have been affected by bias is reported in the review.[citation needed]

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