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Evidence‐based information practice is an important paradigm that is now emerging in mainstream information work from within healthcare information. This paper aims to provide an introduction to the concept before considering the imperative for practitioners to use insights from research within their professional practice and day‐to‐day decision making. The importance of a focused question and a systematic approach to critical appraisal are rehearsed and similarities with the domain of information systems are briefly considered. The paper concludes with state‐of‐the‐art observations from a recent conference in Canada and recommendations for further development of the paradigm. The objective is to achieve the eventual extinction of the concept through complete integration as simply another tool for reflective practice.

I am going to talk both as a user and a perpetrator of translations, since, in the Patent Department of the Mond Nickel Company Limited, the Information Section has to abstract and translate patents and other legal documents as well as technical and scientific articles from, and occasionally into, foreign languages. A large part of this work is done within the department but the incessant pressure, due to the necessity of working to definite dates—a very common problem in patent work—forces us to send out some work to outside translators. We have thus acquired a considerable store of experience on the economic or L.s.d. side of translation work.

The paper seeks to provide an overview and update of thinking in relation to the theory and practice of formulation of answerable research questions within evidence based information practice.

The paper reviews the healthcare and information literature on question formulation, augmented by structured and purposive internet searches.

Although a few key authors have published extensively on all aspects of the evidence‐based information practice process, including question formulation, there is little in the way of empirical research.

In the absence of an empirical research base from within the specific domain of information practice, this conceptual paper extrapolates findings from healthcare research to general librarianship.

This article models the process of question formulation using a proposed conceptual framework (SPICE) and encourages practitioners to identify their own practice‐based questions.

This is the first article specifically to address question formulation for a general (i.e. non‐health) library audience.

Healthcare is a knowledge industry evidenced by substantial resources invested in staff development and the production of research evidence. This article examines knowledge management within the NHS in terms of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. It concludes that whilst progress with explicit knowledge is significant management of tacit knowledge is far less developed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore conceptual and practical links between performance measurement and evidence‐based library and information practice (EBLIP) and to identify lessons to be learned from evidence‐based healthcare.

The paper presents a selective review of key writings in EBLIP for reference to performance measurement.

The paper finds that performance measurement may variously be viewed as one small, but essential, stage of EBLIP or an overarching approach to utilisation of data of which research‐derived evidence is a single source

Similarities and potential linkages between the two activities are currently underdeveloped and need to be explored through rigorous empirical research.

The stages of EBLIP are modelled in relation to a single case study of reference checking.

This is the first article to develop explicit links between these two areas of information practice, following in passim mentions at previous conferences.

The emergence of evidence‐based medicine has implications for the use and development of information retrieval systems which are not restricted to the area of medicine. ‘Evidence‐based’ practice emphasises the retrieval and application of high quality knowledge in order to solve real‐world problems. However, information seeking to support such evidence‐based approaches to decision making and problem solving makes demands on retrieval systems which they are not well suited at present to satisfy. A number of approaches have been developed in the field of medicine that seek to address these limitations. The extent to which such approaches may be applied to other areas is discussed, as are their limitations.

Although in many decision‐making contexts it may be a problem actually to find any evidence there are already a number of topics where the challenge is presented by the bewildering array of sources and formats in which published findings are made available. By focusing on just one of these areas, nicotine replacement therapy, and by exploring characteristics such as usability and authoritativeness with a group of health professionals, the author attempts to highlight some important issues in both finding and evaluating the evidence. The results of this opportunistic preliminary investigation are presented together with some suggestions for further research and implications for health information professionals in their quest for evidence.

The present paper is intended to form an introduction to the ideas of machine translation; it is in no sense a complete account of the work which has been carried out at Birkbeck College and elsewhere and which interested readers can study in more detail in a book which is in course of publication.

The purpose of this paper is to consider how library education can best incorporate the profession's emerging interest in evidence‐based practice (EBP) whilst ensuring that the educational experience is meaningful to the contemporary library student.

A learning and teaching model developed by the Queensland University of Technology will be presented as a case study on how the library education curriculum can be developed to incorporate a focus on EBP whilst catering to the unique learning style of the millennial student.

To effectively meet the needs of the millennial student, library educators must develop their curriculum to include a real world activities and perspective, be customisable and flexible, incorporate regular feedback, use technology, provide trusted guidance, include the opportunity for social and interactive learning, be visual and kinaesthetic, and include communication that is real, raw, relevant and relational.

This paper contributes to the current discussion on how EBP can be integrated effectively into the contemporary library curriculum in general, and meet the learning needs of the millennial student in particular.