Tom Roper
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons - Wellcome Library
Belgravia House - 62-64 Horseferry Road
London W1P 2AF (UK)
t.roper@rcvs.org.uk

Evidence-based medicine has been a hot topic in the human medical field for some years. Recently there has been a growing interest in this approach in veterinary medicine and animal health. This growing interest presents opportunities for library and information services.
One of the major barriers to the development of evidence based veterinary medicine is the perceived lack of sufficiently rigorous studies in this subject area.
This paper will review the development of the evidence based approach in the animal health field, point to possible future developments and discuss some of the implications for information services which serve the animal health information professional and researcher.