The aim of this paper is to stimulate improvements in conducting and reporting both qualitative and quantitative systematic reviews. The authors surveyed 44 reports of qualitative systematic reviews, characterized techniques used to identify articles for inclusion and proposed standards for reporting of literature searches called STARLITE which includes sampling strategy, type of study, approaches, range of years, limits, inclusion and exclusion, terms used and electronic sources. Findings from this work can inform groups of information specialists including the Cochrane Collaboration Information Retrieval Methods Group.