Fifty Shades of Grey Literature: A Primer for Biomedical Librarians Ahlam A. Saleh, Research Librarian Arizona Health Sciences Library University of Arizona
Agenda Define grey literature Identify types of grey literature Review the benefits and challenges Describe strategies for locating various types of grey literature List examples of resources
Is it relevant to me?
Definition The Luxembourg Convention on Grey Literature; expanded in New York “that which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body”
Types Grey Literature Network Service: Reports Theses/Dissertations Conference Material Newsletters White Papers Datasets Preprints Standards Government Docs Legislation Protocols Patents
Why is it important? More current More global May be the only source for that type of information May be the only source of documentation of that information
What are the issues? Definition Finding it Obtaining complete data Obtaining full text Quality
Strategies for locating Go directly to the source Search general or specialized databases Search catalogs Search grey literature databases Conduct a customized Google search Contact others
GREY LITERATURE DATABASES
Open Grey
Grey Literature Report
CONFERENCE MATERIAL
Finding Conference Material General databases Specialized databases Catalogs Direct source
British Library
REPORTS
Finding Reports Government Foundations Organizations
National Technical Reports Library
RAND Corporation
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
DISSERTATIONS & THESES
Finding Dissertations & Theses General databases Specialized databases Repositories Catalogs
NDLTD
WorldCat
ONGOING RESEARCH
Finding Ongoing Research ClinicalTrials.gov ISRCTN registry WHO ICTRP
HSRProj
DATA
Finding Data Government websites Organization websites Institutional repositories Data repositories Registry of data repositories
National Center for Health Statistics
Phpartners Health Data Tools & Statistics Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce
HealthData.gov (beta)
Registry of Research Data Repositories
Thank you! Ahlam A. Saleh, Research Librarian Arizona Health Sciences Library University of Arizona