grey literature
government information is one example of grey literature. please check out western libraries video on grey literature .
describes defining aspects and examples of the three terms: grey literature, grey data, and grey information .
use to find medical and health science related grey literature. website includes a list of grey literature producing organizations and a quarterly grey literature report with new resources .
fourth international conference on grey literature: new frontiers in grey literature. greynet, grey literature network service, washington dc, usa, 4 - 5 october 1999 .
system for information on grey literature in europe contains 700. 000 bibliographical references of grey literature produced in europe .
the categories above just scratch the surface of grey literature. below are links to libguides focusing on sources of grey literature .
guide to locating and evaluating grey literature (or gray literature) in the health sciences .
23. thomas p. shades of grey: the role of grey literature in systematic reviews .
web sites that index and collect grey literature are also growing in number. for european grey literature, there is opengrey, which holds references to over 700, 000 pieces of grey literature .
schopfel j. towards a prague definition of grey literature. in: twelfth international conference on grey literature: transparency in grey literature. prague, czech republic: dans; 2010. 11–26 .
gl' 99 conference program. fourth international conference on grey literature: new frontiers in grey literature. greynet, grey literature network service. washington d. c. usa, 4 - 5 october 1999 .
the term grey literature refers to research that is either unpublished or has been published in non - commercial form. examples of grey literature include :
most grey literature is free. however, some sources of grey literature, such as market research firms, charge for access to their material .
]. these standards can theoretically be applied to search methods used to capture grey literature. however, grey literature searches are often not as systematic as traditional systematic searches of academic literature [
producers of grey literature a wide range of organizations produce a significant amount of grey literature related to public health, health policy and epidemiology. these include ;
♦ since there are two accepted spellings, to locate information on gray / grey literature in general, search for: (gray or grey) literature .
a directory of web - based collections of grey literature, categorized by discipline .
]. this process was applied to the grey literature search methods (fig .
farace dj, frantzen j, editors. sixth international conference on grey literature: work on grey in progress. grey literature 2004 conference proceedings; dec. 6–7, 2004. amsterdam: textrelease; 2005 .
the document types in grey literature page at greynet contains a list of many different types of grey literature. these categories along with additional document types are listed below .
giustini' s accompanying handout listing resources and detailed instructions on searching for grey literature .
there are a number of sources where grey literature can be found. these include :
further seeks to identify and distribute information on and about grey literature in networked environments .
the flexibility of grey literature is a strength but also a weakness. the grey literature lacks many of the important pieces of infrastructure and best practices used by academic publishers .
bibliographic references to grey literature publications in health services research and selected urban health topics .
a monthly compilation of new grey literature published in the field of public health and health services research. it is also possible to search their extensive catalogue of grey literature .
grey literature refers to both published and unpublished research material that is not available commercially. a systematic review can be biased when it fails to report crucial information that may be hidden in some grey literature. a search of grey literature is one way to address potentially biased reporting of research results in published material. some examples of grey literature are :
in recent years, technical and scientific literature has continued to grow, but grey literature reports now come from many different avenues. the following types of organizations issue grey literature. this list has been copied directly from charles augur' s seminal book, information sources in grey literature (page 22) :
the grey literature report is a bimonthly publication of the new york academy of medicine library alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected public health topics .
more often than not, grey literature is not indexed in databases and so can be a puzzle to find. locating grey literature can be a very different process than locating scholarly articles. for more tips on finding grey literature in the health sciences, click here .
another source of grey literature is trove, which includes references and full - text links .
it is important to cross - check information from grey literature sources against information derived elsewhere .
international conference on grey literature luxembourg definition, 1997. expanded in new york, 2004 .
an open access repository of 700, 000 bibliographical references of grey literature produced in europe .
]. applying systematic methods to grey literature searches should improve the quality of review syntheses that include grey literature by providing a more comprehensive and less biassed set of reports to examine .
grey literature includes a range of documents not controlled by commercial publishing organisations. this means that grey literature can be difficult to search and retrieve for evidence synthesis. much knowledge and evidence in public health, and other fields, accumulates from innovation in practice. this knowledge may not even be of sufficient formality to meet the definition of grey literature. we term this knowledge ‘grey information’. grey information may be even harder to search for and retrieve than grey literature .
grey literature includes materials not formally published through traditional commercial publishing channels. many of these works are found on websites. according to (reitz, 2014), grey or gray literature is
sigle (system for information on grey literature in europe) is
a system for information on grey literature in europe
. this group has moved their materials to the opengrey repository .
) literature include technical or research reports, doctoral dissertations, some conference papers, some official publications, and other types of grey literature .
academics, pressure groups, and private companies are only some of the sources of grey literature .
more grey literature databases are available through the cochrane handbook. select part 2: general methods for cochrane reviews > searching for studies > sources to search > bibliographic databases > grey literature databases .
the grey literature report is a bimonthly publication of alerting readers to new grey literature in health services research and selected public health topics. all resources are added and indexed in our online catalog .
a wide range of papers fall into the grey literature category. some examples are listed below .
a methodology for searching the grey literature for effectiveness evidence syntheses related to public health project report .
resources suggested by nursing and allied health resources section (nahrs) members for finding grey literature .
for more information about gray literature, try il toolkit - finding information: gray literature .
what do you think of when you hear the word grey? fuzzy? undefined? what about ‘grey literature’? the ‘black and white’ literature that you get when searching most databases is produced by commercial publishers. in contrast, grey literature is produced by entities whose main task is not publishing. the official definition of gl, brought to you by the international conference on grey literature ...
greynet the grey literature network service was founded in 1992. the goal of greynet is to facilitate dialog, research, and communication between persons and organisations in the field of grey literature. its main activities include the international conference series on grey literature, the creation and maintenance of web - based resources, a moderated listserv, a combined distribution list, the grey journal (tgj), as well as curriculum development in the field of grey literature .
for information on grey literature in europe, is your open access to 700. 000 bibliographical references of grey literature (paper) produced in europe and allows you to export records and locate the documents .
impact of findings from grey literature on the outcomes of systematic reviews on interventions to pr ...
much grey literature is of high quality. grey literature is often the best source of up - to - date research on certain topics, such as rural poverty or the plight of homeless people in sydney .
these documents are all considered “grey literature. ” the term grey literature comes from the uncertainty of the status of this information. although there are several formal definitions, grey literature is essentially any document that hasn' t gone through peer review for a publication. it can also include conference proceedings or doctoral theses .
institutional repositories. many institutions are making grey literature produced by their organization available to the public. when looking for grey literature in a particular discipline, seek out well - respected universities who specialize in that area .
is to facilitate dialog, research, and communication between persons and organisations in the field of grey literature .
secondary review objective is to determine the ratio of black to grey literature (definitions are provided in background) included in the eligible systematic reviews; to determine the study design of the grey literature included in srs .
12. international conference on grey literature. luxembourg definition, 1997 - expanded in new york, 2004 .
there are many definitions of grey literature, but it is usually understood to mean literature that is not formally published in sources such as books or journal articles .
grey literature on the internet there is debate about the place of internet search engines in literature searching, and some scientists argue strongly that it is not a valid source of information. however, in reality, the internet has increasingly opportunities to access grey literature. search engines such as google have become a major source of grey literature that is accessible to a wide international audience .
a grey literature search plan was developed to incorporate four different searching strategies: (1) grey literature databases, (2) customized google search engines, (3) targeted websites, and (4) consultation with contact experts. these strategies were loosely adapted from those used in a grey literature review on drug prevention initiatives [
] has also been used specifically to describe user - generated web content—something that we feel is more formal and public than ‘grey information’ but less formal than ‘grey literature’. table
locating grey literature grey literature comprises a wide range of material including, government publications, reports, statistical publications, newsletters, fact sheets, working papers, technical reports, conference proceedings, policy documents and protocols and bibliographies .
these links lead to search engines, databases, repositories and directories of grey literature resources in multiple subject areas .
most grey literature is free. however some sources such as market research firms charge for access to their material .
the grey literature presents great opportunities for alternative metrics, providing data and indicators that cannot be found anywhere else .
the system for information on grey literature in europe, is an open access database to 700. 000 bibliographical references of grey literature produced in europe and allows you to export records and locate the documents in many research disciplines .
the four search strategies of the grey literature search plan yielded 302 potentially relevant items for screening (see fig .
we propose the term ‘grey information’ to capture a wide range of documented and undocumented information that may be excluded by common definitions of ‘grey literature’. information on applied public health research questions relating to the nature and range of public health interventions, and many evaluations of these interventions, may be predominantly, or only, held in grey literature and grey information. evidence syntheses on these topics need, therefore, to embrace grey literature and information. many standard systematic review methods for searching, appraising, managing, and synthesising the evidence base can be adapted for use with grey literature and information. evidence synthesisers should carefully consider the opportunities and problems offered by including grey literature and information. further action to improve both information deposition and retrieval would facilitate more efficient and complete syntheses of grey literature and information .
in a recent review on participatory ergonomics, iwh researchers included grey literature documents in their review in response to requests from external practitioners. the end result? the findings from grey literature documents were similar to the peer - reviewed .
banks, marcus (2010). blog posts and tweets: the next frontier for grey literature. in d. farce & j. schopfel, grey literature in library and information studies. walter de gruyter. available: urltoken
auger, c. p. (1989). information sources in grey literature. london: bowker - saur .
juznic, primoz (2010). grey literature produced and published by universities: a case for etds. in d. farce & j. schopfel, grey literature in library and information studies. walter de gruyter. available: urltoken
banks m. blog posts and tweets: the next frontier for grey literature. in: darace d, schopfel j, editors. grey literature in library and information studies. berlin: degruyter saur; 2010. p. 217–26 .
there is no such ecosystem for the grey literature, though valuable initiatives like urltoken can give researchers a head start .
the case study used for the development of the systematic grey literature search and review examined guidelines for the delivery of breakfast programs in canadian schools. the review’s eligibility criteria were defined in the grey literature search plan and are shown in table
the grey literature is an important source of information for review syntheses. there are some challenges with applying systematic search methods to the grey literature, due to a lack of standards and resources for how to complete these searches and a number of characteristics of the grey literature. this article demonstrated a feasible and seemingly robust method for applying systematic search strategies to identify web - based resources in the grey literature. this method should be further adapted and tested in future research syntheses .
these differences in synthesis approach reflect both the contrasting aims of different reviews and how flexible and responsive researchers should be to the realities of data availability within grey literature and grey information .
information on applied public health research questions relating to the nature and range of public health interventions, as well as many evaluations of these interventions, may be predominantly, or only, held in grey literature and grey information. evidence syntheses on these topics need, therefore, to embrace grey literature and information. many typical systematic review methods for searching, appraising, managing, and synthesising the evidence base can be adapted for use with grey literature and information. evidence synthesisers should carefully consider the opportunities and problems offered by including grey literature and information. enhanced incentives for accurate recording and further methodological developments in retrieval will facilitate future syntheses of grey literature and information .
]. systematically identifying ‘grey information’ is likely to be even more challenging. a number of case studies have been published describing procedures for searching and retrieving ‘grey literature’ in public health contexts [
grey literature can be the best source of up - to - date research on some topics such as vaccination for children in remote areas of australia. note however that grey literature is usually not subject to peer review and must be evaluated accordingly .
impact of findings from grey literature on the outcomes of s... : jbi database of systematic reviews and implementation reports
grey literature is an important source of information for large - scale review syntheses. however, there are many characteristics of grey literature that make it difficult to search systematically. further, there is no ‘gold standard’ for rigorous systematic grey literature search methods and few resources on how to conduct this type of search. this paper describes systematic review search methods that were developed and applied to complete a case study systematic review of grey literature that examined guidelines for school - based breakfast programs in canada .
). since grey literature is not published in traditional places, it can often be hard to track down. however, grey literature is an extremely important resource in public health, and can include needs assessments, evidence reviews, policy reports, statistical analysis, and more. grey literature does not undergo a peer - review process so all material should be appraised carefully .
19. simkhada p, knight j, reid g, wyness l, mandava l. chasing the grey evidence: a standardised systematic critical literature review approach: paper presented on sixth international conference on grey literature “work on grey in progress” 6 - 7 december 2004. accessed 25 march 25 2012. available from :
according to farace and schopfel (2010), the term grey literature generally includes three types of documents: conference proceedings, reports, and doctoral theses. the definition usually limits grey literature to those documents that lack “commercial control”. in other words, they aren’t published through traditional publishing houses in books or journals. commercial literature is sometimes referred to as “white literature” .
universities world - wide now create institutional repositories to record the research conducted by academics. these are particularly useful sources of grey literature. one place to begin is opendoar. another resource for finding grey literature is base (bielefeld academic search engine) .
public health researchers may want to include ‘grey literature’ in evidence syntheses for at least three reasons. firstly, including grey literature can reduce the impact of publication bias as studies with null findings are less likely to be published in peer - reviewed journals [
dobbins m, robeson p, jetha nj, desmeules m. grey literature: a methodology for searching the grey literature for effectiveness evidence syntheses related to public health - a report from canada. health. 2008; 17 (1): 9 .
searching for grey literature can be time consuming because it is not usually included in bibliographic databases. therefore, knowing how to search
boiled down to its most basic elements, grey literature is everything but peer - reviewed journals and academically or commercially published books .
the goal of greynet is to facilitate dialog, research, and communication between persons and organisations in the field of grey literature .
impact of findings from grey literature on the outcomes of systematic reviews on interventions to prevent obesity among children: a systematic review .
this online manual provides a thorough list of sources for grey literature in medicine and a helpful checklist to help systematize your process .
grey literature can help supplement your research. gl can sometimes be more current than literature published in scholarly journals and it can offer a fuller picture of the information available on a particular topic .
to determine the extent to which systematic reviews in the field of child obesity prevention identify and include grey literature in their collated evidence - bases, a comprehensive search of the literature will be undertaken. the resultant systematic reviews will be retrieved and examined for inclusion. those that do not match the selection criteria will be excluded. the ratio of black to grey literature in the included systematic reviews will be calculated and the proportion of systematic reviews that are grey will be briefly discussed. a comparison of results from grey versus black systematic reviews, and of those systematic reviews with high versus low ratios of included grey literature, will be undertaken to determine whether grey literature changes the findings or interpretation of the outcomes that are assessed .
here are listed some general sources of grey literature. some focus on the health sciences, while others are more general in scope .
]. our aim was to provide insights on searching for and synthesising grey literature and information that may be useful for future researchers .
primary review objective is to evaluate the impact of findings from grey literature on the results of systematic reviews on prevention of childhood obesity .
a more thorough guide to grey literature, including resources for trial registries, pharmacological studies, conference abstracts, government document and more .
we often think about grey literature in terms of what it fails to be: not peer - reviewed; lacking bibliographic information or other useful metadata; escaping collection and preservation. but it is important to remember that the deficiencies of grey literature from one perspective may at the same time be advantages from another. grey literature is an opportunistic creature of the dynamic ecosystem of publishing, and in particular the various, competing incentives and disincentives for publication. this means that there is a certain complexity — a double edge to grey literature .
the following databases include various types of grey literature along with publisher - controlled literature. if you are interested in searching only for grey literature, consider restricting the
publication type
in your search. these types can include: technical report, dissertation, patent, meeting paper, annual report or government publication, among others .
the scout report the grey literature report is featured in the december 11, 2009 issue of the internet scout project' s scout report .
inclusion of grey literature into a systematic review is recommended in order to help minimize publication bias. the inclusion of grey literature in systematic reviews is widely recognized as important and international organizations have incorporated this information in their guidelines and manuals for working on reviews and meta - analyses .
institutions of higher education are major producers of grey literature. from online course materials to dissertations, universities churn out endless content across disciplines .
farace, dominic & schopfel, joachim (2010). grey literature in library and information science. de gruyter. available through iupui .
those opportunities come with great challenges, both social and technical. to work with grey literature, tools need some basic infrastructure to be put in place, but is this something that authors really want or will it compromise the advantages of publishing grey literature in the first place ?
pappas c, williams i. grey literature: its emerging importance. j hosp librariansh. 2011; 11 (3): 228–34 .
grey literature can also be published more quickly since it does not have to go through the potentially lengthy peer - review process. and in cases where there isn' t much information on a topic in peer - reviewed research, grey literature may provide a valuable source of information .
mcgrath y, sumnall h, edmonds k, mcveigh j, bellis m. search strategies for identifying relevant grey literature. review of grey literature on drug prevention among young people. liverpool, united kingdom: national institute for health and clinical excellence; 2006. p. 14–17 .
many attempts have been made to provide sourcing for grey literature, including the griseli project in france; the uk' s british library document supply centre; the russian union catalogue of grey literature; and the previously mentioned sigle, which is maintained and operated under the auspices of the european association for grey literature exploitation (eagle). agrindex database is available for life sciences and agriculture, but to date, very few grey literature documents are found in it. energy and aerospace sciences documents are predominately found in star (scientific and technical aerospace reports) through nasa .
try it! explore three libguides focusing on grey literature. compare the contents. how are they alike and different? what' s missing ?
pappas c, williams i. grey literature: its emerging importance. journal of hospital librarianship. 2011; 11 (3): 228–34 .
this review focused entirely on grey literature and information and did not include any searching for peer - reviewed literature. a scoping review of peer - reviewed outcome evaluations of adult cooking skill interventions was conducted in parallel [
searching for gl can be an iterative process. there are numerous resources available to assist you. for example, scopus, google, open grey repository, and web of science can point to different kinds of grey literature .
the aim of the grey literature strategies research project is to investigate grey literature’s role and importance in policy work and find ways to enhance its value. a key method used was online surveys of producers, users, and collectors of information and research for policy and practice, conducted during 2013 .
the term grey literature brings connotations of bleakness, apathy, indifference, and questionable authority to mind. upon investigation this is far from true, unless you find papers from eminent scientists on sea grass or new innovations in agriculture boring. the grey in grey literature refers to the brain' s grey matter since so much of it is highly intellectual, and is significant for research and development in many subject areas. an article appearing in information world review calls grey literature
the unsung hero, the foot soldier, the foundation of the building
( iwr 1996); it is literature that is not usually attainable through conventional channels. in his informative book on grey literature, charles p. augur writes that this is not a new phenomenon of the late twentieth century but something considered a genre since at least the 1920s, particularly in europe among the scientific circles (augur 1989, 7). grey literature is here to stay, but what is it ?
the danger of grey literature is that some of the
think tanks
which publish reports and working papers have their own political or social agendas .
a concise and helpful powerpoint presentation on grey literature and how to find it, from dean giustini, biomedical librarian at the university of british columbia .
grey literature has also been broadly defined to include everything except peer - reviewed books and journals accepted by medline. it has not been published in a conventional way, and can be difficult to identify and obtain through the usual routes, and for this reason it is known as ‘grey literature. ’
the format of a grey literature document can be quite diverse, unlike scientific papers that follow the structure of presenting background information, study methods, results and a discussion. so it' s more difficult for reviewers to systematically extract information from grey literature as they do for peer - reviewed papers .
impact of findings from grey literature on the outcomes of systematic reviews on interventions to prevent obesity among children: a systematic review. - pubmed - ncbi
so, if grey lit is not produced by commercial publishing who produces gl? many organizations produce gl, industry, think tanks, government departments, as well as scholarly societies and associations can all be producers of grey literature .
an increasing amount of grey literature is now available on the web in the form of adobe acrobat (pdf) documents. this means that it is relatively easy to find recent examples of grey literature using a simple google search. for example to find information about homelessness in sydney, we could simply :
grey literature is created by researchers and practitioners in various fields, but is not controlled by commercial publishing. the groups that produce grey literature may be government, industry, advocacy or other organizations that disseminate information in the form of reports or working papers rather than by publishing scholarly articles in commercial journals .
], it is difficult to be sure what the ‘best’ search methods for retrieving grey literature and information are. whilst it is possible to validate search approaches in peer - reviewed literature against a ‘gold standard’ of hand searching [
the fourth international conference on grey literature (gl' 99) in washington, dc, in october 1999 defined grey literature as follows :
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 .
amser the grey literature report can now be found through amser: applied math and science education repository, a webliographical resource funded by the national science foundation .
nyam' s bi - monthly report identifying new publications in health sciences grey literature has ceased publication, but materials from 1999 to 2016 are still available .
docuticker collects abstracts from' grey literature': pdf reports published by government agencies, think tanks, ngos, research institutes and other public interest groups .
the systematic review search strategy described in this article can serve as a template for subsequent grey literature research syntheses, or at the very least serve as a starting point for refining such methods. the search strategy we developed and tested is amenable to adaptation to identify other types of grey literature from other disciplines and answering a wide range of research questions. for example, for step one of the identification strategy, discipline - specific grey literature databases can be searched. a research group interested in identifying reports on climate change can consult environmental grey literature databases (e. g. the university of texas’ environmental policy collection) [
]. however, there is no ‘gold standard’ for rigorous systematic grey literature search methods and there are few resources on how to conduct this type of search. for example, the cochrane handbook, often cited as the gold standard for conducting systematic reviews, provides limited guidance and specificity for grey literature search methods [
in addition the joanna briggs institute, the cochrane collaboration and the campbell collaboration stipulate that, in addition to black literature, searches for grey and unpublished literature must be conducted by their systematic reviewers in order to avoid publication bias. 15
grey literature has long - term value, particularly because it provides policy context and implications that may not be found in the published literature. in fact, advisory committee members believed that the value of grey literature is on par with that of traditional published literature. relevancy, progress, and how debate changes over time on a particular topic can be assessed from these materials. another use of grey literature is to establish historical documentation. the progress of a document to its finished form can sometimes be as valuable as the finished product, and the various drafts of a document can fill in gaps in the historical record .
links to wikipedia are being added to document types listed on this webpage. the next step is to introduce the category grey literature to exisitng entries in wikipedia .
academyhealth (february 2006). health services research and health policy grey literature: summary report. u. s. national library of medicine. available: urltoken
as of january 2017, the grey literature report website and database will be discontinued and will no longer be updated, but the resources will still be accessible .
publication lag results of studies may appear in grey literature, such as conference proceedings, a year or more before they appear in a peer - reviewed publications .
let' s explore the many types of documents in the category of grey literatures .
grey literature can provide useful information on a topic. because it doesn' t go through traditional publication channels, it can be shared very quickly. grey literature often summarizes and communicates ideas in ways that are different from other documents. many of the documents are concise, so these sources can convey complex information in simple terms, quickly. many companies and agencies produce grey literature such as brochures and pamphlets for public distribution, so these works are a good gauge of public interests .
worldcat, which includes the holdings of over 20, 000 libraries world - wide (more than 1. 5 billion items) is another source of grey literature .
finally, grey literature is becoming easier to find. increasingly, it is available on the internet, and search engines and databases are providing ways of locating it .
with these perspectives in mind, we can begin to describe the conditions that have led to the profusion of grey literature. these are technical, institutional and economic :
grey literature resources are cataloged and indexed using mesh. the database allows full text keyword searching as well as subject searching and serves as an archive for the reports .
by the 1970s, grey literature was a recognized dissemination vehicle for many organizations and considered important reading throughout the world. the problem was, it was not getting any easier to find. consequently, both the commission of the european communities and the british library lending division came together to form a very important database for grey literature called sigle
research & development information from the department of energy' s research report literature .
when seeking out institutional repositories, open access collections, and other sources for grey literature, begin with some search tools specifically designed to access these types of information sources .
numerous definitions of grey literature exist. these tend to focus on the fact that it is not controlled by commercial organisations, making it difficult to search for and retrieve [
], we used a wide variety of methods to search for relevant grey literature and information. across our three examples, we searched trial databases (e. g .
keynote speech by professor julian thomas presented at the conference where is the evidence: policy, research and the rise of grey literature, held in canberra, october 2012 .
grey literature is particularly important in the area of health policy where health technology assessments, economic evaluations, health systems impact assessments and comparative effectiveness research are of special interest .
a comprehensive directory of locations to search for grey literature. includes repositories, public health organizations, health services research centres, academic centres, and us and international resources .
your tax - deductible gift to the new york academy of medicine library enables us to maintain our collections, and continue special projects and programs such as the grey literature report .
greynet is
dedicated to research, publication, open access, and education in the field of grey literature. this website is useful for collecting background information about this topic .
these sites provide directories of organizations that produce grey literature in the health sciences. the encyclopedia of associations is a general resource for organzations which may be relevant to your search .
hold that ‘grey literature is best described by the type of document it embodies’. in order to better enable the net - user to identify grey literature, the following list of document types has been drafted. if you would like to add a document type to this list, or if you find that a document type should be de - listed, contact
in addition, there may also be grey literature that is specifically relevant to your discipline. so for example: practice guidelines are highly relevant to nursing and medicine, working papers are used in social sciences (particularly economics) and patents are important to engineering. data is also a kind of grey literature. think about census, geospatial and economic data .
generally speaking, organizations that produce science and technical grey literature have more flexibility and a slightly different focus than academic journal and book publishers. some types of information can be found more quickly in grey literature, such as general overviews, recent bibliographies, sources of statistics, and leading - edge information. in the health sciences, where a priority is put on cutting - edge research, the newest information is frequently found in grey literature resources. as a result, these sources are part of the evidenced - based systematic review process .
grey literature is the unpublished, non - commercial, hard - to - find information that organizations such as professional associations, research institutes, think tanks, and government departments produce .
read! read schopfel, joachim & farace, dominic, j. (2009). grey literature. encyclopedia of library and information sciences, 3rd edition. taylor and francis .
without knowing even how much grey literature material is created each year, let alone by whom, it is difficult to make assumptions about how complete any index you may build is .
bibliographical references to european grey literature which includes, for example: technical or research reports, doctoral dissertations, some conference papers and some official publications. operated by inist - cnrs .
grey literature are resources
produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers .
(
this article demonstrated a feasible and seemingly robust method for applying systematic search strategies to identify web - based resources in the grey literature. the search strategy we developed and tested is amenable to adaptation to identify other types of grey literature from other disciplines and answering a wide range of research questions. this method should be further adapted and tested in future research syntheses .
mahood q, eerd dv, irvin e. searching for grey literature for systematic reviews: challenges and benefits. res synthesis methods. 2014; 5 (3): 221–34 .
mahood q, van eerd d, irvin e. searching for grey literature for systematic reviews: challenges and benefits. research synthesis methods. 2014; 5 (3): 221–34 .
( 2) auger, c. p. , ed. (1989) information sources in grey literature (2nd ed .). london: bowker - saur. isbn 0862918715 .
m. c. debachere has written that it is easier to describe, rather than to define grey literature. collectively the term covers an extensive range of materials that cannot be found easily through conventional channels such as publishers ,
but which is frequently original and usually recent
( debachere 1995, 94). peter hirtle in broadsides vs. grey literature defines it as :
franks h, hardiker nr, mcgrath m, mcquarrie c. public health interventions and behaviour change: reviewing the grey literature. public health. 2012; 126 (1): 12–7 .
this presentation by sarah bonato, a health science librarian at the centre for addiction and mental health in toronto, on, provides an excellent guide to searching google effectively to find grey literature .
the report is a publication produced by the the new york academy of medicine between 1999 - 2016, alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected urban health topics .
grey literature is an extensive, though complex, source of information. the ‘luxembourg definition’ offers a widely accepted description for grey literature as ‘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’ [
]. accessing material published on the internet represents a challenge for the systematic reviewer, given the vast amount of information, lack of standard indexing and controlled vocabulary, and lack of archiving. the coverage of grey literature is patchy across mainstream databases. conference proceedings and dissertations are found in some databases (e. g. embase and web of science), but other forms of grey literature (e. g. industry and government reports) are rarely found in mainstream databases. several researchers have outlined various search methods for grey literature searches identifying web - based resources [
public health interventions are often implemented directly by government and so have an observational, rather than experimental, evidence base that may not be captured in traditional academic published sources. there is, therefore, a need to determine whether this grey literature is being actively sought when evaluating the effectiveness of public health interventions through systematic literature review; and also whether the inclusion of this grey literature has an impact on the conclusions of systematic literature reviews (srs) evaluating public health interventions. this is particularly important as the findings of systematic literature reviews are increasingly used to inform public health policy decisions. where possible, the sources used to obtain the grey literature in the included srs will be categorised. as the prevention of childhood obesity is a major emerging public health issue in developed countries, this has been chosen as the topic for this methodological systematic review .
publications and other literature on public involvement in nhs, public health and social care research .
in the health sciences, grey literature is vital for developing a more complete view of research on a particular topic and for producing systematic reviews and other rigorous approaches to evidence synthesis. grey literature can be a good source for data, statistics and for very recent research results. because there' s no publisher - enforced limitation on length, these reports can be much more detailed than the journal literature. and they can help to offset issues related to publication bias such as :
the strategy you use to locate literature on these sites will likely be broader than the strategy used to locate articles in a database. in systematic reviews, particularly, the strategy used in a database like medline will be very narrow and focused. however, the strategies used to locate grey literature will need to be broader. for example, you may search for
clinical practice guidelines
in a database, but search just for
guidelines
when looking for grey literature .
try it! go on a grey literature scavenger hunt. select a topic and search the major databases services such as ebsco, gale, and proquest seeking out documents. next, visit an organizational website related to your topic. look for reports, proceedings, or other types of grey documents .
ahrq: finding grey literature evidence and assessing for outcome and analysis reporting biases when comparing medical interventions this is a chapter from ahrq' s
methods guide for effectiveness and comparative effectiveness reviews .
in the event that any systematic reviews compare results from grey and black literature, these will be presented narratively and potentially meta - analysed if the data are homogenous and not duplicated between systematic reviews .
benzies km, premji s, hayden ka, serrett k. state‐of‐the‐evidence reviews: advantages and challenges of including grey literature. worldviews evid based nurs. 2006; 3 (2): 55–61 .
hopewell s, mcdonald s, clarke m, egger m. grey literature in meta - analyses of randomized trials of health care interventions. cochrane database syst rev. 2007; 2: 2 .
large libraries often collect grey literature in paper form. examples are the state library of nsw or the australian national library. you can usually find this material by searching the institution' s online catalogue. it is often possible to arrange loans or to purchase copies of such material through document delivery. the une university library also collects grey literature as part of its general collection and its special collections .
gray literature, due to its diverse origins and unpublished nature, can be difficult to find. gray literature is often found by searching for the agency or institution who is most likely to produce the literature. the search may require looking at a large number of sources. the world wide web has made the dissemination of gray literature easier and advances will continue in the future .
most of the grey literature available on the web is in the form of pdf documents. also consider restricting your search to the. org and / or. gov domains. to search the internet :
to achieve a comprehensive review, grey literature is an important element of large - scale syntheses and can be incorporated in two ways: (1) as included items in these reviews and (2) as a means to identify relevant studies and publications for these projects. the cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions and the institute of medicine standards for systematic review recommend incorporating grey literature in systematic reviews [
gray literature 101: what it is, where it is, and how to find it .
premier literature database for medicine, nursing, dentistry, and the preclinical sciences. 1946 onwards .
in the future, gray literature will be even more important .
in a world in which free trade and instantaneous communication have eliminated many of the barriers to information flow, grey literature is gaining greater importance as a source of information for much of the world' s population (weintraub) .
stock, christiane & paillassard, pierrette (2010). theses and dissertations. in d. farce & j. schopfel, grey literature in library and information studies. walter de gruyter. available: urltoken
hopewell s, mcdonald s, clarke m, egger m. grey literature in meta - analyses of randomized trials of health care interventions. cochrane database syst rev. 2007; (2): mr000010 .
positive result bias study results that show a negative or no effect are published in scholarly journals less often than those that show a positive effect. those negative results may be found by reviewing the grey literature .
alberani v, pietrangeli pdc, mazza amr (1990). the use of grey literature in health sciences: a preliminary survey. bulletin of the medical library association 78 (4): 358 - 363 .
grey literature has been defined as:' 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.' 1
what do i mean by grey literature? many definitions exist. most could be excellent cures for insomnia. in terms of its clarity and brevity, one of my personal favorites was offered in 1999 at the fourth international conference on grey literature (urltoken): “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. ”
grey literature is sometimes available through exchange agreements with other organizations or by subscription. annual subscriptions are expensive, but convenient, if complete subject coverage is needed (augur 1989, 30). other facilities use unesco book coupons, monthly standing orders, and a company such as communicating science, to find the information, or crimdoc, which maintains a criminology library database for grey literature from the criminology field. currently, many items can also be purchased through booksellers and subscription agents as the scope of the literature is growing .
important contributions to the genre are translations, which constitute a major portion of grey literature. two reasons easily explain why. if half the scientific and technical literature is written in languages other than english, and if scientists from all around the world, including those from english - speaking countries want to access the research, they need translations of the work (augur 1989, 63). dissertations also make up an important part of grey literature, as well as meeting papers or preprints that are given out before conferences and meetings .
health policy picks a partnership between urltoken and the grey literature collection to bring monthly selections of resources in the areas of health care policy research and analysis. (this site is now a part of kff. org )
grey literature ( or gray literature ; see spelling differences ) are materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels . common grey literature publication types include reports ( annual , research , technical , project , etc. ) , working papers , government documents , white papers and evaluations . organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies , civil society or non-governmental organisations , academic centres and departments , and private companies and consultants . grey literature may be made available to the public , or distributed privately within organizations or groups , and may lack a systematic means of distribution and collection . the standard of quality , review and production of grey literature can vary considerably . grey literature may be difficult to discover , access , and evaluate , but this can be addressed through the formulation of sound search strategies . 
grey literature (or gray literature; see spelling differences) are materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. common grey literature publication types include reports (annual, research, technical, project, etc.), working papers, government documents, white papers and evaluations. organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies, civil society or non-governmental organisations, academic centres and departments, and private companies and consultants. grey literature may be made available to the public, or distributed privately within organizations or groups, and may lack a systematic means of distribution and collection. the standard of quality, review and production of grey literature can vary considerably. grey literature may be difficult to discover, access, and evaluate, but this can be addressed through the formulation of sound search strategies.
grey literature (or gray literature; see spelling differences) are materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. common grey literature publication types include reports (annual, research, technical, project, etc.), working papers, government documents, white papers and evaluations. organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies, civil society or non-governmental organisations, academic centres and departments, and private companies and consultants. grey literature may be made available to the public, or distributed privately within organizations or groups, and may lack a systematic means of distribution and collection. the standard of quality, review and production of grey literature can vary considerably. grey literature may be difficult to discover, access, and evaluate, but this can be addressed through the formulation of sound search strategies.