7. Session Outline
• What is Grey Literature? definition &
features
• Types of Grey Literature
• Impact of Grey Literature in Health
Research
• Examples of Sources of Grey Literature
8. Uncovering Elusive Material:
Grey Literature Defined
Grey literature has been defined as:
• ”the information and resources that do not categorically fall into what is
available via standard traditional or commercial publishing channels.” From:
International Journal on Grey Literature
• "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." (New frontiers in grey literature: Fourth
International Conference on Grey Literature: GL'99 proceedings;1999 Oct 4-
5; Washington, D.C. Amsterdam: GreyNet; 1999.)
• “virtually everything we read outside of journals and books can be
considered grey literature.”
(Coonin, B. Grey Literature: An annotated bibliography. 2003: Available at
http://personal.ecu.edu/cooninb/Greyliterature.htm)
9. Grey Literature: Features
• Rapid publication - current
• Variable formats (flexible)
• Detailed
• Most not peer reviewed
• No commercial source
• Limited distribution in a geographic area
• Free (in most cases)
• Information on non main-stream
topics/aspects
12. Types of Grey Literature
• Theses and dissertations
• Conference proceedings
• Newsletters
• Reports
• Government documents
• Informational communication (telephone
calls, meetings, e-mail, blogs, interviews,
social networking sites, etc.)
13. A Fact, not Just One
• In June 2001 a 24 year old female volunteer
died in a research study at the US based
Johns Hopkins University Asthma and Allergy
Center in Baltimore, Maryland. No distinct
cause for death was identified but weakness
in the process of literature review for the risk
of the non-FDA approved use of
hexamethonium was noted.
Source: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2001/JULY/010716.htm
14. Grey Literature in the Health Sciences
• As a primary source of information, grey
literature was cited in the medical journals
that provided reliable data on research in
progress. (Alberani, et. al., 1990)
• Technical reports prevailed over other types
of grey literature. (Alberani, et. Al., 1990)
• Expert searching in public health requires the
ability to identify and search for resources
beyond the electronically available published
literature. (Alpi, 2005)
15. Grey Literature in the Health Sciences
(continued)
• “Unpublished trials contribute almost 20%
of the weight in individual meta-analysis.”
(Krishnan, 2004)
16.
17. Challenges of Grey Literature
• Hard to find
• Much content isn’t web-published
• Rarely indexed, or minimally indexed
• Basic bibliographic information may be
unavailable
• Older reports may not be archived (long term
archiving issues)
• Volume of material can be overwhelming and
time-consuming
18. Grey Literature Searching Exercises
• Can you find the abstract of this conference
presentation:
Dunscombe P, Anderson R, Brown D, Gackle M, Lau H. A
Course in Ethics and Errors for Radiation Medicine
Professionals. ESTRO Meeting, Barcelona, Spain. Sep
2010
• Is there any active clinical trial in North America on
depression screening in patients undergoing radiation
therapy for cancer?
• Can I access part of the document “International
Travel and Health 2010” on the topic of Vaccine-
preventable diseases and vaccines?
20. What can we do as librarians?
• Lin, Y., and M. Vaska Raising Awareness of
Grey Literature in an Academic Community
Using the Cognitive Behavioral Theory. – In:
GL11 Conference Proceedings. TextRelease,
2010, 8 p., including PowerPoint
Lin, Y., and M. Vaska Information Literacy
and Librarians’ Experiences with Teaching
Grey Literature to Medical Students and
Healthcare Practitioners. In: GL10
Conference Proceedings. TextRelease, 2009,
7 p., including a PowerPoint
Open Access RepositoriesOpen access publishing allows free access to and distribution of published articles where the author retains copyright of their work by employing a Creative Commons attribution licence, therefore removing any barriers to access.A new form of scholarly publishing
What about this one, open access journal, peer-reviewedBiomed Central as of today has 220 open access, online, peer-reviewed journals –
Awareness, awareness and awareness
projects
Include grey literature and published material whenever conducting literature searches (especially when performing systematic reviews) in order to limit bias.
