Fifty Shades of Grey Literature: A Primer for Biomedical Librarians

Ahlam A. Saleh, Research LibrarianArizona Health Sciences LibraryUniversity 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• 1997- 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: http://www.greynet.org/greysourceindex/documenttypes.html

• 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 Greywww.opengrey.eu

Grey Literature Reportwww.greylit.org

CONFERENCE MATERIAL

Finding Conference Material

• General databases• Specialized databases• Catalogs• Direct source

British Library http://explore.bl.uk/

REPORTS

Finding Reports

• Government• Foundations• Organizations

National Technical Reports Librarywww.ntis.gov

RAND Corporationwww.rand.org/pubs.html

Robert Wood Johnson Foundationwww.rwjf.org/en.html

DISSERTATIONS & THESES

Finding Dissertations & Theses

• General databases• Specialized databases• Repositories• Catalogs

NDLTD http://search.ndltd.org/index.php

WorldCat www.worldcat.org/

ONGOING RESEARCH

Finding Ongoing Research

• ClinicalTrials.gov https://clinicaltrials.gov/• ISRCTN registry http://www.isrctn.com/• WHO ICTRP http://www.who.int/ictrp/en/

HSRProjhttps://wwwcf.nlm.nih.gov/hsr_project/home_proj.cfm

DATA

Finding Data

• Government websites• Organization websites• Institutional repositories• Data repositories• Registry of data repositories

National Center for Health Statisticshttp://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Phpartners Health Data Tools & StatisticsPartners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce

https://phpartners.org/

HealthData.gov (beta)

http://www.healthdata.gov/

Registry of Research Data Repositorieshttp://service.re3data.org

Thank you!

Thank you!

Ahlam A. Saleh, Research LibrarianArizona Health Sciences Library

University of Arizonaasaleh@ahsl.arizona.edu