LibGuides: Grey Literature: How can I find it?

Grey literature searching requires a bit more work than finding academic sources. These resources and search tips will help you locate relevant and useful grey literature for your research.

Questions? Contact Jason Lee, Collections and Resource Librarian, and interim liaison librarian for Public Health & School of Nursing

Grey Lit Resources & Repositories

CADTH Grey Matters
A Comprehensive, open-source guide to finding evidence-based health-related grey literature. Contains both Canadian and International grey literature sources. Use the search bar to search for keywords related to your topic.
Canadian Best Practices Portal
Created by The Public Health Agency of Canada, this portal contains overviews and links to primary documents for Best Practices and public health programming across Canada. Useful for researching new public health strategies, public health in different populations, and researching existing programming.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health - Guides and Publications
Directory created by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, contains grey literature on mental health and addiction topics. Search alphabetically or by subject, focus or format.
OpenGrey Catalogue
Catalog curated by Grey-Net, a Netherlands-Based association focused upon curating and providing access to grey literature from around the world. This catalog contains extensive records of theses, conference reports and miscellaneous documents in many different languages; to refine to only English records, select "English" under language on your results page (similar to Novanet).
Prevention Policies Directory - Canada
Directory containing public health and safety-related prevention policies from throughout Canada. Search using the search bar, or browse by category or jurisdiction. Useful for research into preventative public health policy in Canada
TRIP Medical Database
Database for medical information and health topics, with a vast collection of grey literature pertaining to public health. Contains sources from trade associations, government groups, and international associations.
UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti
Database of UNICEF's research, working papers, and research briefs. Useful for research about global children's public health and public policy. To search, enter keywords into "search publications" bar, or browse publications.
CDC Stacks
Collection of Documents created by the American Centre for Disease Control (CDC). Search for policy documents, working documents and more, or browse by subject.

Databases and eBook Collections

Grey Literature can be found on several databases available online via the CBU Library. Try searching:

1. CINAHL: The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) is a core source of information for Nursing and 17 Allied Health disciplines. Contains grey literature in the form of conference proceedings, nursing and allied health trade publications, evidence-based care fact sheets and much more.

2. Global Public Health: Specialist database for public health, around the world. Contains grey literature in the form of annual reports, bulletins, conference papers and proceedings, editorials, standards, and more miscellaneous documents.

3. Cochrane Library: A collection of databases; provides access to systematic reviews, protocols, trials, clinical answers, editorials and special collections.

5. Canadian Public Health Documents in CEL: This database contains the health and public policy documents of the Canadian Electronic Library (CEL). Grey literature found on this database includes public government documents relating to public health, law, and education, as well as think tank documents and books.

Searching Grey Lit - Tips 'n Tricks

Google Custom Search (Carleton University)
This custom search, created and hosted by Carleton University in Ottawa, is an excellent way to search for Canadian and International government policy documents. Enter keywords into search bar and filter results by "Canadian" or "International"
Google Advanced Search
Use Google Advanced Search to filter your search results by language, region, site domain (e.g. ".ca", ".org", ".gov") and file type (".pdf", ".doc", ".ppt".)
International Government Organization Custom Search
This custom search, created by the American Library Association, allows you to search for information from International Government Organizations (Including the United Nations, WHO, NATO, etc.)

Grey Lit and Social Media

Social media has become a prominent platform for academic and professional conversation. Consider searching for the social media handles of prominent experts, governing bodies, and associations in your field of research for announcements, debates, and discussion. Check trade association and governing body websites for relevant blogs, Youtube channels and podcasts about your research topic. Check the "how to cite" tab of this subject guide to learn how to cite Facebook and Twitter posts, Blog posts, videos and podcast episodes.