What is Grey Literature?
Definition
The standard definition of grey literature is information produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing, i.e. when publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body. Because grey literature isn't published commercially, it can be challenging to track down. Fortunately, the internet has made grey literature much more accessible to use and locate. This guide will introduce you to grey literature and provide some resources on conducting a grey literature research.
Farace, D and Schöpfel, J. (2010) Grey Literature in library and information science. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York.
Grey literature can be described as any information produced outside of traditional publishing channels--essentially anything besides articles published in scholarly journals. Grey Literature refers to a body of materials that cannot be found easily through conventional channels such as publishers.
Grey literature can include, but is not limited to: pre-prints, reports, white papers, theses, conference proceedings, technical specifications and standards, technical and commercial documentation, and government documents. For this reason, grey literature can be difficult to systematically search for and evaluate.
Grey Literature is a potential useful source of material, if you are prepared to do the extra work to use it. Typically grey literature has to be searched using multiple tools. The links below contain links to specific sites and search tools to find grey literature.
This is a good starting point produced by the University of Illinois at Chicago.
http://researchguides.uic.edu/c.php?g=252186&p=1684970
A similar resource from New York University.
http://guides.nyu.edu/greylithealth
Types of Grey Literature
Types of Grey Literature |
Examples of Publications |
Examples of Common Sources |
| Academic Not all academic resources are scholarly and peer-reviewed! That means that lots of information academics put out is Grey Literature (This guide is an example of academic grey literature). |
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| Primary Sources Resources that reflect the views, memories or immediate responses to events primary sources. |
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| Non-Academic Research and Reports: These are documents that are created by non-academic organizations that attempt to research topics outside of academia. Think Tanks, Policy Institutes, Research Centres, and Governments fall into this category. |
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Health These documents relate to the fields of health and medicine and are designed to be used by experts in the field. |
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Technical Technical grey literature covers literature that conveys highly specialized information on the inter-workings of different procedures, inventions, technologies, engineering advancements, scientific discoveries and more. These are different from non-academic research because the intended audience are fellow technical experts and are more STEM or scientific in nature. |
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Industry and Commercial These items of grey literature are created to inform businesses, consumers, and industry professionals about products, markets, and industry trends. |
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Program or Public Information These items are made to report or inform outside audiences of an organization's activities. This can be made by businesses, think tanks, government agencies, academic organizations and more. This is different from primary sources as these items are updates on individual organizations, not events or broader topic. They differ from technical or non-academic research reports as they are not research-based, and are made for general consumption.
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Adapted from Types of Grey Literature from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Grey Literature LibGuide.
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