Fifty Shades of Grey Literature A Primer for

Fifty Shades of Grey Literature: A Primer for Biomedical Librarians Ahlam A. Saleh, Research Librarian Arizona Health Sciences Library University 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 • • • Reports Theses/Dissertations Conference Material Newsletters White Papers Datasets • • • Preprints Standards Government Docs Legislation Protocols Patents Grey Literature Network Service: http: //www. greynet. org/greysourceindex/documenttypes. html

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 Grey www. opengrey. eu

Grey Literature Report www. 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 Library www. ntis. gov

RAND Corporation www. rand. org/pubs. html

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation www. rwjf. org/en. html

DISSERTATIONS & THESES

Finding Dissertations & Theses • General databases • Specialized databases • Repositories • Catalogs

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

World. Cat www. worldcat. org/

ONGOING RESEARCH

Finding Ongoing Research • Clinical. Trials. gov https: //clinicaltrials. gov/ • ISRCTN registry http: //www. isrctn. com/ • WHO ICTRP http: //www. who. int/ictrp/en/

HSRProj https: //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 Statistics http: //www. cdc. gov/nchs/

Phpartners Health Data Tools & Statistics Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce https: //phpartners. org/

Health. Data. gov (beta) http: //www. healthdata. gov/

Registry of Research Data Repositories http: //service. re 3 data. org

Thank you! Ahlam A. Saleh, Research Librarian Arizona Health Sciences Library University of Arizona asaleh@ahsl. arizona. edu