Information World Review: Don't let the grey fade away

Kim Thomas

7 May 2008

Excerpt:

"Despite its distinctly unglamorous name, “grey” literature – that mass of booklets, research reports and PDF documents produced in-house by organisations rather than through a recognised publisher – is a hot topic in the library world.

While the question of how to find grey literature and make it available has always been a challenge for librarians, the advent of web-based tools is starting to make the job easier. At the same time, the web has enabled the production and publication of a much greater body of grey literature. But unless this literature is archived, it could disappear from public view altogether.

Jennie Grimshaw, lead content specialist for social policy and official publications at the British Library, says: “Grey literature is enormously valuable to users because it is often more informative than articles in peer-reviewed journals.

“You’ll get the full methodology, which is often omitted from peer-reviewed journals, because authors are often asked to cut an article down to 10 pages.

“The research report will give you more information about the data set, and more information about the research that was unsuccessful, because there’s a tendency for people to publish formally only the interventions that were successful, not the ones that didn’t work.”"

... full article at Information World Review