LibGuides: About Grey Literature: Getting Started

Types of Grey Literature

Census Data
Conference Papers/Proceedings
Dissertations
Government Documents
Patents
Preprints
Standards
Technical Reports
White Papers
etc.

Producers of Grey Literature

Government Agencies
Institutional Repositories
Online Repositories
Research Centers/Think Tanks
Academic Conferences
Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)
Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs)
Industries
Funding Agencies/Research Organizations
Professional Associations/Societies

Science & Engineering Librarian

He/Him

Subjects: Computer Science, Engineering - Biomedical, Engineering - Civil & Environmental, Engineering - Mechanical & Material Science, Sciences

Search Duke University Libraries for Grey Literature:

What is "Grey Literature"?

Grey literature stands for manifold document types produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats that are protected by intellectual property rights, of sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by library holdings or institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body

The definition of "Grey Literature" was provided by the 12th International Conference on Grey Literature (Prague, 2010)

Key Grey LiteratureTerms

Keywords:

datasets, conference papers/proceedings, dissertation, evidence, evidence synthesis, gray literature, gray literature, google, government documents, "not formally published", patent, preprint, publication bias, reports, search, systematic review, thesis, working paper

Charles P. Auger is credited with coining the term "Grey Literature" li> Used originally to refer to intelligence reports and notes on atomic research
A part of new channels of scientific communication in a changing research environment
The term “grey literature” was first used in 1978 at a conference held by British Lending

Effective Google Search Strategies for Grey Literature

Helps you find credible sources other than peer-reviewed articles and books published from academic press (i.e., grey/gray literature)
One way to find more reliable sources is to limit by the following domains with the limiters
- "Domain Limiters" (.gov, .edu, .org., .mil)
- Examples: [ site:nytimes.com ] or [ united states site:.gov ]
  - Allows you to limit your search to within a site and/or domain