University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
While researching your latest paper, project, or grant proposal, have you ever spent hours looking in vain for a conference paper or an obscure technical report from a government agency? If you answered "yes," then you know what it’s like to deal with "gray literature."
According to a 1995 report, "Gray Information Functional Plan," by the US Interagency Gray Literature Working Group, gray literature is: "foreign or domestic open source material that usually is available through specialized channels and may not enter normal channels or systems of publication, distribution, bibliographic control, or acquisition by booksellers or subscription agents." In other words, it is scientific or scholarly literature published outside normal commercial channels such as journals and books.
Examples of gray literature could include:
How can you locate and search gray literature?
Searching the gray literature isn't easy. There isn't a "one-stop shopping" search engine or database that broadly indexes the material the way Medline does for biomedical sciences or CINAHL does for nursing and allied health. Still, if you’re hunting for a particular document or you want to see what resources are available on a given topic, there are some places to start.
Many gray literature materials can be found via an emerging form of scholarly communication known as institutional repositories. These are electronic databases maintained by universities in order to make their scholarly output available online. Conference papers by faculty and technical reports by research organizations are among the types of documents found in these repositories. Some online repositories even archive materials encompassing entire scholarly disciplines, rather than just the output of one institution.
Researchers wishing to conduct a thorough search of the gray literature should be sure to search through institutional and discipline-based online repositories. These resources are covered in a separate section of the Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center website. Interested readers can find this section at http://hsc.unm.edu/library/sc/.
The remainder of this section provides a list of other resources you can consult when attempting a thorough search of the gray literature for health related information.
If you need additional help, please contact the library and ask for a reference librarian at 272-2311, or use the online reference request form at http://hsc.unm.edu/library/webforms/refquest.shtml.
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http://www.nyam.org/library/pages/grey_literature_report
A quarterly list of gray literature documents in the field of public health. You
can browse the reports, or you can search the library catalog of the New York
Academy of Medicine, which is linked from the URL listed above.
"CRISP" stands for Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects. It is a listing of biomedical research projects funded by the US National Institutes of Health. Includes contact information for institutions and individuals engaged in the research projects.
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/htadbase.htmLarge index of reports on health care technology trends by government healthcare agencies from around the world.
http://wwwcf.nlm.nih.gov/hsr_project/home_proj.cfm
Database from the National Information Center on Health Services Research and
Health Care Technology at the US National Library of Medicine. Contains
descriptions of research projects in the field of health services. Each entry
describes research methods and preliminary findings of each project prior to
formal publication.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=hstat
Online compilation of various US government reports in the health sciences,
focusing on the topics of health services and technology assessment.
Particularly good for reports from the Surgeon General’s office and on the NIH
Consensus Development Program.
http://www.guideline.gov/
Compilation of clinical practice guidelines from a broad variety of professional
organizations and government agencies.
www.nrr.nhs.uk/
Guide to research projects sponsored by, or of interest to, Great Britain's National Health Service.
http://locatorplus.gov/
Search engine for holdings in the NLM’s extensive collection. Good source to
look for reports by government agencies. Generally doesn’t provide full text
access to documents, but an excellent way to see what sorts of government
reports exist on a specific topic.
http://www.who.int/library/
Catalogs of publications by the World Health Organization and affiliated
agencies, including technical and policy documents.
http://phpartners.org/guide.html
Nice collection of links to gray lit (as well as some non-gray) resources in
public health, including newsletters, reports, and guidelines.
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http://dirline.nlm.nih.gov/
National Library of Medicine Search database containing descriptions and contact
information for thousands of health organizations around the world.
http://www.nyam.org/library/pages/grey_literature_producing_organizations
Comprehensive list of non-profits and government agencies that produce gray
literature, from the American Lung Association to the World Health Organization.
Scan the list for the organization that published the document you need. Then go
to that organization’s web site and use the search tools provided there to
locate your document.
http://www.lib.umd.edu/ENGIN/TechReports/Virtual-TechReports.html
Staggeringly long list of organizational web sites and search tools that can be
used to find technical reports.
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/
crlnews/backissues2004/march04/graylit.htm
Description of gray literature and advice on how to search for gray literature
documents, as well as a large list of links to gray lit resources and
organizations.
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http://www.ntis.gov/products/
Comprehensive index of technical reports published throughout the US government.
Very limited full text access, but does have an online ordering system to
purchase documents.
http://cat.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/search
Index of collections in science and engineering at one of Canada’s major
research libraries. Extensive holdings in conference proceedings and technical
reports from around the world. Very limited full text access, but does have an
online ordering system to purchase documents.
http://www.completeplanet.com
A search engine that simultaneously searches more than 70,000 specialized
databases and search engines for information on a variety of technical topics.
The material contained in these databases and search engines typically does not
show up on popular commercial search engines like Google, due to their
specialized nature.
http://hsc.unm.edu/library/databases.shtml (listed alphabetically along with
other HSLIC databases)
Collection of databases in multiple disciplines. Includes resources for
searching conference papers and proceedings.
http://elibrary.unm.edu/applications/articles/databasesindexes.php
(listed alphabetically along with other University Libraries databases)
Index of papers presented at academic conferences, along with information on
where and how to obtain them. Covers conferences from 1982 to the present, with
an emphasis on the life sciences since 1995 and physical sciences prior to that
date.
http://elibrary.unm.edu/applications/articles/databasesindexes.php
(listed alphabetically along with other University Libraries databases)
Online index of doctoral dissertations and theses. Includes citations and
abstracts.
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