Guides: Grey Literature: Home

What is Grey Literature?

"Grey literature" is the intellectual output of universities, governmental and non-governmental agencies, foundations, organizations, businesses, institutes, think tanks, and other bodies that is never published. It can take the form of reports, preprints, white papers, working papers, presentations, proceedings, internal documents, abstracts, policies and procedures. These kinds of materials often do not appear in searching the usual scholarly communication venues and may be difficult to locate.

Types of Grey Literature

Document Types in Grey Literature
There are so many different types of grey literature that the staff at GreyNet International created an index to document it all.

Sources of Grey Literature

Conference Proceedings Citation Index--Science
Conference Proceedings Citation Index, helps researchers access the published literature from the most significant conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions worldwide. Focus on STEM.
Conference Proceedings Citation Index--Social Sciences & Humanities
Conference Proceedings Citation Index, helps researchers access the published literature from the most significant conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions worldwide. Focus on Social Sciences and Humanities.
CORE
Though not exclusively a source of grey literature, CORE does contain a large collection of open access research papers.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
The DOAJ is not exclusively a database of grey literature though some is available along with the full-text of many peer-reviewed journals.
Grey Literature Publishers List
This resource lists publishers of grey literature in the health services and urban health that are arranged alphabetically by title.
GreySource Index
GreySource has assembled an index of hyperlinked web resources. They are grouped into broad subject categories and listed alphabetically within each category.
OAIster
OAIster is a database of several million records harvested from open access resources using the Open Access Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.
OpenDOAR
OpenDOAR is a searchable and browsable directory of open access repositories that provides the ability to search thousands of sources by location or type of material.
Open Think Tank Directory
Open Think Tank Directory provides keyword searchable access to a global collection of think tanks and related organizations.
PAIS Index
Since its establishment in 1914, PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) has chronicled issues in the public debate through highly selective coverage of a wide variety of sources. The PAIS Index database contains references to monographs, periodical articles, notes and announcements, and analytics.
Papers First
Over 580,000 papers included in every congress, conference, exposition, workshop, symposium and meeting received at the British Library.
Proceedings First
Database of over 19000 citations to every congress, symposium, conference, exposition, workshop and meeting received at the British Library.
Science.gov
This site serves as a gateway to United States government science information from scientific and technical agences of the U.S. government.
Think Tank Search
Think Tank Search searches the websites of institutions that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. These sites are affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, and non-governmental organizations.

Searching for Grey Literature

Image courtesy of Carol Shannon's University of Michigan LibGuide on Grey Literature

Evaluating Grey Literature

ACCODS Checklist
Jess Tyndall, Medical Librarian and Head of the Gus Fraenkel Medical Library at Flinders University, developed the AACODS checklist (Authority, Accuracy, Coverage, Objectivity, Date, Significance) as an evaluation and Critical Appraisal Tool specifically for use with grey literature sources.