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 libraries and institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers; i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body.”
The Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature: Prague 2010.
“Grey literature is material which is not issued through normal commercial publication channels” (Auger, 1994).
“Grey literature includes: government reports, committee reports, academic papers, theses, bibliographies, conference papers and abstracts, discussion papers, newsletters, PowerPoint presentations, conference proceedings, program evaluation reports, standards/best practice documents, technical specifications and standards, and working papers” (Alberani, Pietrangeli and Mazza, 1990).
The majority of grey literature is ‘primary’ literature (the original writings on a subject) and usually has not been peer-reviewed. Therefore, you will need to use your own judgement as to the literature’s validity.
Other Sources of Grey Literature
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
NICE is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health. NICE produces guidelines under the sections conditions and diseases; health and social care delivery, health protection; lifestyle and wellbeing; population groups; settings.
Current NHS Research
• National Institute for Health Research Be Part of Research (formerly UK Clinical Trials Gateway (UKCGT)): https://bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/ o The Be Part of Research site aims to make it easier to find out about health and social care research taking place across the UK.
• Learning for Involvement: https://www.invo.org.uk/homepage o The Learning for Involvement website is run by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The site is dedicated to learning and development for public involvement in health and social care research.