Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for grey literature’ – LIBR534

’Finding the hard to finds:searching for the grey literature in biomedicine’

"information produced on all levels of government, academia, business and industry in electronic and print formats not

controlled by commercial publishing" ICGL Luxembourg definition, 1997 - Expanded in New York, 2004

“…a body of materials [not] found easily through conventional channels such as publishers … frequently original and usually recent“

Wikipedia entry on ‘gray literature’

Definitions of “grey literature”…

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Grey literature…in the news

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

…”The UN climate panel's credibility [was called into question recently] A British newspaper found holes in the IPCC report on the potential of tidal wave

power claiming it was based on information, sourced from the website of a commercial wave energy company and student dissertations. This points to a

fundamental flaw in the IPCC report - the use of what is called grey literature.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3gm97icPVM

In-between metaphor – grey zone…

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Different types of grey literature

• Theses & dissertations• Conference proceedings• Newsletters• Reports• Government documents (including NGOs, IGOs)• Informal communication (telephone calls, meetings)• Translations• Census, economic & other data • Conference proceedings & abstracts• Research reports (completed & uncompleted)• Technical reports, standards, patents• Videos• Clinical trials & practice guidelines

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

• e-prints, preprints, post-prints• emails, blogposts, even tweets• Web 2.0 communication channels• wiki articles & virtual worlds like Second Life• listserv archives (i.e. Google Buzz, Wave)• digital libraries (i.e. Institutional Repositories)• grey (gray) data; spatial data (ie. Google Earth) • meta-searching, federated searching, portals• databases of ongoing research• electronic & social networks• images, maps

New sources of grey lit & data

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Differences between grey and published literature

Grey literature (hard to find) Published literature (easier to find)

# of documents beingpublished

Increasing at exponential rate Increasing, but at a more measured pace

Speed of production Instant, due to self-publishing on the web, speed

Slow(er), due to costs & editing process

Cost Low (in most cases), free High, increasing all the time

Accessibility Free, open, immediate in mostcases (some $$$)

Locked, gated access, $$$ (some OA)

Quality Highly variable Excellent, edited, peer-reviewed

Findability Improving but ‘hit and miss’ Generally stable

Archiving Difficult due to sheer volume & formats

Also difficult due to legal restrictions, space limitations and selection

Impact on librarians New opportunities and roles for search-savvy librarians

Problems arise due to copyright, licensing issues

Role of publishers Some make content free to be good corporate citizens

Commercial interests based on economic models not scholarly

Traditionally, grey literature is hard to find & control

• Difficulties with classification and cataloguing; storage • Shorter print runs lead to lack of availability• Eventually becomes invisible

Digitization trends = easier to find

• Open access publishing• Search engines crawl web content• Collaborative writing• Informal scholarly publishing via wikis and blogs

Shifts in grey literature

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Impact in medicine

Although not considered a scholarly form of publication, grey literature is produced by experts … and “serves

scholars and lay readers alike with research summaries, facts, statistics, and other data that offer a more

comprehensive view of the topic of interest.”

Outten, C. Gray Literature. 2008

• Medline is not enough…• Grey literature opens doors -- fills in ‘evidence’ gaps • Accessible on the open web via Google for free• Outside mainstream scholarship & research; unconventional format• Data-mining - think of hospital patient & epidemiological data

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Why grey is needed in trials

Hopewell et al. (2007) Grey literature in meta-analyses of randomized trials. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

“…published trials tend to be larger and show an overall greater treatment effect than grey trials. This has important implications

for reviewers who need to ensure they identify grey trials… to minimise the risk of introducing bias into their review. “

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Extended search techniques

• Database searching & specialized databases and portals

• Searching obscure or small library catalogues

• Hand-searching

• Personal communication (i.e. telephone, email, tweets)

• Scanning reference lists, bibliographies & academic CVs

• Googling (i.e. Google, Google Scholar)

• Contact experts in the field

• Blogsearch, podsearch, specialized directories

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Expert strategies

• Document searches fully; ask for help from peers

• Network; modify your strategies as needed

• Import citations into RefWorks

• Watch scholarly publishing trends; copyright & ‘self-archiving’

• Identify relevant organizations to search

• Consult hotspots of grey lit expertise:

CADTH - Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies http://www.cadth.ca/index.php/en/publication/781

GreyNet - http://www.greynet.org

Health technology assessment (HTAi) portal http://www.htai.org/index.php?id=229

OpenSIGLE - http://opensigle.inist.fr

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for the grey literature’

Dean Giustini, UBC Biomedical Branch Librarian - March 2010’Finding the hard to finds: Searching for grey literature’

htpp://slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Grey_literature

“…it’s all grey – until you find it”

The End