This brief explains the activities to undertake to find, access and reuse “grey literature” in online data archives. There are various definitions of grey literature in use, some too broad to be practical. It is useful to stay close to the 1997 “Luxemburg definition” of grey literature, namely all documents which are produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in [print and] electronic formats, but which are not controlled by commercial publishers. Initial mapping of current practices for grey literature by organisations is sketched. A grey literature repository is proposed, linking data and other non-textual content to their grey literature publications, improving standards in the production, bibliographic control and interoperability of digital grey literature. There is also a plan to harvest grey literature metadata from repositories.
What is Grey literature?
In the past when paper was the dominant information carrier, grey literature was easy to distinguish from official literature. Back then grey literature could be seen as documents not controlled by commercial publishers. The original definition of grey documents reads: which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in [print and] electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers.[1] However, according to recent definitions, the current list of document types falling under grey literature[2] counts 150 entries, including databases, datasets, software and websites[3]. These very broad definitions have made grey literature almost synonymous with “information” and is too wide to be used by digital repositories for practical purposes[4].The Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature (GL ’99) in Washington, DC, in October 1999, maintained the same definition. Grey literature publications were further specified as “non-conventional, fugitive, and sometimes ephemeral publications. They may include, but are not limited to the following types of materials: reports (pre-prints, preliminary progress and advanced reports, technical reports, statistical reports, memoranda, state-of-the art reports, market research reports, etc.), theses, conference proceedings, technical specifications and standards, non-commercial translations, bibliographies, technical and commercial documentation, and official documents not published commercially (primarily government reports and documents).[5] In 2004, at the Sixth Conference in New York, a postscript was added for purposes of clarification: grey literature is “…not controlled by commercial publishers, i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body”[6]. This definition has since been used extensively and is widely accepted [7].
Grey literature in the traditional sense has become perhaps easier to find in the short term, but there is no clarity about repositories preserving them. A very few organisations [8] explicitly archive grey literature and have well developed policies to do so. Therefore, it is important to take care of grey items unnoticed by other organisations. The scope of such grey literature repository can be limited to the Netherlands. In the context of a digital archive, grey literature in printed form should not be considered. The online archives can help researchers and policymakers[10] to deposit their data with ease, to share data in a safe and lasting way, and to reuse other contributors’ data.
Proposed Policy Development for Grey Literature Resources
Classification policy: The first step to define policy for grey literature, is to classify grey literature in repositories with the help of the known distribution of file types and search terms[11]. The (Dutch) archaeological reports (the results of archaeological explorations and excavations are described and documented, (unofficial) publications belonging to research datasets and data documentation) are considered as grey literature. These informal publications are connected to various datasets stored in dutch repositories by the Dutch research community. This grey literature needs to be classified from more scholarly to more community oriented literature. The working papers used in Social Sciences (particularly Economics), census, geospatial and economic data are considered as grey literature as well.[12]
Technical policy: It is proposed to develop grey lietraure dataverse and to ingest it into a repository to enhance the stability and accessibility of its online grey contents. Currently, some repositories comply with metadata criteria recommended for grey literature repositories[13], e.g. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). The barriers need to be lowered such as interoperability among different metadata standards and schemas[14], extra metadata fields for grey literature.
Legal policy: The definition of grey literature as digital objects not controlled by commercial publishers might make it easier as compared to “normal” literature to deal with the legal issues[15] . Open access policies needs to followed for grey literature, i.e., “as open as possible, closed if really necessary”, with creative commons licenses for digital rights and to deposit in a repository. Providing access to grey literature connected with research data and official publications will be an integral aspect of such repository.
Communication and dissemination policy: There are collections of guidelines for researchers for the production of grey literature, e.g. scientific and technical reports [16]. The information on uploading the data, various preferred and accepted formats, legal rights, specific to grey literature can be provided on the website for the users. The repository owners can communicate and promote news about grey literature via its website, newsletter, e-data articles and social media accounts. To keep its organisational policy on grey literature up to date, repository owners can maintain contact with the grey literature community and remain part of GreyNet Resource Policy Committee [17].
To develop above mentioned policies, various tasks are planned:
- mapping current practices for grey literature by organisations
- Classifying grey literature in a repository: distribution of file types, Search hits for words such as “rapport”, licenses
References
1 This is the “Luxembourg definition”, discussed and approved at the Third International Conference on Grey Literature in 1997
2 TGJ Volume 13, Number 3 2017. Farace. 142. GreyNet’s Focus on Science and Society.
4 TGJ Volume 13, Number 3 2017. Farace. 142. GreyNet’s Focus on Science and Society: Attention to Research and Community.
5 Alberani, 1990,http://www.greylit.org/about
6 Schöpfel, J. & Farace, D.J. (2010). “Grey Literature”. In: Bates, M.J. & Maack, M.N., Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences (3rd ed.). Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press. pp. 2029–2039.
7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literature
8 List of organisations archiving grey literature and their policies to do so.
9 Non-literary text and non-texual literature. Peter Doorn and Theo Mulder
10 Brett Davidson, (2017), Storytelling and evidence based policy, doi:10.1057/palcomms.2017.93
11 Distribution of file types and search terms in EASY
12 https://www.lib.uwo.ca/tutorials/greyliterature/
13 Grey literature repositories, Editor Petra Pejšová, publisher Radim Bačuvčík — VeRBuM Prague 2010
14 Access to Grey Literature in the Netherlands. Elly Dijk and Peter Doorn, based on presentation at a conference on Grey literature in repositories, 2014, see: http://nrgl.techlib.cz/index.php/Proceedings
15 Joachim Schöpfel, Tomas A Lipinski. Legal Aspects of Grey Literature. The Grey Journal, 2012, 8 (3), pp.137–153.
16 Grey Literature International Steering Committee (GLISC). Guidelines for the production of scientific and technical reports: how to write and distribute grey literature. 2006. eprints.rclis.org/7469/nancy.pdf.
17 Pisa declaration on policy development in grey literature resources