Skip to Main Content

Grey Literature: Home

This guide provides resources for links to grey literature.

Grey Literature Overview

Grey Literature: a Lister Hill Library Tutorial (3 min.)

   From University of Alabama at Birmingham

Grey Literature Tutorial

Video tutorial from Western University (3 min.)

What is Grey Literature?

Grey literature refers to any literature that is not a book or content within a journal or magazine and not published by commercial publishers. Usually these sources are not indexed or cataloged, and may be part of the "Deep Web" meaning they cannot be found easily with a web browser. These publications might be conference proceedings, government documents, internally published studies, and other similar forms of documents created by government, academic, organizational and business entities.

Assessing Grey Literature is as important as evaluating any other source from published literature or from the Web. Use these tools to help you determine the credibility of sources:

CRAAP Test:

  • Currency
  • Reliability
  • Authority
  • Accuracy
  • Purpose/Point of View

AACODS Framework (click on Checklist: Grey Literature)

  • Authority
  • Accuracy
  • Coverage
  • Objectivity
  • Date
  • Significance

Most of the sources in this guide are from:

Bonato, S. (May 17, 2015). Unleashing the value of grey literature in research practice. Paper presented at OVID Sunrise Seminar at the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting, 2015, Austin, Texas.

 

Welcome!

Welcome to the library guide for your first year seminar.  Using the tabs above, you will find resources to help you: