Quarterly Newsletter
Vol. 7, No. 2, 1998
ISSN 0929-0923
Thematic Approach to Grey Literature
Columbia University Survey on GL
Selected Examples of Scientific GL
Field Placement Program
GreyNet's Bi-Quarterly Web Statistics
Anatomy of a Bibliography
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Editorial Address
Thematic Approach to Grey Literature
The International Conference Series on Grey Literature known as the GLSeries seeks to compile existing information in this expanding field, while generating new knowledge in areas that are still on the frontier.
By examining the themes which comprised the first three conferences together with the program scheduled for the coming grey literature conference in 1999, one obtains a comprehensive, current, and thematic overview of grey literature.
| GL'93 | GL'95 | GL'97 | GL'99 |
Publishers and
Producers of
Grey Literature | New Forms of
Grey Literature | Tech. Transfer
& Innovation of
Grey Literature | Global
Assessment of
Grey Literature |
Information
Networks &
Centers | Marketing
and
Promotion | Redesigning &
Evaluating
Grey Literature | Archiving
Electronic
Grey Literature |
User Supply /
Demand | Management
of
Grey Literature | Education
and
Training | Copyright
and
Grey Literature |
| About GL'93 |
About GL'95 |
About GL'97 |
About GL'99 |
Columbia University
Survey on Grey Literature
Dear Colleagues,
Columbia University Libraries and Columbia University Press are working on designing a variety of electronic products aimed primarily at the library market. One of these products, for example, gathers sources that are available in a variety of places but pulls them together for convenience sake: working papers, conference proceedings, journal abstracts and tables of contents (and full text if possible), and full text of reference and monographic books.
My colleagues working directly on this project would like a stronger understanding of value of including various kinds of 'gray literature' including working papers and conference
proceedings that have not received formal peer review.
Our Questions are:
- Do you collect this material? What rules do you use in doing so, i.e., do you do it for certain fields, but not for others, only at the request of faculty members, everything that came out from a particular group, or only individual papers, etc.?
- Do you catalog this material and if so, you bind it or keep it in vertical files?
- In the past did you collect these sorts of materials more comprehensively than you do now? & If so, why did you cut back?
If you are willing to share your feelings / experiences, regarding these questions, please send your thoughts directly to
summerfield@columbia.edu
Anthony W. Ferguson
Associate University Librarian, Columbia University Libraries.
Judith Brink, Selection Coordinator, University of Michigan Business School
Email: judith_brink@ccmail.bus.umich.edu
Response 1:
We do systematically collect working papers. There are about 20-30 institutions (mostly
academic departments) that we trade papers with ... and we pay for a series by the NBER.
The other schools on our list have been there for years.
Not quite sure what the criteria was, but most of the subject area is centered on finance. We
tend to get all of the papers published from these departments.
Response 2:
Yes, the papers are cataloged (call number designation for all working papers begins with
"WP"). We keep all working papers (other than our own) for five years only. This summer,
for instance, all of the 1993 papers will be weeded. The papers are bound with only plastic
covers. For papers written by the faculty at the University of Michigan Business School,
however, we keep "forever". This past December, we also have begun to mount (the full text)
of the latest two years of working papers on our website (lib.bus.umich.edu). We're not quite
sure yet how long we'll keep them there.
Response 3:
If we've "cut back", it's only because we haven't taken the time to notice what hasn't been
coming in on a regular basis.
We DO need to evaluate what we are getting and determine if it's useful to faculty (searching
the papers via our webpac would be a start).
Bobray Bordelon, Economics Librarian, Princeton University
Email: bordelon@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Response 1:
Princeton University tries to collect all working papers indexed in ECONLIT
as well as crucial international ones.
We also try to obtain grey literature from the regional offices of the United Nations and
other international agencies that are non-depository or available through standing order.
We also try to comprehensively collect materials regarding international monetary & fiscal policy as well as international capital markets. The other major area collected is that of
"think tanks" such as Rand and the Conference Board.
Response 2:
Working papers are cataloged.
If the series is well indexed, the series is cataloged as a serial. For important series not
indexed in ECONLIT or IDEAS, we catalog individually. Much of the pamphlet like grey
literature obtained is not truly cataloged and is kept in vertical files.
Response 3:
Working papers are collected more comprehensively than ever before.
Due to the lag in publishing time of scholarly journals, working papers are crucial for keeping
up with scholarly research. Materials regarding international monetary and fiscal policy and
capital markets are also aggressively sought after. Many of the international materials
regarding other areas are pursued less vigorously due to staff cuts and losses.
Connie Manson, Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources
Email: cjmanson@u.washington.edu
My replies are interspersed.
As introduction, I run the Washington geological survey library. We intend to collect -comprehensively - to have absolutely all the info about the geology and/or mineral resources
of our state. So, "grey" literature is very important: we want all the theses, proceedings volumes,
conference abstracts (all of them, no matter how trivial or repetitious), project reports by
industry, etc. In my (no kidding) 20 years here, I've observed that the end users have far less
prejudice against "grey" literature than the standard library world.
Response 1:
We collect comprehensively on our precise subject: the geology and mineral resources of
Washington State.
Response 2:
All monographs receive full cataloging, regardless of status. All items about Wash. geo.
receive full bibliographic citation and indexing and are added to our electronic database .
(Yes, all of them, even the conference abstracts.)
Response 3:
No change in our collection policy.
The only changes are in the generation of the materials: there are more abstracts now, more
self-published and open-file reports, more conferences, fewer formally published materials. I
worry about e-journals. In the geosciences, we need to collect broadly and keep it forever.
We still use materials originally published in the 1880s [sic], 1920s etc. Will our users still
have access to electronic materials, in 100 years?
Selected Examples of Scientific Grey Literature
From paper presented at the Third International Conference on Grey Literature (GL'97): Teaching and Exposing Grey Literature: What the Information Profession Needs to Know: Examples from the sciences / Julia Gelfand, University of California, Irvine, USA.
Five different examples of new high value scientific grey literature are described here.
Each possesses enormous merit to the scientist and presupposes only erratic if any earlier equivalents
in other formats. The common denominators they share include that each has become more
available in the mainstream, so that they are no longer proprietary, and that they can be
manipulated in some context.
1. Scientific visualization
This paper can not give justice to the vast number of incredibly complex developments in
Scientific Visualization. Only a couple of ideas can be superficially explored:
- Biological Imaging - Supercomputing has allowed for the sharing of the created virtual
environments. Websites now abound with progress reports on the new technologies to support
biological, archaeological, astrophysical, geological, meteorological, and medical developments.
This new research arena brings together the new instrumentation used in laboratories, hospitals,
clinical settings for medical, environmental, and technological research and commercial
applications. The present-day abilities of physicians, health practitioners and scientists to take and
retain radiological films and reproduce them for others to view at the fast, incredibly high
resolution necessary for clarity shaves off incredible time searching for cases to support a
hypothesis or diagnosis.
Other examples include seismic datasets, a relatively new source of important grey literature, which are typically difficult to analyze with
generic visualization tools for two reasons. First the pure size of the datasets and second, seismic
data tends to be relatively noisy, making it difficult to get useful images using traditional
visualization techniques such as isosurfaces. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) provides
spatial mapping of multiple variables in layers which describe different phenomena and
demographics explaining very complex situations. Creating images and animations and building
datasets moves the frontiers of science forward so that people can access contributions on a global
basis in a most timely way. The progress of scientific and medical research is moving along at such
a fast clip hat the descriptive information on websites now needs to clearly reflect exactly when
material was submitted. One is able to follow extensive chronologies, which the print format could
not capture over decades. The expense of publishing these images drives the price of the
information product so high, that it is nearly impossible for many libraries to acquire the product.
Thus, access could be restrictive because it was not so widespread. Cost remains a barrier and is
difficult to assess and evaluate and can become problematic when it is determined that acquisitions
of materials have to be bought either as a subscription or by-the-drink' model, paid each time a
title is used. Examples of grey literature serving more than information queries abound as we see
how revised curricula in medical education have forced a new patient-doctor relationship model
in the early stages of medical school, instead of medical students depending on obsolete medical
texts and practices.
- Human Genome Projects - It has been over a
decade since the first stages of human and animal chromosome mapping was initiated. The
contributions to human and veterinary genetics and the abilities now to predict one's likelihood to
contract a specific illness or disease and learn about a predisposition to a disorder is now
commonplace. These incredible databases span subjects such as molecular biology, virology,
anatomy and offer unlimited information on cloning, reproductive health, and new interpretations
of applied ethics. A vast bibliography of secondary source literature in electronic and print formats
now accompanies such primary data.
2. Science Policy
In the United States and increasingly around the modern world, the web has become a way for
government to share their thinking on new legislation and policy topics. Recently, the House
Majority Leader, Congressman Newt Gingrich called for a new science policy and his staff in the
US House of Representatives put up a website promoting his party's ideas for the national
priorities in the sciences. Input is sought from the electorate to respond to issues by e-mail and it
is likely that some new national initiatives may be created for the National Laboratories,
Sponsored Research, Publishing by the Government, Partnerships with Commercial Industry,
Collaboration with Academic Scholarly and Scientific Communities, Competitiveness in Scientific
Literacy, and other areas. note 1
3. Scientific Protocols
In the United States, the federal guidelines for institutional animal care and use committees
(IACUCs) currently required by the passage of the Animal Welfare Act regulations and the Public
Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals are two examples of
scientific protocols. These protocols review animal study proposals to ensure that there has been
adequate consideration of alternative methods and approaches to the use of animals for research,
testing and education.note 2
These guidelines for Animal Research and Testing have wide implications
for all medical and veterinary schools to include universities offering advanced degrees and
conducting research in life sciences, psychology, physical sciences; for pharmaceutical research and other laboratory environments. The United States Agricultural
Research Service and its Animal Welfare Information Center at the National Agricultural Library
and various Centers for Alternatives to Animal Testing have promoted an entire culture to respond
to the new definitions of the word "Alternative" in the context of animal use in research, testing and
education. "Alternative" refers to methods, models and approaches that result in the "reduction"
of the number of animals required, that incorporate "refinements" of procedures which result in
the lessening of pain or distress to animals, or that provide for the "replacement" of animals with
nonwhite animal systems or the replacement of one animal species with another, particularly if the
substituted species is nonmammalian or invertebrate.note 3
This definition of alternative has evolved from the concept of reduction, refinement and replacement (3 -Rs) of animal use originally
proposed by Russell and Burch in 1968.note 4 What constitutes this as GL is that it brings together for
the principal investigator, the legislation, bibliographic databases, laboratory manuals, physical
resources, subject specialists, and each literature search required to support the animal alternatives
is unique creating an "Improved Research Protocol." note 5
4. Scientific Journalism
There are numerous solid, clever and informative examples of how a well-established and respected
journal has created new options for itself and inaugurated a new online version, richer in niche
information, more current and avoiding the rigors of traditional scientific publishing. One of the
more interesting examples of this type is Science's, Next Wave.note 6
The wide scope of coverage includes information on sources of funding for scientists in training, features by the gurus in
electronic publishing, career options for graduating scientists, and other useful information which
would not have always been predictable coming from the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS). This new format and extension of other print and electronic
products show great promise in meeting needs of the members of this society.
5. Image Directory note 7
On October 7,1997, Academic Press, following on their successful introduction of Project ideal
(the Academic Press Online Journal Library, with the entire list of 175 journals available online to
subscribers) announced in a press conference the launch of the Image Directory, reported to be the world's first online catalog
of images. It is basically a new reference work in an interactive format.Beginning with more than 100,000 records to date, this one-of-a-kind database of information on
visual images is from collections worldwide, and supports the close professional collection between
librarians and museum staffs.note 8
It must be remembered that this product is not intended to supply images, but only access to
images. It is supposed to be equivalent to the "Books in Print" of images, linking to the holding
institutions so that the user can be directed to the institution from which you can buy or license
the image and seek additional information. Again, the "greyness" of this product is defined by its multidisciplinary content since it spans the
full spectrum of the arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, textiles, photography, old
master prints, ethnographic and iconographic objects, decorative arts, toys, tools, religious artifacts,
lithographs, posters., furniture and furnishings, portfolios, jewelry, maps and more. For the study
of religious practices, art history, anthropology, theatre, geography, planning & design, architecture, and numerous other disciplines, this is a marvelously innovative tool. It brings to the
user the collections from archives, museums, galleries, dealers, which may not be possible to visit or
catalogs which may not be available to browse. Users can search for images by artist, title, subject, medium, style, material, museum, collection,
location, nationality or keyword access across multiple options and platforms. Each record
contains data on the work, rights and reproduction information, licensing fees and a link to the
image provider's web site. This extends the concept of indexing from one tool to many external
sources. Consider how a physical or cultural anthropologist wants to study why a particular remote
tribe wears a standard head-dress for certain celebrations. Natural history museums, art museums,
and national cultural institutions may have such examples of the head-dress in their collections and
it could be retrieved and linked to the holding collection, directing the user to additional
information. Such a resource has unlimited potential for its "amalgamation of material from
widely divergent sources, making it a single source of authoritative information."note 9
What makes this resource so interesting to librarians is that from the vantage of intellectual property, the image
providers retain complete control of their images and information. As a reference source, it
promotes valuable but perhaps unknown images to a far wider audience and informs users via links
about related information sources, such as publications and exhibit catalogs, criticism and
commentary, and key contact information. It is clearly a model of an electronic reference work
which is not available in any other format. Why Academic Press wants to issue this in a print form
as well remains a mystery.
| Notes |
| 1. | see http://www.house.gov/science/science_policy_study.htm for example of Science Policy Reform and Libraries |
back to the text |
| 2. | William Stokes, and D'Anna J.B. Jensen, "Guidelines for Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees: Consideration of Alternatives,"
Contemporary Topics, vol. 34, #3, May 95, p. 51. |
back to the text |
| 3. | National Research Council, Use of Laboratory Animals in Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Washington, DC: National Academy
Press, 1988. |
back to the text |
| 4. | W.M.S. Russell and R.L. Burch, The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique: Special Edition, Universities Federation for Animal
Welfare, Herts, England, 1992. |
back to the text |
| 5. | David C. Anderson, "The Pursuit of Better Science: A Personal View of the Search for Alternatives," Animal Alternatives, Welfare and
Ethics, vol. , 1997., p. 517. |
back to the text |
| 6. | see http://www.nextwave.org/index.htm |
back to the text |
| 7. | see http://www.imagedir.com |
back to the text |
| 8. | Julia Gelfand and Ben Booth, "Scholarly Communication in the Sciences: Managing Challenges for Libraries and Museums," Proceedings
of the 15th Biennial IATUL Conference: Technological University Libraries in the Nineties, vol. 3.Helsinki: Helsinki University Library &
IATUL, 1994, pp. 9-30. |
back to the text |
| 9. | Press Release from Academic Press, New York, NY, Oct. 7, 97. |
back to the text |
Field Placement Program
College of Amsterdam
Natasja Stoffels, a student on the Faculty of Economics and Information at the College of Amsterdam completed a month's field placement with TransAtlantic/ GreyNet. During her field work, Natasja was involved in the PEER project (Public Enterprise in Editing and Review).
Through her efforts, the third edition of the Annotated Bibliography on the Topic of Grey Literature was compiled and published both in print and electronic formats. For the sixth consecutive year, college students from freshman to graduate levels have done field work with TransAtlantic/GreyNet ranging from periods of one to five months. It is through this placement program with the College of Amsterdam that many of the projects initiated and funded by GreyNet have been undertaken and completed.
Thanks Natasja, and every success with your further studies.
Bi-Quarterly Web Statistics
|
| 1997 | 1998 |
| 1. October : 2730 | 4. January : 3471 |
| 2. November : 2945 | 5. February : 3807 |
| 3. December : 1823 | 6. March : 3779 |
Annotated Bibliography on the Topic of Grey Literature
Third Edition, 1998
The third edition of this bibliography on the topic of grey literature contains more than 650 records.When available, abstracts and information on accessing the documents have been included. The records appear in alphabetical order according to the family name of the first author. Records by the same author appear subsequently by date of publication.
A complete index to all authors, as well as a keyword index is included.
ISBD
Annotated bibliography on the topic of grey literature : A Public Enterprise in Editing and Review /
compiled by D.J. Farace ; with the assistance of J. Frantzen and N. Stoffels ; GreyNet, Grey Literature Network
Service. - 3rd ed. - Amsterdam : TransAtlantic, 1998. - VI, 116 p. - Indexes.
ISBN: 90-74854-20-6
Additional Documentary Information
PEER: Public Enterprise in Editing and Review
KEYWORDS: grey literature, report literature, unconventional, non-commercial, ephemera, and fugitive literature
ACCESS: TransAtlantic Stock Catalog GL.0091; GreyNet's Publication Order Form
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