Quarterly Newsletter
Vol. 9, No. 3, 2000
ISSN 1389-1804
Literati Award for Outstanding Achievement in Grey Literature
Tracking the Grey Literature - MLA Annual Meeting - 2000
International Journal on Grey Literature - IJGL Vol. 1, No. 2
GreyNet new Domain & Redesign - http://www.greynet.org
Annotated Bibliography on Grey Literature, Fourth Edition
Annual Subscription: 20 Euros / 20 USDollars
Editorial Address
Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Grey Literature - 2000
Daniela Luzi
Consiglio Nationale delle Ricerche,
Isituto di Studi sulla Ricerca e Documentazione Scientifica,
Rome, Italy
Since 1987, Daniela Luzi has carried out and published research on grey literature "letteratura grigia" alone and in co-authorship with colleagues at the National Council of Research (CNR) in Rome, Italy.
Daniela, who has attended and contributed to many national and international conference programs on grey literature, first focused on its cataloguing and standardization. Since then, her contributions to the International Conference Series on Grey Literature have included: The incidence of grey literature in online databases: a quantitative analysis (GL’93, Amsterdam); Internet as a new distribution channel of scientific grey literature: the case of Italian WWW servers (GL’95, Washington D.C.); E-print archives: a new communication pattern of grey literature documents (GL’97, Luxembourg); and most recently, A profile of grey literature producers in the field of safety and health at workplaces in Italy: results of a sample survey (GL’99, Washington D.C.).
One thing that these papers and articles share in common is a sound methodological approach and clear results. What more could this young field of information science expect of one researcher?
Ms. Daniela Luzi, ISRDS-CNR
Via Cesare De Lollis,
00185 Rome, Italy
Tel: 39-06-4487.9266
Fax: 39-06-446.3836
Email: luzi@www.isrds.rm.cnr.it
Tracking the Grey Literature:
Capturing the Elusive Dragon
MLA Annual Meeting - 7 May 2000 - Vancouver, Canada
Reprint of four abstracts from the Grey Literature Program at the MLA Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada
With permission from the Program Coordinator: Ms. Laurie Isenberg -
Email: isenberg@dominican.edu
Shooting from the hip or target practice? A comparison of conventional and fugitive search results
By Diane Helmer, Mary-Doug Wright, and Arminee Kazanjina -
BC Office of Health Technology Assessment, Vancouver, Canada
Purpose:
This study compared the recall rates of literature identified using fugitive search techniques and the searching of conventional databases. It examined the overlap of results and the relative effectiveness of the two techniques.
Methods:
A prospective analysis of literature identified by conventional and fugitive searches was conducted on four BC Office of Health Technology Assessment projects. Consistent conventional and fugitive search strategies were applied to each project.
Conclusion:
Preliminary results for two of the projects revealed that Medline produced the highest recall for health services research on depression and hospitalization (59.2%), followed by fugitive search techniques (25.7%). These numbers contrasted with those of the search for controlled trials and systematic reviews for the acupuncture for detoxification study. The acupuncture fugitive search yielded the highest recall (46.4%), followed by Medline (21.0%), with smaller percentages recorded for other databases. Overlap of document identification existed between conventional and fugitive search techniques (20% overlap for depression; 50% for acupuncture). However, several fugitive search techniques resulted in material not identified with conventional techniques: personal communication and searching of specialized databases were most effective for identifying unique material for the depression study, while personal communication and reference lists identified the highest number of unique items for the acupuncture study.
Better Read than Dead: Breathing New Life into State Morbidity Data via the Internet
By Kathryn E. Kerdolff - Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Library, New Orleans, USA
Purpose:
Our objective is to increase access to state health publications, specifically state morbidity data.
Setting/Participants/Resources:
The Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Library in New Orleans receives numerous requests to locate current local health and disease statistics. The library houses the complete run of the Louisiana Morbidity Report (LMR). Currently the library is using Reference Web Poster to launch the database to the web and a University server to store the database.
Brief Description:
Public health publications issued by state agencies contain unique primary data. However, accessing this data is problematic. These publications have limited distribution and sporadic publishing histories. Title changes are frequent, and locating a complete run is difficult. None of these titles are covered by any of the published indexing sources. Despite their problems, these publications offer detailed local health information. Unfortunately, state reports are often overlooked because of their inaccessibility.
Results:
Indexing the LMR and launching the web-searchable database has resulted in increased awareness of this grey literature. Locating state morbidity data is faster and easier.
Future Goals:
Identifying other states’morbidity titles and locating complete holdings are the next step in this project. Using the LMR database as a model, others will be able to index their publications for linking to our web site.
Evaluation Method:
Access to state morbidity data will be monitored by counting the number of visits to the site http://melvil.lsumc.edu/ris/risweb.isa
The Grey Literature Report: Acquiring, Organizing, and Publicizing Fugitive Literature in Health Policy and Public Health
By Marie Tomlinson Ascher - The New York Academy of Medicine New York, USA
Purpose:
The Grey Literature Report announces new acquisitions of fugitive publications in health policy and public health. This paper will describe acquisition, organization, and announcement of grey literature publications.
Setting/Participants/Resources
The New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) is a research institute studying urban health, public health, and health policy. NYAM’s Library is one of the largest medical collections in the United States. Its collection is developed based largely on the needs of Academy staff.
Brief Description:
NYAM staff and other professionals have expressed a need for access to grey literature in their fields. Much health policy and public health literature takes the form of technical reports, white papers, and government documents -- grey literature -- much of which is also published on the web. This author tracks organizations’ publications and acquires relevant documents for the NYAM collection..
Results/Outcome:
The Grey Literature Report is located at http://www.nyam.org/library/greylit/. The publications found therein receive special cataloging treatment, and are added to the NYAM collection.
Evaluation:
The Grey Literature Report has been well received by Academy staff and health sciences l ibrarians. The impact of the Report will be discussed, as will evaluation methods.
Set Your Sites on MSDS Providers
By Hongjie Wang - University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, USA
This comparative study of Internet MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) providers gives MSDS users a current understanding of MSDS information on the Internet. It updates a similar study executed four years ago. The findings of the study are intended as recommendations to be used by medical librarians, environmental compliance specialists, hazardous materials directors, coordinators of chemical safety, employees and other health care professionals in their search for MSDS. For comparison, six freely available US Web sites with most MSDS records currently identified on the Internet are evaluated. Ten chemicals were randomly selected from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) List of Highly Hazardous Chemicals, Toxics and Reactives (Mandatory) published in 1993. Each of the selected Web sites was checked for the chemical to determine comprehensiveness of coverage, ease of search and quality of documentation. The test results show that while MSDS providers abound on the Internet, they are not created equal. Changes in Internet technology lead to changes in the dissemination, storage and access of MSDSs. MSDS users should be aware of the quality issues involved in searching MSDSs online and should know which MSDS sites to choose for effective searching.
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http://www.mcb.co.uk/ijgl.htm |
ISSN 1466-6189 |
International Journal on Grey Literature
Volume 1, Number 2, 2000
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Contents
50 Access to The International Journal on Grey Literature online
51 Abstracts & keywords
53 Editorial
54 The impact of alternative presses on scientific communication
Irwin Weintraub
61 The alternative media: open sources on what's real
Daniel C. Tsang
64 An architecture for grey literature in a R&D context
Keith G. Jeffery
73 Interview with Dominic Farace, founder of GreyNet
Julia Gelfand
77 Attitudes and use of complementary and alternative medicine by California family physicians
Michael A. Amster, Greg Cogert, Desiree A. Lie, Joseph E. Scherger
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New products in grey literature
82 Information Technology Road Maps: a bibliographic database pilot project
Gerry McKiernan
Out and about with Grey Literature: seeing the world
87 Information and literacy in a time of AIDS: observations of Ethiopia today: a case for grey literature
Marlena Wald
90 Announcements
90 New books and resources
91 Call for Papers
92 Notes for contributors
IJGL Editorial Address
Julia Gelfand, Editor
Applied Sciences Librarian
University of California, Irvine
Science Library 228
Irvine, CA 92623-9556
USA
Email: : jgelfand@uci.edu
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GreyNet New Domain & Redesign
http://www.greynet.org
Welcome to the recently redesigned GreyNet website, containing information regarding The Grey Literature Network Service. Please explore the site via the navigation menu at the top of each page.
Email: greynet@greynet.org
Annotated Bibliography on the topic of Grey Literature
Now in its Fourth Edition
ISBN 90-74854-26-5
The fourth edition of this bibliography contains more than 750 records. When available, abstracts and information on accessing 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.
PEER - A Public Enterprise in Editing and Review
Bibliographic records on the topic of Grey Literature are currently compiled in a special database for retrieval, distribution, and research purposes. If you have published a book, report, journal article, conference paper, etc. on the topic of Grey Literature and do not find the information included in the GreyNet online database (http://www.greynet.org/databases/bibbase.html), please send an abstract of that document with the accompanying bibliographic information. A copy of the document is likewise welcome but is not required.
If you have done the abstracting of one or more documents dealing with the topic of Grey Literature, these will also be included in the database. Both the name of the author and the person who provided the abstract will be entered in the record.
Guidelines for the Submission of Abstracts
The abstract should be in English and it should not exceed 100 words. The abstract should deal with the problem and/or hypothesis, the method and/or procedure of the study, and the specific results and/or conclusions.
If the submitter of the abstract is different from the author/editor, please provide the name of the submitter.
Forwarding Address:
GreyNet, Grey Literature Network Service
MCB University Press, 60-62 Toller Lane,
Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK, BD8 9BY
Tel : +44 1274 777700
Fax : +44 1274 785200
Email : greynet@greynet.org
Bibliography Submission Form
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