Searching the
Grey Literature
Searching the grey literature
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What is grey literature?
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What is grey literature?
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Let's look at some examples!
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Why include grey literature?
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Why include grey literature?
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Practical reasons
Bias in research synthesis
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Reviews
Publications
Research Reports
Studies (all data collected)
Bias reasons
Bias in research synthesis
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Reviews
Publications
Research Reports
Studies (all data collected)
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Negative results
Positive results
Bias in research synthesis
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Reviews
Publications
Research Reports
Studies (all data collected)
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Negative results
Positive results
Outcome reporting bias
Publication bias
Confirmation bias
Bias in research synthesis
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Evidence
synthesis
Publications
Research Reports
Studies (all data collected)
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Negative results
Positive results
Grey Literature
Helps thwart the positive results bias
Peer review is very white and western
"Many of the researchers in my areas are wanting to make sure they're amplifying and representing the research of multiply marginalized and underrepresented voices in their area of research. What are strategies for either making sure this is considered in the protocol design and/or the whole process of the evidence synthesis project?"
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Marsolek, W., Farrell, S. L., Kelly, J. A., & Cooper, K. (2021). Grey literature: Advocating for diverse voices, increased use, improved access, and preservation. College & Research Libraries News, 82(2), 58.
Equity reasons
How to find grey literature
Requires creativity and tinkering.
Go to the source:
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Good News!
Some grey lit is easy to locate.
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Some resources that might help
Where to find grey literature
There is no one place to search
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Do traditional databases include grey lit?
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Example: Grey literature sources for agricultural topics
Africa Rice
Australia Centre for International Agricultural Research
Biodiversity International
Campbell Collaboration
Centre for Evidence-Based Agriculture
CGIAR Research Centers and Research Programs
Cochrane Collaboration
Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST)
CTA Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation
Embrapa
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Valuable
resource
for grey lit sources, especially in social sciences
Searching grey literature
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☯
Grey lit search example
Topic: The economic benefits and costs of trees in urban forest stewardship
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Grey lit search example
Topic: The economic benefits and costs of trees in urban forest stewardship
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Grey lit search example
Topic: The economic benefits and costs of trees in urban forest stewardship
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Urban forest AND tree
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147 results
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42 results
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Searching the entire Web site is sometimes necessary
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Hand searching of grey literature
Search engines might be doing a variety of things to your query terms
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Barrick, K., & Riegelman, A. (2021). Phrasing in reproducible search methodology: The consequences of straight and curly quotation marks. College & Research Libraries, 82(7), 978.
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Exercise - Searching a grey lit site
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Bonus if you have time: How would you get the results out of the website/repository and to the team to screen
Comments or questions
about the site you tried?
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Exporting results to facilitate screening
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Exporting grey literature
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🔑
Manually creating RIS files
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Documenting your grey literature search
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Grey Literature Tools – developing but not quite there
⚠️ 🚧
Interested in learning more?
Good news! Whole books and articles are dedicated to grey literature.
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Interested in learning more?
Searching the Grey Literature
By Sarah Bonato
2018
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Interested in learning more?
Marsolek, W. R., Cooper, K., Farrell, S. L., & Kelly, J. A. (2018). The types, frequencies, and findability of disciplinary grey literature within prominent subject databases and academic institutional repositories. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 6(1).
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METHODS Over 100 subject databases utilized by academic researchers and the IRs of over 100 academic institutions were studied. Document type, search capabilities, and level of curation were noted. RESULTS Grey literature was present in the majority (68%) of the literature databases and almost all IRs (95%) contained grey literature.
Interested in learning more?
Cooper, K., Marsolek, W., Riegelman, A., Farrell, S., & Kelly, J. (2019). Grey literature: Use, creation, and citation habits of faculty researchers across disciplines. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 7(1).
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Interested in learning more?
Zahra Premji & Amy Riegelman maintain a preprint repository and aggregator syntax guide
https://lib.uvic.ca/preprintsearchsyntax
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Take home messages
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What question(s) do you have about grey literature and evidence syntheses?
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What question(s) do you have about grey literature and evidence syntheses?
What challenges have you faced in searching grey literature?
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Thanks!
Any questions?�You can find me at:
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