Percentage of Grey/Gray Literature By Field/Discipline (Albert Henderson) ERCELAA@CTRVAX.VANDERBILT.EDU 02 May 2003 13:22 UTC
Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 15:47:01 -0400 From: Albert Henderson <chessNIC@compuserve.com> Subject: Percentage of Grey/Gray Literature By Field/Discipline Sender: Albert Henderson <chessNIC@compuserve.com> The American Psychological Association's Project on Scientific Information Exchange tracked much research submitted as conference papers that never appeared in the archival literature. Garvey & Griffith summarize: "Two thirds of the technical reports produced in 1962 had not achieved journal publication by 1965, and, apparently, the contents of the vast majority of these reports were never submitted for journal publication." (Garvey COMMUNICATION THE ESSENCE OF SCIENCE 1979 P. 136) It has been a long time since I read the original reports, but I believe the APA profject limited its observation to academic work. In 'psychology,' there is considerable grey literature that is not academic in origin. I hope this is helpful. Best wishes, Albert Henderson Former Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000 <70244.1532@compuserve.com> -------------Forwarded Message----------------- From: Gerry Mckiernan <gerrymck@IASTATE.EDU> To: SERIALST Date: 5/1/2003 2:06 PM RE: Percentage of Grey/Gray Literature By Field/Discipline Percentage of Grey/Gray Literature By Field/Discipline I am greatly interested in studies that have calculated the relative percentage of a discipline's literature that is considered grey/gray literature. A fabricated example: Overall the literature of agronomy is 40% gray/grey literature [CITE] GRAY LITERATURE DEFINED [ http://www.moyak.com/researcher/resume/papers/var7mkmkw.html ] "M. C. Debachere has written that it is easier to describe, rather than define grey literature. Collectively the term covers an extensive range of materials that cannot be found easily through conventional channels such as publishers, "but which is frequently original and usually recent" (Debachere 1995,94). Peter Hirtle in Broadsides vs. Grey Literature defines it as: The quasi-printed reports, unpublished but circulated papers, unpublished proceedings of conferences, printed programs from conferences, and the other non-unique material which seems to constitute the bulk of our modern manuscript collections (Hirtle 1991)." [ http://www.moyak.com/researcher/resume/papers/var7mkmkw.html ] To such an amorphous list, one may also wish to add Web/Internet resources, most notably e-prints (of course). NOTE: I am *particularly* interested in the Gray/Grey Literature of Psychology. [I've just begun a literature review but thought I'd also tap The Wisdom of the Web as well] As Always, Any and All contributions, suggestions, comments, queries, questions, basketball coaches, or Cosmic Insights are Most Welcome. /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Gray/Grey Librarian Iowa State University Ames IA 50011 gerrymck@iastate.edu