Grey literature is ubiquitous. While listening to or reading the daily news, you may come across news stories about the nationwide rise of fentanyl-related drug overdoses, refugee mental health, water safety in rural communities, the presence of the alt-right on college campuses, or even a local news story on the cost of affordable housing in Los Angeles. These stories all have a common thread:...

This book would not have come to fruition without the help of many: Toni Janik, Michelle Brewer, and Michel Atlas for their interest in the topic and providing me with teaching, speaking, and writing opportunities; my employer, the CAMH Library, for supporting numerous occasions for conference attendance and enabling lifelong learning and sharing of ideas; and the Michigan Health Library...

The goal of this chapter is to provide librarians and information professionals with:

The goal of this chapter is to provide librarians and information professionals with an overview on:

A bibliographic database is defined as:

Dissertations and theses are defined as documents “submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author’s research and findings”...

Clinical trials are research studies that explore whether a medical strategy, treatment, or device is safe and effective for humans. Clinical trials are also crucial for identifying which interventions are the most effective for certain illnesses and diseases, or what types of interventions are best for specific populations. Clinical trials have been identified as providing the best available data...

Repositories play a key role in scholarly communication, by both disseminating knowledge output and ensuring the preservation of that knowledge. This knowledge includes research from grey literature publications. The volume of content and the diversity of the content available from repositories is vast, and the number of repositories is increasing. Repositories can be useful, if imperfect, sources...

Conference proceedings, papers, and posters are worthwhile grey literature publication types. Information from conferences plays a key role in disseminating new research and ideas. Additionally, research findings presented at conferences are often imparted years or months before the results are available in published literature; moreover, the results are sometimes never published (Scherer,...

Grey literature search checklists can be a fruitful research tool for identifying relevant grey literature publications, and they may be especially instructive guides for identifying relevant grey literature publications. This chapter will discuss specific grey literature search checklists and other similar sources.

“I’ll Google that” has become part of our conversational lexicon, and Googling is now synonymous with searching the Internet. The Internet search engines prior to Google’s debut are but a faint memory to most (rest in peace, Alta Vista; Infoseek, we hardly knew ya), and Google is more likely than not our first point of contact to locate recipes, news, instructions on how to...

Many types of grey literature, along with grey literature search sources, have been discussed in previous chapters. Yet not all grey literature searches are one and the same. Virginia Woolf said, “I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me,” and in a similar way, grey literature searches often call for varying search methods. This chapter will...

Grey literature is not a static form of publication. There have been agreed-upon definitions of “white literature” for a long time. What constitutes an academic journal article or novel is generally agreed upon. In comparison, grey literature is transforming constantly (Schmidmaier, 1983), and “grey literature” in and of itself is indeed a bit of a catchall...

Sarah Bonato is a reference/research librarian at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario. She is a graduate of the MIS program at the University of Toronto and has a BA in Sociology from Kalamazoo College. At the CAMH Library, she is the team leader for reference, research, and user services. Her other work activities include research,...

Sarah Bonato is a reference/research librarian at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario. She is a graduate of the MIS program at the University of Toronto and has a BA in Sociology from Kalamazoo College. At the CAMH Library, she is the team leader for reference, research, and user services. Her other work activities include research,...

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