Grey Literature Sample Clauses

Grey Literature. The term grey literature is used to describe a collection of documents which are not published in the traditional sense of the word, both in hard copy and digitally. In 1997, at the Third International Conference on Grey Literature, a definition was agreed by participants: “that which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers” (Xxxxxx & Schoptimefel, 2010). It is not a term used exclusively in the archaeological domain, but stems from the library and information science communities (Falkingham, 2005). One of the first, and pivotal, discussions of grey literature ironically does not actually use the term grey literature, but is called Use of Reports Literature (Auger, 1975). It was only in 1989 that Xxxxx phrased the term in his pub- lication Information Sources in Grey Literature. From these early discussions to more recent studies (Xxxx, 2010), it seems that grey literature is more or less synonymous with reports literature, although it can also include conference proceedings, official documents and theses. Researchers often perceive grey literature as being of lesser quality than tra- ditionally published ‘white’ literature, as it is not peer reviewed and does not necessarily have quality control (although often rigorous standards and require- ments exist for these documents). This leads to the unfortunate perception that the researchers who publish grey literature are of lesser quality also. Just using the word ‘grey’ changes our perception of this literature, as it conjures connota- tions of ‘dull’, ‘drab’, and other similarly negative concepts (Xxxx, 2010).