ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ M arch 2004 / 125 I N T E R N E T R E S O U R C E S Gray literature Resources for locating unpublished research by Brian S. Mathews Gray or grey literature has long been considered the proverbial needle in the haystack. It is commonly defined as any documentary material that is not commercially published and is typically composed of technical reports, working papers, business documents, and conference proceedings. The greatest challenges involved with these items are the process of identification, since there is limited indexing, and acquisition, since availabil­ ity is usually marred with uncertainty. Added to this is the absence o f editorial control, raising questions about authenticity and reliability. Yet despite these considerations, gray literature is con­ tinually referenced in scholarly articles and disser­ tations and therefore remains an issue that aca­ demic librarians must contend with. While the search for these eclectic materials is not new, the development of the Web has in­ creased opportunities. Gray literature is now freely available on many Web sites and is selectively in­ dexed by numerous commercial database vendors. Many organizations and individuals are also pro­ viding access to their works online. While all these factors present a new optimism, they also raise expectations that everything is available quickly, if not instantly, creating unrealistic perceptions. Included in this section are Web sites that aid in understanding the nature of gray literature as well as various search tools. The focus is upon freely available resources that offer some full-text coverage. While the majority of these selections concentrate upon scientific and technical litera­ ture, other resources have been included to illus­ trate the wide range and variation of gray litera­ ture. A bout gray literature • IL Toolkit—Finding Information: Gray Literature. This site provides detailed definitions of gray literature and links to many technical re­ port Web sites. Access: http://www.bcinow.com/ demo/iltoolkit2/Types_Gray_Lit.htm. • The Role o f Grey literature in th e Sci­ ences. This site provides a concise overview of gray literature and offers insight regarding its im­ pact on the sciences. Access: http://library. brooklyn.cuny.edu/access/greyliter.htm. • TextRelease: Grey literature Program and Conference Bureau. This site provides in formation about the International Conference on Grey Literature and includes purchasing informa­ tion for past proceedings as well as updates on future sessions. Access: http://www.textrelease. com. Directories • NY A cadem y o f Medicine: Grey Lit­ erature Page. This site focuses on gray literature resources from the medical field and includes an extensive listing of agencies and organizations that produce health-related materials. The site also fea­ tures a quarterly “Grey Literature Report,” listing A bout th e autho r Brian S. Mathews is reference and instruction librarian at George Washington University-Virginia Campus Library, e-mail: bmathews@gwu.edu ©2004 Brian S. Mathews http://www.bcinow.com/ http://library http://www.textrelease 126 / C&RL News ■ March 2004 many items that are available freely online. Access: http://www.nyam.org/library/grey.shtml. • Virtual Technical Reports Central. This site is hosted by the University of Maryland Li­ braries and offers a large listing of gray literature- producing institutions. While technical and re­ search reports are prominent, it also features pre­ prints, reprints, and e-prints. Access: h ttp :// w w w.lib.umd.edu/ENGIN/TechReports/Vir­ tual-TechReports.html. • U.S. Government Information: Techni­ cal Reports. This site is hosted by the University of Colorado Libraries and provides an annotated listing of government agencies and resources re­ lated to technical reports. Access: http://w w w- libraries.colorado.edu/ps/gov/us/techrep.htm. Scientific and technical reports: G o v e rn m e n t resources • Agricultural O nline A ccess (Agricola). This database is administrated by the National Agricultural Library and provides access to records of articles, chapters, reports, and reprints, encom­ passing all aspects of agriculture and allied disci­ plines. Access: http://agicola.nal.usda.gov/. • Energy Citations Database (ECD). This resource was designed by the Department of En­ ergy and covers the areas o f physics, mathematics, engi­ neering, and com­ puter science. The database provides limited full-text availability and indexes books, articles, reports, and conference p apers back to 1948. Access: h ttp ://w w w . osti.gov/energycitations/. • GrayLIT Network. This site provides in­ formation on technical reports generated through federally funded research an d developm ent projects. This meta-search portal includes archives from the Defense Department reports collection, the DOE Information Bridge, EPA Reports, and a selection o f NASA reports. Access: h ttp :// graylit.osti.gov/. • NASA T ech nical R eports Server. This search tool provides comprehensive access to the numerous NASA report archives, including docu­ ments from its predecessor NACA. The site pro­ vides some full-text coverage and indexes back to 1917. The advanced search includes additional p h y sics-related reso u rces. Access: h ttp :// ntrs.nasa.gov/. • National Technical Information Service (NTIS). The NTIS site is a com prehensive re­ source for federally funded scientific, engineering, and business-related information. The database provides some full-text access and indexes over two million publications back to 1990. Access: http://www.ntis.gov/search/. • S cien tific N etw ork a n d In fo rm a tio n N etw o rk (STINET). The STINET site p ro ­ vides access to citations o f unclassified d e ­ fense research documents. Many of the records are available in full-text, and indexing coverage extends back to 1974. Access-. h ttp ://stin et. dtic.mil/. • Transportation Research Inform ation Services (TRIS Online). This database provides access to nearly 500,000 records in transporta­ tion-related fields. Sources include books and ar­ ticles as well as some full-text research studies, technical reports, and conference papers. Access. http://trisonline.bts.gov/sundev/search.cfm. • U.S. Patent Database. This site provides full image access to all U.S.-granted patents back to 1790, with full-text searching back to 1976 and the full-text of published applications. The database also enables searching for references, which can include articles, reports, and proceed­ ings. Access: h ttp ://w w w .u sp to .g o v /p a tft/ index.html. O th e r scientific and technical re p o rt resources • CiteSeer: Scientific Literature D igital Library. This site aims toward improving the distribution and response of scientific literature. It indexes over 600,000 full-text documents and includes fea­ tu res allo w ­ ing for cita­ tion analysis, referen ce linking, aw aren ess tracking, an d more. Additionally, the site provides algorithms, techniques, and software that can be used by o th e r d ig ita l lib r a rie s . Access: h t t p : / / citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs. • MAGiC Project. 'The site aims toward es­ tablishing a collaborative system for the collec­ tion, storage, and use of engineering gray litera- http://www.nyam.org/library/grey.shtml http://www.lib.umd.edu/ENGIN/TechReports/Vir- http://www- http://agiicola.nal.usda.gov/ http://www http://www.ntis.gov/search/ http://stinet http://trisonline.bts.gov/sundev/search.cfm http://www.uspto.gov/patft/ C&RL N ews ■ M arch 2004 / 127 MAGiC ture. Adminis­te r e d b y th e Cranfield Uni­ versity Library in the United Kingdom, MAGiC Project includes a citation database of over 120,000 international technical reports. Access: http://www.magic.ac.uk/. • MathSearch. This site searches a collection of more than 200,000 documents on academic mathematics and statistics servers and includes the full text of some technical reports, working papers, and other eclectic materials. Access: h t t p : / / w w w . m a t h s . u s y d .e d u .a u : 8 0 0 0 / MathSearch.html. • Spires High-Energy Physics (HEP) Da­ tabase. This database comprehensively indexes over 500,000 ar­ ticles, papers, pre­ prints, and techni­ cal reports. Most of the materials are available in full text, with coverage extending back to 1974. Access: http:// www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/hep/. Inform ation technology reports and resources • HP Labs Technical Reports. This site pro­ vides access to technical reports authored by HP researchers. Indexing goes back to 1990, and the site includes mostly full-text materials. Access: http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreport s / . • IBM Research: Technical Paper Search This database provides access to article citations and technical reports authored by the IBM Re­ search community. Indexing goes back to 1987 and includes some full-text materials. Access: h ttp ://d o m in o .w a ts o n .ib m .c o m /lib r a r y / cyberdig.nsf/home. • Microsoft Research: Technical Reports. This mostly full-text database provides access to computer science publications, technical re­ ports, and projects authored by Microsoft re­ searchers. Access, http://research.microsoft.com/ pubs/. • Networked Computer Science Techni­ cal Library (NCSTRL). This resource provides access to an international collection of computer science research reports and papers. The database is designed for educational use and is a collabora­ tive effort between academic, industrial, and gov­ ernm ent research laboratories. Access: h ttp :// www.ncstrl.org. • ZDNET IT D ir e c to r y . This site p ro ­ vides a full-text digital library o f technical white papers, Webcasts, and case studies on vari­ ous IT-related topics. The site requires a free reg­ istration to view materials. Access: h ttp :// itpapers.zdnet.com/. M iscellaneous resources • N ational Standards S ystem s N etw ork (NSSN). A lthough stan d ard s are available commercially, they are typically grouped into the gray literature category. This site provides a federated search tool of m ore than 250,000 records from m ore than 600 developers and links to purchasing information. Access, http:// www.nssn.org /. • Political S cience Sites o f W orking Pa­ pers. This site provides links to scholarly working papers on political science and related fields. Ac­ cess. http://www.workingpapers.org / . • Research Papers in Economics (RePEc). This site is an international collaborative effort to en h a n c e the dissemination of research in economics and related fields. The project includes a mostly full-text database of working papers, journal articles, chapter list­ ings, and downloadable software components. Ac­ cess: http://www.repec.org/. • Search Adobe PDF Online. This Adobe search tool scans millions of PDF docum ents online. It indexes many files undetected by major search engines, and, although results can be var­ ied, it does include a wealth of gray literature. Access, http://searchpdf.adobe.com/. • World Bank Research Resources. This site provides access to working papers, current stu d ie s, an d d atasets from th e World Bank G roup. Access: http ://eco n .w o rld b an k .o rg / resource.php. E-print archives and resources • Clinical Medicine and Health Research NetPrints. This site provides a full-text archive for medical researchers to post their completed clinical studies. Access: http://clinmed.netprints. org/. • Cogprints. This self-archive provides ma­ terial relev an t to th e study of cognition in the areas of psychology, biology, linguis­ tics, and philosophy, as well as in the computer, physical, social, and mathematical sei- http://www.magic.ac.uk/ http://www.maths.usyd http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/hep/ http://www.hpl.hp.com/techrepoits/ http://domino.watson.ibm.com/library/ http://research.microsoft.com/ http://www.ncstrl.org http://www.nssn.oig/ http://www.workingpapers.oig/ http://www.repec.org/ http://searchpdf.adobe.com/ http://econ.worldbank.org/ http://clinmed.netprints 128 / C&RL News ■ March 2004 ences. The site includes full-text access to ar­ ticles, chapters, technical reports, and confer­ ence papers. Access. http://cogprints.ecs.soton. ac.uk/. • Education-line. Administered by the Brotherton Library in the United Kingdom, this site provides full-text access to reports, w ork­ ing papers, and conference documents that sup­ port educational research, policy, and practice. Access: http://w w w .leeds.ac.uk/educol/. • E -p rin t N etw o rk . This site is a m eta­ search for scientific e-print resources and en­ ables federated searching of more than 30 ma­ jor d atab ases an d servers. A ccess: h ttp :// w w w.osti.gov/ eprints/. • GNU E-Prints A rchives. This site pro­ vides a listing o f m ore th an 100 online ar­ chives using e-print software, and includes m any academ ic institutions. Access: h ttp :// software eprints org/archives.p h p . D iscu ssio n lists • E n g in e e r in g L ibrarian s D iv is io n (ELDNET-L). This m oderated list addresses “issues of interest to engineering and related subject area libraries and librarians.” ELDNET- L is sp o n so red by the A merican Society for Engineering Education, Engineering Libraries Division, but is open to all interested subscrib­ ers. Access: h ttp://w w w .englib.cornell.edu/ eld/listserv/eldnetfile.htm l. • GreyNet Listserv. This international mod­ erated list seeks “to facilitate dialog and commu­ nication betw een persons and organi­ sations in the field of grey literature.” in addition to the electronic lists, the site includes information about the International Conference Series on Grey Literature and pro­ vides an extensive categorical listing of resources. Access: http://www.greynet.org. • Science and Technology Librarians S ectio n Listserv (STS-L). This m oderated list “provides a forum through which librar­ ians in scientific and technical subject fields can achieve and maintain awareness of the impact and range of information with which they work.” STS-L is designed for communica­ tion of ACRL’s Science and Technology Sec­ tion, but is open to all interested subscribers. Access: http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/sts-1. html. http://cogprints.ecs.soton http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ http://www.osti.gov/ http://www.englib.cornell.edu/ http://www.greynet.org http://listserv.utk C&RL News ■ March 2004 / 129