ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ D ecem ber 1999 / 909 New frontiers in Grey Literature Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature by G regory A. Finnegan G L ’99 gathered some 105 people from 22 countries; not quite half w ere au­ thors or co-authors o f presentations. It the fourth in a series o f biennial conferences, alternating betw een Europe and the United States, founded by Dominic Farace under the aegis of his GreyNet (Grey Literature Network Service). For librarians, w ho made up perhaps a quarter of the attendees, it was an exciting opportunity to discuss issues and solutions to w hat are very m uch “o u r” issues with people w ho have shared concerns but aren’t part of our daily interactions. This is espe­ cially the case for academic librarians, w hose perspectives differed significantly from spe­ cial librarian’s. The heterogeneity of the conference is suggested by the list of sponsors: BIOSIS, JST (Japan Science and Technology Corporation), MCB University Press, NASA, and the U.S. National Library o f Education. Major database producers and consumers, then, along with commercial publishers and producers and consumers of large quantities of what w e were soon used to calling “GL.” In formal terms, the conference’s defini­ tion o f Grey Literature was so broad as to include a large part of w hat college and re­ search libraries hold: that which is produced on all levels of government, academics, busi­ w ness and industry in print and electronic for­ mats, but w hich is not controlled by com­ asm ercial publishers. Taken literally, that means university press monographs and journals of learned societies (those not sold to mega­ publishers, at least) w ould be Grey Litera­ ture. In the event, however, the presenters and discussants focused on the concerns that drew academic librarians to attend: material produced by researchers and institutions for limited distribution. Even with a narrower definition, there were a great many issues raised. The program was organized around three themes: • “Global Assessment o f Grey Literature: A Brave New World of Topics, Formats, and Uses”; • “Publishing and Archiving Electronic Grey Literature: From Production to Full-Text Storage, Retrieval and Distribution”; and • “Copyright and Grey Literature: Author­ ship, Ownership, and Property Rights.” C re a tin g buckets o f in form ation Two of the best papers came from systems designers. Michael L. Nelson of NASA’s Lan­ gley Research Center, writing with Kurt Maly from Old Dominion University, talked about “Preserving the Pyramid of STI Using Buck­ ets.” Concerned that even w hen research is A bout th e a u th or G regory A. Finnegan is associate librarian fo r p u b lic services a n d head o f reference in Tozzer Library a t Harvard University, e -m a il: g re g o ry_ fin n e g a n @ h a rva rd .e d u CONFERENCE CIRCUIT mailto:gregory_finnegan@harvard.edu 910 / C&RL News ■ D ecember 1999 formally published, the journal article is at best an abstract of a much larger body of data and programs, Nelson and Maly are de­ v elo p in g a m etad ata system to link, in archivally secure ways, articles, conference papers, technical reports, databases, and project-specific software so that future re­ searchers will be able to retrieve far more of what underlies the scientific literature. Further, they plan “intelligent-agent” fea­ tures such that “buckets” will create links to other buckets on the basis of common au­ thorship, shared topics, or shared methods and instruments; researchers will then be led to a wider network of similar works. A u tom atin g link m anagem ent Jens Vigen, one of several attendees from CERN, the birthplace of the Web, spoke (won­ derfully, without text or illustrations) of his work with Elena Lodi of the University of Siena on “Link Managers for Grey Literature.” CERN works with Los Alamos in handling the great mass of physics preprints. As 200 articles arrive each day, with, say, 20 refer­ ences each, some 4,000 citations must be in­ put daily. Vigen and Lodi are trying to auto­ mate the process of matching and linking published articles to the preprints already online, which raises many questions (most especially of the permanence o f URL’s for e- journal articles). Vigen began by observing that the gen­ eral hype for a Web-based “digital library” overlooks the fact that hard-copy libraries are based on “shelf organization” to co-locate re­ lated w orks, which, o f course, facilitates browsing. Vigen quoted a study that found an average of 18 mouse clicks between 2 related Web pages—far too clumsy a method for research, hence the attempt to automate links. C o p yrigh t issues The international quality of the conference meant that copyright issues were addressed in new and different ways. Most U.S. discus­ sion of current copyright belabors how our library practices are changed and constrained as U.S. law comes into conformity with Eu­ rope. The European presenters, however—and some from the United States!—discussed what kinds of protections are routine there, but are lacking here—such as the right of a cre­ ator to withdraw a work. Michael Seadle, from Michigan State Uni­ versity Library, gave an excellent talk on “Grey Copyrights for Grey Literature: National As­ sumptions, International Rights,” which, with well-chosen illustrations, made clear many large and unresolved issues regarding con­ trol of intellectual property, print and digital. Dave Davis from the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), w hich he semi-facetiously styled as “a reproduction rights organization,” gave an excellent and witty overview of the many and varied rights contained in what we mistakenly think of as discrete books. His fantastic and intimidating “bundle of rights” diagram (Jackson Pollock with a law degree!) made it clear that digitizing books, articles, and technical reports is not simple. A novel, for example, will have potentially differently held rights to translate, serialize, dramatize, broadcast and digitize, among oth­ ers. And even these have multiple facets— movies vs. television, CD-ROM vs. Internet, etc. The illustrations in a book very likely are “ow ned” by someone—a “corporation” is a legal person—other than the book’s author and publisher. Some “chapters” in Virginia Tech dissertations are previously published articles, and some authors could not obtain rights to post their own work in their disser­ tation—whose online version may have a ci­ tation in place of a chapter! Davis posed the question of how copying GL—as with CCC license—turns un- or semi­ published works into “commercial literature.” Could CCC licenses measure an “impact fac­ tor” à la ISI’s citation indexing? Davis quoted Mark Twain: “Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. Whenever a copyright law is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble.”1 Other topics discussed Beside the formal papers and mini-papers in breakout sessions, GL ’99 had product pre­ sentations by vendors and lunches grouped by topics. Librarians were particularly interested in the massive schemes—not least by Farace’s own GreyNet—to make it easier and faster (continued on page 913) C&RL News ■ D ecem ber 1999 / 911 B u ild in g a bigger, b e tte r Muse (r) Project MUSE now includes scholarly journals from ten university presses! Building on the original 47 scholarly titles offered by Johns Hopkins, the MUSE collection now offers 112 full-text journals online. By merging these titles into a single database, MUSE provides scholars with the critical content they need, combined with all o f the benefits o f electronic subscriptions, including full-text and field searching, easy navigation, and full campus availability 24 hours a day. W ith our expanded list, faster servers and increased searching options, your users will find research has never been easier. And as a librarian, there’s no better value for your dollar— the list price of $8,000 is much less than the cost o f subscribing to these titles in print. O ur flexible subscription options include discipline-oriented packages and single-title ordering to best meet your collection development needs. Substantial discounts are also offered for consortium, smaller and special libraries. Contact us now to see why there’s more to MUSE than ever before. N o w M use in c lu d e s jo u r n a ls from : P r o je c t Mu se® Setting the standard for scholarly electronic jo u rn als in the hum anities and social sciences. | h t t p : / / m u s e . j h u . e d u Preview the expanded Project MUSE now. Contact us for your free trial subscription at muse@muse.jhu.edu or 1-800-548-1784. S e c w h a t w e ’ve b u ilt. The Johns Hopkins University Press mailto:muse@muse.jhu.edu C&RL News ■ D ecem ber 1999 / 913 librarians. Because librarians see and under­ stand w here the students are and how far they need to go to becom e information liter­ ate, it is the librarians’ responsibility to make the need for this education known. And we are well qualified to illuminate this need. Who teaches more students every year than the librarians? We are in a unique position to speak about student trends, com­ petencies, and characteristics that can only be seen w hen working with such large seg­ ments of the student population annually. After grading library assignments from every first-year student (whom I’ve met in their col­ lege writing classes at the onset of their research paper), I see w here they are and know how much they have to accomplish to become capable lifelong learners. (I am also very tired.) I’ve met the w hole first-year class, so, over time, I will have met the w hole under­ graduate student body (minus transfers). I will see many of them later w hen upper-division classes come for one-shots, and w hen indi­ vidual students com e to the reference desk— so I can see how much they’ve learned, and w hat they still need to learn. I also m eet with graduate classes, and see w here they are. When these research skills and cognitive developm ents are overlooked, the library is overlooked, as well. O ur teaching function is forgotten … our budget requests seem low priority … our study carrels are empty … people can’t remember why they should come to the library. Perhaps our strongest argument for the library as a place, is no longer, “This is w here all the stuff is,” but, “This is w here the librar­ ians are!” If yo u w ere try in g to im p ro v e y o u r hookshot, w ould you take your basketball to the cafeteria and ask an unathletic passerby to critique your form? So w hen research is the game, why not come to the library, and have a librarian nearby w hen you get stuck? The voice o f the librarian should be a clarion call that establishes the presence of the library at the center of the university. We must articulate the necessity o f this m onu­ mental laboratory w e call the library. To do it, w e must open the discourse with strong claims, and continue it with lucidity. Forget about com puters and books for a minute— Why are w e really here? We are interested in something bigger: learning. And as we all know, “higher learning” does not merely mean acquiring a larger mental store o f material. It is about process as well: how to look at something wisely how to solve a complex problem; how to put ideas to use. All of these are practiced in the library time and again as part of research. We cannot al­ low this crucial, sustained, experiential learn­ ing to fall by the wayside—forgotten in an age w hen it is needed most, and too many stu­ dents are trying to navigate through trees with­ out having any comprehension of forest. Are professors complaining about the poor quality o f student learning as evidenced in papers based on Internet snippets? Tell them to bring their students to the real place for research— the library, complete with faculty waiting to coach them. ■ ( “New fr o n tie r s .… continued fro m page 910) to gain access to more GL, including self- posted writings by those without institutional affiliations. How w ould such work—referred to by Sociologist Helmut Artus in his paper as “dirty grey literature” with no bibliographic qualities at all—be filtered by users? This question show ed an interesting gap betw een special librarians— w ho did the searching themselves to package results for clients— and academic librarians, w ho could too eas­ ily see the impact on uncritical undergradu­ ates of a Web full of good, bad, and ugly r e s e a rc h in d is crim in a te ly p r e s e n te d by aggregators and engines. Another distinction that becam e evident during the conference related to ephem eral­ ity and obscurity. How much GL was the lar­ val stage o f published research, necessary to identify in the interest o f speed and currency, and how much research of enduring value never will be published beyond the original, GL report? Not addressed was the related question— posed, for example, by U.S. environmental- impact studies, of how much research that used to be published by museum occasional papers and other well-controlled sources is now found in agency branch office contract research reports, far outside the view of li­ braries? Note 1. M ark Twain: Mark T w a in ’s Notebook, May 23, 1903. ■