23rd International Conference on

Grey Literature
December 6-7th, 2021

Taming Content from

NGOs, IGOs and
Think Tanks
Toby Green
Co-Founder, Coherent Digital
@tobyabgreen
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9601-9130
toby.green@coherentdigital.net
To start: some reflections on Grey Literature

Information resources that have been “overlooked,

minimized, and occasionally vilified”.
“Junk science, science for hire, shoddy scholarship”

“The cameleon of information resources in that

it can constitute virtually anything and be
written for and by anyone in almost any format”

Source: Rucinski, Taryn (2015). "The elephant in the room: toward a definition of grey legal literature". Law Library Journal. 107 (4): 543–559.
To start: more reflections on Grey Literature

“vast body of documents” with “continuing increasing

quantity” that are characterised by “difficulty it presents to
the librarian”.

McDermott (1995): “You know you have grey literature when

you can’t place a standing order for it”.

grey literature holds a number of advantages including

“greater speed, greater flexibility and the opportunity to go
into considerable detail if necessary”
“half-published” with a “complex inter-relationship with
scientific journals”
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literature and http://www.opengrey.eu/item/display/10068/700015
Grey Literature – ‘Prague definition’

"Grey literature stands for manifold document types produced on all levels of government,
academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats that are protected by
intellectual property rights, of sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by library
holdings or institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers i.e., where
publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body."
“Prague Definition” 2011
Source: http://www.opengrey.eu/item/display/10068/700015

Natarajan (2006) “GL, also known as the grey or hidden web, the information that is not searchable
or accessible through conventional search engines or subject directories”.
Grey Literature – ‘Toby’s definition’

Valuable stuff that’s hard

to find, difficult to use,
and might disappear
Valuable stuff that’s easy Valuable stuff that’s hard
to find and use, now and to find, difficult to use,
into the future and might disappear
Valuable stuff that’s easy Valuable stuff that’s hard
to find and use, now and to find, difficult to use,
into the future and might disappear

o rd ” atu re ?
r ly rec L ite r
sc h o la Grey
“The
 Is there an
invisible
‘far side’ to the
scholarly
record?
If you didn’t know it already, Tidal Lock means only one side of the
moon is visible from Earth – and the sides are very different.

The ‘near side’ has The ‘far side’

dried up lava fields doesn’t
Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
 “12 timely reports as COP26 nears”
Source: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/10/12-timely-reports-as-start-of-cop26-nears/

‘Scholarly record’ ‘Grey Literature?’

Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

 Do they
12 timely reports as COP26 count as scholarship?
nears

‘Scholarly record’ ‘Grey Literature?’

Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

 Is this Far side StuffTM trustworthy? Has it been peer-reviewed?

International Institute for

Sustainable Development

International Energy Agency

88%
88% of grey
policy literature goes
through an expert
review process
before publication!s

1
Lawrence, A. (2017) Influence seekers: The production of grey literature
for policy and practice, Information Services & Use, 37 (4) 389-403
Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
So why is this Far side Stuff TM
not visible
12 timely reports in the ‘Scholarly
as COP26 nears record’?

‘Scholarly record’ ‘Grey Literature?’

Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Because Near Side StuffTM is . . . and Far Side StuffTM isn’t –
released by ‘publishers’ . . . it’s self-published

Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

The difference isn’t in the quality of the content . . .
It’s in the quality of the ‘M&M’ (metadata & management systems) . . .
"Pooh-pooh to the Whos!"
he was grinchily humming.
"They're finding out now
that no Christmas is
coming!

Why can’t I see

anything?
Scholarly Record StuffTM is ‘tamed’ with professional, standardised, metadata
12 timely
& management systems: reports
making as COP26
it easily found,nears
cited and preserved.

Far side StuffTM lives in

the ‘wild’, untamed,
unmanaged. Lost to
the scholarly record.
And sometimes lost
altogther . . . 404
here I come!

‘Scholarly record’ ‘Grey Literature?’

Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Far side StuffTM is born-digital, takes advantage of ‘web 2.0’, and is free from
12 timely reports
the constraints of analogue-era as COP26
formats . . . But nears
...

‘Scholarly record’ ‘Grey Literature?’

Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

But . . . Far Side organizations may use Web2.0 tools but they don’t use
scholarly publishing people – there are no standards or norms.

Unless you’re
looking for our
reports, because
they’re not here. I hope you’re not
trying to find an old
publication or use
an old link . . .

Are you an expert in

IPCC jargon?
Because if not . . . I wish you luck . . .
How big is this problem?
How much content 12 timely reports
is missing asScholarly
from the COP26 nears
Record?

00 J our nals From 7,500

35,0 organizations

‘Scholarly record’ ‘Grey Literature?’

Photo: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

 And this is why we’ve developed Coherent Digital’s Commons platform.
To tame wild, ‘Far side’, StuffTM and make it part of the scholarly record.

Reports, Datasets,
Interactive charts & maps,
blog posts, videos, papers
. . . And, yes, articles and
books too!

Videos, VR
Experiences
Behind the scenes we have crawlers and filters that fetch wild,
‘Far side’, StuffTM and ‘tame’ it with scholarly ‘M&M’.
What else does our Commons enable?

Extraction of
Organisation Automatic tables from Community
records tagging PDFs Uploads:
publications or links
to resources
Missing the Far
Side content
you need? Tell
us and we’ll get
MARC records
it for you.
COUNTER usage data
 How do we ‘wrap’ and present Far Side content?

Downloadable
citation with PID

Link to
Summary Organisation
record

Author details
(if we can find
them!) And users can
make lists

Tags and Topics

And a ton of
facets to help
find the Far Side
StuffTM you need
Valuable stuff that’s easy Valuable stuff that’s hard
to find and use, now and to find, difficult to use,
into the future and might disappear

o rd ” atu re ?
r ly rec L ite r
sc h o la Grey
“The
Valuable stuff that’s easy Valuable stuff that’s hard
to find and use, now and to find, difficult to use,
into the future and might disappear

co rd ”
r ly re
sc h o la
“The
Valuable stuff that’s easy Valuable stuff that’s hard
“The
to find and use, now andscholarly record”
to find, difficult to use,
into the future and might disappear

co rd ”
r ly re
sc h o la
“The
PISA Declaration on Policy Development for Grey
Literature Resources (2014)

Organizational
1. Greater commitment to open access by governments and organizations.
2. Greater cooperation and coordination among organizations engaged in the
production, use, collection and management of grey literature.
3. The use of persistent identifiers and open metadata standards for grey
literature.
Financial/Sustainable
11. Identifying available funding for research involving grey literature.
12. Increased support for collection development and long term preservation of
grey literature.
13. Increased investment in infrastructure and new technologies for accessing and
using print and digital grey literature.

Research/Educational Technical
4. New forms of recognition and reward for quality grey literature materials 14. Strategies to tackle link rot and enhance the stability and accessibility of online
by governments, universities and other institutions. content.
5. Improved standards in the production and bibliographic control of grey 15. Systems for linking data and other non-textual content to their grey literature
literature. publications together with interoperability standards for sharing grey literature.
6. Development and implementation of interoperable standards in the
management of grey literature.
7. Development of good practice guides for the production, dissemination,
and evaluation of grey literature.

Legal
8. Changes to legal deposit and copyright law that enhance the capacities of
libraries, collecting services and educational institutions and programs to
collect and provide access to grey literature, particularly non-commercial
public interest materials. Source:
9. Addressing legal obstacles to the dissemination of grey literature. http://greyguide.isti.cnr.it/index.php/greyguideportal/pisa-declarati
10. Further strides in licensing grey content for both commercial and non- on/pisa-declaration-22-language
commercial purposes.
PISA Declaration on Policy Development for Grey
Literature Resources (2014)

Organizational
1. Greater commitment to open access by governments and organizations.
2. Greater cooperation and coordination among organizations engaged in the
production, use, collection and management of grey literature.
3. The use of persistent identifiers and open metadata standards for grey
literature.
Financial/Sustainable
11. Identifying available funding for research involving grey literature.
12. Increased support for collection development and long term preservation of
grey literature.
13. Increased investment in infrastructure and new technologies for accessing and
using print and digital grey literature.

Research/Educational Technical
4. New forms of recognition and reward for quality grey literature materials 14. Strategies to tackle link rot and enhance the stability and accessibility of online
by governments, universities and other institutions. content.
5. Improved standards in the production and bibliographic control of grey 15. Systems for linking data and other non-textual content to their grey literature
literature. publications together with interoperability standards for sharing grey literature.
6. Development and implementation of interoperable standards in the
management of grey literature.
7. Development of good practice guides for the production, dissemination,
and evaluation of grey literature.

Legal
8. Changes to legal deposit and copyright law that enhance the capacities of
libraries, collecting services and educational institutions and programs to
collect and provide access to grey literature, particularly non-commercial
public interest materials. Source:
9. Addressing legal obstacles to the dissemination of grey literature. http://greyguide.isti.cnr.it/index.php/greyguideportal/pisa-declarati
10. Further strides in licensing grey content for both commercial and non- on/pisa-declaration-22-language
commercial purposes.
 23rd International Conference on
Grey Literature
December 6-7th, 2021

Thank you
Toby Green
Co-Founder, Coherent Digital
@tobyabgreen
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9601-9130
toby.green@coherentdigital.net