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Social Work: Grey Literature

What is Gray Literature?

What is Grey Literature?

The term grey literature is used to describe a wide range of different information that is produced outside of traditional publishing and distribution channels, and which is often not well represented in indexing databases.

A widely accepted definition in the scholarly community for grey literature  is ...

"information produced on all levels of government, academia, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing" ie. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body." 

From: Third International Conference on Grey Literature in 1997 (ICGL Luxembourg definition, 1997  - Expanded in New York, 2004).

Grey Literature

Gray Literature are reports that are published by professional organizations on specific issues, policies, initiatives.