LibGuides: Evidence Synthesis: Searching Grey Literature

What is Grey Literature?

Grey Literature (or gray) consists of publications produced outside traditional academic channels. Keep in mind that grey lit doesn't always go through a peer-review process.

Examples of Grey Lit:

annual reports
policy
working papers
newsletters
government publications
speeches
white papers
conference abstracts or presentations
proceedings
dissertations and theses

Search Tips

Below are examples of how to limit your database search results to show grey literature.

ProQuest Databases	Limit by "Source Type," selecting Conference Papers & Proceedings, Reports, Working Papers, etc.
EBSCOhost Databases	Limit by "Publication Type," selecting Conference Paper, Dissertation, Conference Proceedings, etc.

Grey Lit Repositories

Open Grey
System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe, is your open access to 700.000 bibliographical references of grey literature (paper) produced in Europe and allows you to export records and locate the documents.
Grey Literature Report
The report is a bimonthly publication of The New York Academy of Medicine alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected urban health topics.
OAIster
A catalog of millions of records of open access digital resources, created by the Open Archives Initiative.
Directory of Open Access Journals
The Directory of Open Access Repositoires, OpenDOAR, is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories

Google Scholar
Multidisciplinary scholarly search engine. Covers peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and articles from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities, and other scholarly organizations. Includes links to USU resources when on campus.