INSTITUTIONAL GREY LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT

Open Access

Abstract

Initially, attention to grey literature in the academic library was focused on external collections, documents produced by government agencies or research centers. Little, if any, systematic attention was paid to the grey literature that was produced on university campuses. The advent of the Web, while bringing more interest to grey literature in general did not change this situation much. However, the trend toward the creation of institutional repositories has caused a considerable shift in interest. The formalization of collecting, processing and integrating academic institutional gray literature should be critical to the University's mission, irrespective of format, and irrespective of the existence of an active institutional repository.This paper reviews an earlier-in-the-decade study of academic gray literature and provides an updated perspective.