Grey Literature: Home

The Fourth International Conference on Grey Literature (GL '99) in Washington, DC, in October 1999 defined grey literature as follows: "That which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers."

Examples of grey literature include:

• conference abstracts,
• presentations,
• proceedings;
• regulatory data;
• unpublished trial data;
• government publications;
• reports (such as white papers, working papers, internal documentation);
• dissertations/theses;
• patents;  
• and policies & procedures