Grey Literature

On the 9^th March I attended two training sessions about grey literature.

It’s a bit of a grey area – how to use grey literature in health and care

The first session I attended was presented by Deena Maggs and Lynsey Hawker of the Kings Fund. The theme of their presentation was “It’s a bit of a grey area – how to use grey literature in health and care”.

The presentation began with a definition of what grey literature is. The definition used was:

“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.” Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature – Prague (2010)

The Kings Fund use grey literature often in the course of their work and the publications that they produce are themselves grey literature.

It was recommended that when searching the Kings Fund library datababase searches are kept simple. If more complex searches are required the Kings Fund database is included in the HMIC database.

Appraising grey literature can be a challenge. One way to do this is to use the CRAAP test.

Currency – the timeliness of the information

Relevance – The importance of the information for your needs

Authority – The source of the information

Accuracy – The reliability, truthfulness and correctness of the content

Purpose – The reason the information exists

It can be a challenge to encourage researchers to include grey literature in their research. Grey literature is perceived as being not as reliable as published research and it can be harder to find relevant grey literature than research published in traditional journals and books. Grey literature can be produced using robust methods, such as the reports produced by the Kings Fund and other similar organisations. Information professionals need to have the confidence to encourage researchers to include grey literature in their research. To make sure that the researchers have realistic expectations from the beginning of the research process.

Google can be a useful tool to help identify grey literature. If specific sites need to be searched such as UK Parliament or gov.uk it can be easier to use the Google site search rather than the websites own search function.

Some issues using web searches for grey literature searches are that it may be difficult to find final versions of documents. Websites often upload draft versions or documents and then do not remove them when the final version is published. During a discussion on this topic librarians reported having to contact organisations to try and track down the correct version.

There was a discussion about how Future NHS can be used to support research. This is a virtual collaboration platform for NHS staff. Many teams share and publish their work on this site, so it is a good place to find various types of projects being undertaken and learn about developments and discussions taking place within the NHS.

Decolonising and grey literature

The second grey literature session I attended was “Decolonising and grey literature” delivered by John Barbrook from the University of Lancaster.

This session followed on well from the earlier session as the focus was on how to decolonise the literature that we include in research, systematic reviews in particular.

It is important that we don’t only include research conducted in the West about the “Global South” but that we include research produced in the “Global South”. It can be a challenge to include this type of grey literature as platforms are much smaller, can be switched on and off so that they are there one day and not the next. This type of grey literature won’t necessarily be in English so searches may need to be in several different languages to ensure that all the relevant information is captured.

When developing searches the terminology used should be carefully considered, if it is Eurocentric this may be a barrier to finding relevant grey literature. Many types of review make it much easier to include this type of information, such as realist reviews and qualitative reviews.

As in the first session it was emphaisised how useful Google can be to find this type of information if searched correctly. Using advanced searches to restrict to site codes, publication types and date limits. Lancaster University have included more detained information about how to search Google on the Google searching section of their Decolonising Literature Searches LibGuide.

There is more information from Lancaster about how to decolonise literature searches on their Decolonising Literature Searches LibGuide.

A recording of this presentation (Decolonising and grey literature) is available on YouTube.

Webinar: realist reviews and synthesis

Today I attended a webinar by Professor Andrew Booth on realist reviews and synthesis, and how librarians can support this form of research. I have written up my summary of the event on my own blog. The event was recorded, and I am happy to share the recording to any colleagues who express an interest.

Cambridge Libraries Conference panel: What does the wider institution think?

I attended one panel at this year’s Cambridge Libraries Conference: a discussion between librarians, students, and a representative from the Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning about their experiences learning during the pandemic. My reflections are over on my own blog.

Webinar: rapid qualitative evidence synthesis

I attended a webinar on rapid qualitative evidence synthesis, delivered by Evidence Synthesis Ireland. I have written up a report of the webinar on my own blog.

UHMLG Forum: rapid reviews

This morning I attended a webinar on rapid reviews, presented by systematic reviews expert Mala Mann. I have written up a report on my own blog.

Webinar: making the pivot to online

I’ve just left a training session delivered by the Open University, about best practice for delivering online training. I have written up my thoughts on my own blog.

More reflections on online training

I’ve written another post about my experiences of delivering online training, two months on. You can read it on my blog.

Working remotely: delivering online training

I wrote something on my own blog about taking my first steps into delivering online training. You can read it here.

STEMM Mini Away Day

It was great to attend the STEMM Mini Away Day this morning. It was good to get the opportunity to speak with colleagues who I’ve never met before and to hear their ideas and what is working well in their libraries but also the challenges that they are facing too. It was quite a relaxed event, beginning with some group discussions which were then followed by some lightening talks.

Communication and collaboration came out as quite a key topic with much discussion around the new STEMM SharePoint, including its advantages and the issues associated with it. Access for users from the Medical Library and from the Judge is problematic but hopefully is now/will be resolved. Although colleagues were very much agreed that communication and collaboration is a good thing, colleagues sometimes feel bombarded with the amount of emails they receive and then having to check SharePoint etc. on top of this can be quite overwhelming. John Clarke has asked for any suggestions regarding how to make the STEMM SharePoint better. There was also a suggestion there was a suggestion that the Medical Library CPD blog could flow into the STEMM SharePoint and then colleagues from other libraries could benefit from this.

Veronica and Charlotte Smith (Engineering) gave great lightening talks on different ways to present training including ‘pick and mix’ training to suit NHS employees that doesn’t rely on the use of technology, but a card sorting exercise instead. Whereas Charlotte made use of Lego when she carried out some co-teaching in her session, to provide a foundation for the concept of data which can sometimes feel quite abstract.

Lynne is collating all of the feedback and suggestions from both of the away days and will be disseminating this in due course.

Academic integrity workshop

I attended a Librarians In Training workshop on academic integrity, and have written up my thoughts on my own blog.