GreyNet’s Journey into the Field of Grey Literature

GreyNet International, the Grey Literature Network Service, was founded in 1992. Over the past thirty plus years, GreyNet serves subject based communities producing, processing, distributing, preserving, and bringing awareness to the value of grey literature for science and society.

Grey literature a field in information science, shares many definitions much like other fields of science. It is published on all levels of (non)government, academics, business and industry in textual and non-textual formats not controlled by commercial publishers, that is where publishing is not the sole activity of the producing body. Early on, GreyNet moved from a demand-side perspective on grey literature to a supply-demand side perspective. This in itself broadened the range of stakeholders from librarians and documentalists to include the authors and researchers along with their publishing organizations. It is in this way, that grey literature could distance itself from ephemera and vanity press.

Owing to the support of its associate members and established partnerships with leading organizations, GreyNet has been able to enhance the status of grey literature publications by including their associated research data and audio-visual counterparts. GreyNet adhered early on to the implementation of the FAIR principles: Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability by assigning rich metadata and digital persistent identifiers such as the DOI, ORCiD, and ROR-ID to its publications. GreyNet International became a DOI minter via DataCite in 2018 and has since instructed and encouraged its author-researcher base to apply for their ORCiD and ROR IDs.

However, when a document in textual and/or non-textual format carries an ISBN, ISSN, DOI, ORCiD, ROR ID, and/or Funder-ID accompanied by rich metadata; and, when it is housed in an open access repository, data archive, or portal why then is it not considered published? 

Given that the review process undergone by commercial publishers is not one that fits all; and, given that an organization in grey literature has been assigned a ROR-ID and their authors and researchers each have an ORCiD, has their work not undergone a review process? 

Likewise, if by conventional, one implies prevailing, prevalent, current, ubiquitous, and widespread – then is grey literature not more deserving the term conventional? It is multiple times more abundant than commercial publications, timelier in production, and openly accessible.

One may rightly conclude that without due consideration of the studies that have been carried out in the field of grey literature over the past three decades and without implementation of the technological developments that have impacted this field of information, then misconceptions will be reiterated UNFAIRLY.