Use and Access of Grey Literature in Special Libraries may be Hindered by Lack of Visibility and Cataloguing. A review of: Ranger, Sara L. “Grey Literature in Special Libraries: Access in Use.” Publishing Research Quarterly 21.1 (Spring 2005): 53-63.

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice

关键词: Grey Literature;    Special Libraries;    Access Points;    Information Access;    Cataloguing;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Objective – To examine the barriers tomaking grey literature (literature notcontrolled by commercial publishers) easierto access in special libraries.
Design – Interviews.
Setting – Variety of special libraries(government, corporate and specializedacademic) in the United States.
Subjects – Sixteen librarians from fourteenorganizations in Washington, Michigan andTexas were interviewed. Four of theorganizations were government libraries,four were corporate libraries and five werespecialized academic libraries. One of theinterviews was not used because theorganization did not maintain a collection ofpaper‐based grey literature.
Methods – Librarians were selected aspossible interview subjects via threemethods: some were previously familiarwith the author; some were referred to theauthor by friends, family and colleagues;two candidates volunteered in response to apresentation of the project at a professionalmeeting. Interviews were conductedbetween February 2002 and May 2003. Astandard set of seven questions were used,but often followed with further questions.The interviews were conducted either in thelibrary or the librarian’s office. Theinterviews were tape‐recorded and theanswers were written down. Interviewstypically lasted between fifteen and thirtyminutes and asked about the current state,holdings, access and use of grey literature inthe special library.
Main Results – Results from the interviewssuggest a wide variance in the percentage ofusers that access grey literature. Greyliterature was used less in the corporatelibraries than the academic and governmentlibraries. The percentage of the collectionmade up of grey literature also variedwidely between the different libraries.Reports were found to be the most popularform of grey literature, although most of thelibraries reported owning conferenceproceedings and newsletters in addition toreports. One interesting observation foundduring the interviews was that most of theusers of grey literature are also producers ofgrey literature. The librarians surveyedreported that some of the reasons for usinggrey literature included use in research, towrite (often more grey literature), interest inthe topic, for class assignments, as records ofprevious practices, for localized studies, andfor creating models and practices. Resultsfound that for the libraries surveyed, muchof the grey literature remains uncataloguedand what has been catalogued was doneusing a variety of methods. Over half of thelibraries surveyed had their grey literatureaccessible online.
Conclusion – Two main reasons were citedas explanations for why grey literature wasnot used as much as it should be: lack ofcataloguing and visibility. In many of thelibraries surveyed, much of the greyliterature had not been catalogued, makingit difficult to find and use the resources.Reasons cited for not cataloguing greyliterature include lack of time, funds and/orknowledge. As well, in many of thelibraries surveyed, it was found that theholdings of grey literature were not readilyvisible to the users, so users were not evenaware that it existed.To improve the awareness and accessibilityof grey literature, the author recommendsregional depositories for grey literature,international standards for cataloguing andmore cooperation between special libraries.

【 授权许可】

Unknown