Other information sources? Grey literature? What is this!

Grey literature has been defined as“…information produced on all levels of government, academia, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body.” (D. Farace & J. Schöpfel (eds.) (2010). Grey Literature in Library and Information Studies. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin.)

When deciding where to look, think about these 3 factors:

…and consider:

4)Search locations: are you searching locally, regionally, nationally?

This list provides only a few producers and collectors of grey literature. ​

Government bodies frequently publish reports and studies on topics relevant to health science. In Canada, government bodies at both the national and provincial levels produce relevant material.

Many institutions have institutional repositories, online databases of publications by their members. These can include publications by faculty and student dissertations and theses.

Conferences are nodes of new research, often featuring studies before they appear in journals.

Students conduct both systematic reviews and original studies for their theses and dissertations. These texts are not usually included in major databases.

U of T’s Theses and Dissertations in the Sciences research guide is an excellent resource, with links for both U of T theses and dissertations and those from other institutions.

“Newspapers B&W (4),” NS Newsflash

Newspapers and magazines can be helpful sources of non-academic information. While the information in newspapers might not be acceptable as a source of scientific evidence, newspapers can often point you to key references or provide a source of evidence for public opinion. 

U of T's research guide on Newspapers includes thorough information and some databases that also index magazines. You can also look up individual magazines in the library catalogue to determine our access.