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“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 libraries and institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers; i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body.” The Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature: Prague 2010 |
This list has been compiled to help librarians and researchers, particularly in Public Health, to find resources that fall into this category and flag up alternative sources for queries not easily resolved by the clinical/medical database model.
To navigate this page, click on the subject heading boxes to view the content within. Text that is underlined is a hyperlink to a website or resource.
Bielefeld University Library tool. Open access repository containing over 400 million documents. CADTH is an independent, not-for-profit organization responsible for providing health care decision-makers with objective evidence to help make informed decisions about the optimal use of health technologies, including: In addition to evidence, they also provide advice, recommendations, and tools. OpenGrey covered Science, Technology, Biomedical Science, Economics, Social Science and Humanities in Europe.Includes:Open access to 700.000 bibliographical references, with the facility to export records and locate the documents.Technical or research reports, doctoral dissertations, some conference papers, some official publications, and other types of grey literature.The site included preprints from the GL conferences (GreyNet International) in full text. A non-profit Open Access publisher, innovator and advocacy organization with a mission to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. Policy Commons is a database indexing grey literature reports from think tanks, agencies, governments and cities across the world. Provides access to almost 3 million pages of publications from organisations that no longer exist and which may not be findable via Google and other search engines. UKHSA staff can access Policy Commons by going to MyAthens and selecting from the database or full resource list. RAND produce reports on a range of public health topics, freely available as eBooks. You can search over 20,000 RAND publications dating back to 1946, and filter by theme. UK database of information and research on all aspects of social care and social work. The Social Care Online website/service closed in March 2024. Data was last updated in March 2023 Accessible by NHS OpenAthens account holders and UKHSA staff Trip Pro is a clinical search engine designed for finding high-quality research evidence to support practice and care. For Local Authority PH teams please activate IP address linkage by emailing jon.brassey@tripdatabase.com UK Health Security Agency Guidance and regulation, Research and Statistics, Policy papers and consultations. View Statistics at UKHSA to see published statistics related to planning, preventing and responding to external health threats. Office for Health Improvement & Disparities Guidance and regulation, Research and Statistics, Policy papers and consultations. View Statistics at OHID to see published statistics on public health topics. APHO – historical data Public Health Observatories Now held in archive. The Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO) represented a network of 12 public health observatories (PHOs) working across the five nations of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Public Health Observatories (PHOs) produced information, data and intelligence on people's health and health care for practitioners, commissioners, policymakers and the wider community. Their expertise lay in turning information and data into meaningful health intelligence. The Office for National Statistics The UK's largest independent producer of official statistics and statistical bulletins, and the recognised national statistical institute of the UK. The University of Auckland Library This is a great starting point for locating official statistical sources by country, region or subject. All of the content in the database is assessed by humans for quality and authority and is freely available. Health statistics This includes both empirical data and estimates related to health, such as mortality, morbidity, risk factors, health service coverage, and health systems. 25 Ministerial Departments Departments, agencies and public bodies Official archive and publisher for the UK government and guardians of over 1,000 years of iconic national documents. This is a non-ministerial government department which is a cultural, academic and heritage institution with expert advisers in information and records management. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Pathways, guidance, standards and indicators, evidence and more. Top Tip Here are some examples of commands you can use to focus searches: site: Focuses your search to within a particular website, e.g. site:gov.uk for government websites or site:ac.uk for UK academic websites. You can also use -site: to exclude individual sites. filetype: Retrieves results that match the filetype you have specified, e.g. filetype:pdf or filetype:ppt. Full Fact – the UK's independent fact checking charity Information on Health, Law, Crime, Economy, Europe, Immigration and Education. On SlideShare you can view and upload: Videos Information for external enquirers who want to use content in the BBC archives for research, educational or other commercial or non-commercial purposes. Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more (US) The best way to search X (previously Twitter) - use the Advanced Search or click “More Options” on the results page. There is a detailed description of the commands and how they can be used here. Online photo management and sharing application / creative commons images A useful resource for creative commons photos Reverse image search. Allows you to search the web, using an image - find matches of that image elsewhere online and traces copyright owner. Also includes MulticolorEngine to extract colour palettes from an image or a set of images.
Grey Literature Sources
BASE
Bielefeld Academy Search Engine
British Library
Copyright Library. Main catalogue for millions of records for books, journals, newspapers, printed maps, scores, electronic resources, sound archive items etc. in the Library's collections.
CADTH
Jisc Library Hub Discover
Union catalogue of the major research libraries in the UK (including British Library and other copyright libraries).
CORE
Seamless access to millions of open access research papers
EThOS
British Library - 400,000 doctoral theses.
The Health Foundation
The Health Foundation is an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK.
International Health Technology Assessment Database
The International Health Technology Assessment Database provides free access to bibliographic information about ongoing and published health technology assessments commissioned or undertaken by HTA organisations from around the world.
King’s Fund
Independent views on health and social care policy and practice. Content includes reports, blogs, evidence and consultations.
The King’s Fund Library database, can be used to search for health and social care policy literature.
MedNar
Mednar is a free, medically-focused deep web search engine that uses Explorit Everywhere, an advanced search technology by Deep Web Technologies. As an alternative to Google, Mednar accelerates your research with a search of authoritative public and deep web resources, returning the most relevant results to one easily navigable page
National Academies Press
The NAP publishes more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and medicine, providing authoritative, independently-researched information on important matters in science and health policy. Offers more than 8,500 titles in PDF format.
NDLTD
Archive of over 6 million electronic theses and dissertations.
Nuffield Trust
The Nuffield Trust is an independent health charity. Their aim is to improve the quality of health care in the UK by providing evidence-based research and policy analysis, and informing/generating debate.
OAIster
OAIster is a union catalogue of millions of records that represent open access resources, built through harvesting from collections worldwide. Includes more than 50 million records that represent digital resources from more than 2,000 contributors.
OATD
Open Access Theses and Dissertations. Advanced research and scholarship. Theses and dissertations, free to find, free to use.
OECD iLibrary
OECD iLibrary is the online library of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) featuring its books, papers and statistics and is the knowledge base of OECD's analysis and data.
OPEN DOAR
OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories.
OpenGrey
Archived - discontinued from December 1, 2020
PLOS
Public Library of Science (PLOS)
Policy Commons
RAND
Social Care Online
TRIP Database
Results can be filtered by evidence type, from systematic reviews to case studies and informal sources such as blogs, or by clinical area.
The Pro account also includes access to medical images, videos, and links to many full-text articles.
Official Sites and Statistics
UKHSA
OHID
GOV.UK
Search Engines: Alternatives to Google
BING
Although more ‘shopping’ than research, Bing is developing and is reputedly better than Google for maps (ordnance survey section); corporate sites, for social science, sexual health, anthropology, psychology searches, and for going deeper into a site. For detailed directions try Open Street Map
DuckDuckGo
The search engine that doesn't track you. Allegedly a superior search experience with smarter answers, less clutter and real privacy.
Carrotsearch
Recommended for its clustering of results and also the visualisations of terms and concepts via the circles and “foam tree”. The Web Search uses eTools.ch for the general searches and there is also a PubMed option. (Possibly a subscription service for the most benefit, though there is some open-source access). Whilst no longer freely available, you can sign up for a free trial.
Useful Links
