The expanding horizon of Grey Literature

Prof. John Mackenzie Owen

University of Amsterdam

 

Grey literature is a term used to describe information products which are created and distributed in order to disseminate knowledge (ideas, facts, opinions) rather than to sell for a profit. In practice, and for that reason, grey literature can also be defined as information which is not marketed and distributed by commercial publishing organisations. The term ‘grey’ stems from the fact that such information is not publicised and not available through the traditional channels of publishers and booksellers. Grey does not imply any qualification, it is merely a characterisation of the distribution mode. In fact, a large proportion of grey literature is distributed in both modes: ‘grey’ in the form of pre-prints, ‘white’ in the form of a published article. The quality is often identical, the main difference being that ‘white’ literature has a quality stamp provided by the publisher and its embedded peer review process.

 

In this paper I shall focus on the distinction between ‘grey’ and ‘white’ literature as a difference in distribution modes. I shall argue that both publisher strategies and developments in the area of digitalisation and networking will result in an increasingly marginal role for the publishing industry and in a future information environment in which ‘grey’ will be the predominant distribution mode,

 

Traditional grey literature

 

Grey literature has become a specialised branch of the information profession due to a number of characteristics which differentiate it from published literature:

 

• Traditional grey literature is concerned with physical information objects: information items in paper form, produced and distributed by the individuals or organisations that create them.
• The producers of grey literature do not belong to the formal ‘information industry’ such as publishing houses. They are organisations (or individuals working for organisations) in other sectors such as industry, universities and research institutes, and government organisations.
• Within the information industry, which has as its main objective to create and distribute information products,  there exists an infrastructure for distribution. For organisations which create grey literature, creating and distributing information products is not the core business. For grey literature here exists no formal organisational structure for distribution.
• The lack of a well-defined distribution infrastructure requires a pro-active acquisition policy from intermediary organisations such as libraries.
• For the same reason, there is a need for specialised bibliographic instruments to facilitate the identification and retrieval of grey literature

 

Over the years, therefore, the field of grey literature has evolved into a universe of its own, with specific work methods, vocabulary, systems and activities such as this international conference.

 

The future of publishing

 

Grey literature always has to be defined in contrast with published literature. In looking at the future of grey literature, it is therefore necessary to analyse how the publishing industry will develop. Such an analysis points to a number of severe problems, especially in the area of scientific publishing:

 

• The primary producers of information - the authors and their parent organisations - have little or no control over the distribution process. Recent mergers and acquisitions in the publishing industry are giving publishers even more control over the process of scientific communication - a process they already monopolise.
• The cost of published information has been increasing at a much higher rate than the rate of inflation, has been doing so for many years, and will apparently continue to do so.
• The cost of published information is perceived as excessive by most intermediary organisations, especially in view of limited budgets.
• The publishing industry is extremely slow in adopting new technologies which might reduce cost, besides increasing accessibility and speed of production and delivery. In an increasingly digital networked world, these aspects are nothing but anachronistic.
• The deployment of information technology by publishers so far appears to restrict access rather than enhancing it. The free access to information in libraries is being substituted by restricted access to computerised systems, requiring complicated navigation, access controls (such as identification), and payment for use.
• Publishers have lobbied successfully for restrictive copyright legislation and licensing schemes which prevent intermediaries such as libraries from developing new services (digital distribution, long-term archiving, uniform access systems, resource sharing) and from maximising economic benefits from IT-innovations to the end-user. The use of IT should increase cost-efficiency and enhance availability and ease of access. Publishers do not seem to regard these as strategic concerns.
• It is widely recognised that there will be major problems with the archiving and long-term availability of digital information products. Especially in the scientific world, information is the memory store from which scientific developments arise. However, publishers have little interest in the long-term availability of their products, and therefore do not take responsibility for these issues.

 

The general perception amongst intermediaries and end-users is that the traditional balance between quality, revenue (to the publisher) and value (to the user) no longer exists. Creators and intermediaries are now starting to resist the business strategies of publishers, and are beginning to think about new distribution models in which there is no, or at least less need for publishers.

 

It is therefore becoming necessary to re-engineer the communication process. The traditional concept of an information chain, consisting of authors, publishers, intermediaries and users, is no longer valid. Digitisation and networking provides many opportunities for developing new communication modes. The current strategy of publishers will probably lead to an increasingly marginal, and few outside the publishing industry would appear to feel sorry for that.

 

The future of information distribution

 

Publishers’ commercial strategies are not the only reason for a shift towards new distribution models. A number of other developments point in this direction, most of them related in one way or another to digitisation and networking:

 

• The idea of an information chain through which publications are shifted from author to user is now giving way to the idea of a global network infrastructure or ‘information space’ consisting of an enormous amount of individual digital information objects embedded in a logical and intellectual structure.
• Since this information space is available to anybody connected to it (which in practice means to everybody), there is no need for a formal information chain and for the traditional roles of publishers or even intermediaries. For the end user, the difference between grey literature and published literature is to a large extent the difference between open access and restricted access.
• Search engines (post-coordination) are taking on the role of traditional bibliographic databases (pre-coordination): collecting a set of relevant and related information objects on the fly is favoured above the intellectual activity of creating collations in anticipation of expected need. This has implications for both publishers (e.g. grouping items under journal titles) and intermediaries (e.g. collection development and creating catalogues and bibliographies).
• The organisation of information at the source level (e.g. authors and authoring organisations) is improving. Examples are the use of embedded metadata in source documents, the distribution function performed by pre-print archives, and ‘electronic journal’ type websites developed by universities, libraries and other organisations.
• The traditional debate on ‘end-users versus intermediaries’ has already been decided in favour of the end-user. Most end-users have both the skills and the technology to solve information problems for which they used to require professional support.

 

What this means is that digitisation and networking provide authors and end-users with a mechanism for distributing and acquiring information without need for the professional institutions in the information chain. What this leads to is an information world in which ‘grey’ literature is the predominant type of information. If the traditional institutions, such as publishers and intermediaries wish to survive, they will have to adopt new roles. These roles can no longer be defined in terms of traditional functions such as packaging and distribution, or storage and retrieval. They will have to be found by offering solutions to problems which are inherent in the new information world.

 

One example of this is a role for publishers in quality control. There are many problems in this area, due to the fact that the traditional peer review process is embedded in traditional publishing procedures. There is, as yet, no viable equivalent for the digital world. This is an area where publishers could become involved by developing solutions for peer review of digital objects which are useful and logical in a networked environment, e.g. involving rating systems and electronic refereeing.

 

The role of the library sector

 

In this paper I have argued that both publishers’ strategies and IT-developments will reduce the importance of the traditional information distribution chain significantly. I have also argued that this will therefore reduce the importance for information distribution of the traditional institutional parties in the information chain such as publishers and information intermediaries. Libraries are, as information intermediaries, an important component of the information chain. I would now like to say a few words on their future role.

 

The most important consequence of the emerging role of digital information products and networked distribution is that libraries will have to move from functioning as acquisition-oriented memory organisations towards service organisations supporting and facilitating access to information on the network.  In addition, there are many opportunities to move towards the production and distribution side of the information cycle.

 

Of the many things libraries can and should do under these circumstances, I find the following the most important and challenging:

 

• Creation and management of networked document servers, i.e. nodes on the network where information - either from the parent organisation or in specific subject domains - is made available to the global network community. It is likely that most of this information will be of the ‘grey’ type.
• Creating and maintaining sophisticated search and access mechanisms which help users to navigate through the networked information space. This should result in integrated resource-finding tools which can handle licensed, pay-per-view and non-licensed information resources, as a substitute for traditional catalogues and bibliographic databases. Activities in this area should also include mechanisms for spanning organisational and geographic boundaries, resulting in virtual networked digital libraries, available at the user’s desktop, giving integrated access to heterogeneous information objects stored on different network nodes.
• Archiving for long-term preservation and access. An important responsibility of the library world will be to ensure that digital information is preserved and remains accessible over the centuries. This is a formidable task, especially in view created by rapidly developing technology and its related standards. The technology and standards on which current information products are based will no longer be available in ten or twenty years from now, and these products will only be kept available on the network by their creators or publishers for an even shorter period. If the library world does not solve this problem, nobody will, and all information - grey and white - will disappear from the memory of mankind.

 

European information policy

 

the European Union has contributed greatly towards the development of the information sector through its R&D programmes. However, these programmes are aimed at existing, traditional economic sectors and are, in this case, highly biased towards the traditional information industry.  This sector benefits not only from R&D programmes, but also, perhaps especially from legal protection. This is due to the final objective of many EU activities, which is to increase job creation in the information industry rather than to increase the added value of information to the economy and society at large.  In short: the financial and competitive position of a relatively small economic sector (the information industry) benefits from European R&D subsidies and legislative activities, but this does not by definition lead to a better and wealthier information society.

 

I have argued that at least the publishing sector will in future become a less important player in the information field: their strategies are unacceptable to authors and users, the role of ‘grey’ literature is becoming far more important, information production and distribution is becoming embedded in other industries. There is therefore a need for change in the European information policy.

 

European information policy should focus on the role of information and information distribution in society and its added value to the European economy and for the competitive position of both industry and the academic sector. Focusing on the relatively small and diminishing role of the formal information industry and equating the information sector with the publishing industry is a strategic mistake in view of the way the information society is developing.

 

Subsidising the publishing industry (through R&D programmes) and strengthening their legal position (through legislation in areas such as copyright and database protection) is not helpful in the long term. Instead, support should be given to creators and users of information, and to developing and sustaining a European information environment capable of competing with the rest of the world.

 

 

Conclusions

 

In this paper I have argued that a number of developments is changing the information scene on an unprecedented scale. One consequence of these developments is that an increasing proportion of information available to users on digital networks will have the characteristics of what we traditionally have called ‘grey’ information. The expected situation is described in more detail if Table 1:

 

 

	Grey	White
Relative volume	Increasing	Decreasing
Speed of production and delivery	High	Low
Cost of information	Low, decreasing	High, increasing
Accessibility	Global, unrestricted	Limited, restricted
Quality control	Provided by innovative technologies	Organised through traditional peer review process
Long-term archiving	Problematic due to volume and technological ageing	Problematic due to legal restrictions and technological ageing
Role of libraries	Loss of traditional roles Opportunities for new services	Problematic due to legal restrictions
Role of publishers	Marginal	Diminishing

 

• The traditional information chain is being substituted by a networked information space. This will have serious consequences for information chain based institutions such as publishers and libraries.
• The emerging networked information space will allow creators of information to distribute their information products with little or no support from publishers. Most information available to users will therefore me ;grey’ rather than ‘white’.
• The pricing policies, business strategies and IT-deployment of publishers, together with the erosion of the information chain indicate that the publishing industry is entering the final stages of its life cycle, resulting in a marginalisation of the role of publishers.
• Libraries, as intermediary organisations, will lose many of there traditional roles. But the problems inherent in digital networked distribution provide many opportunities for taking on new roles.
• The European Union should recognise the fact that the traditional information industry is no longer instrumental in developing the information space and that the information society en economies of Europe require new policies for R&D and legislation in the field of information.