IN DEPTH
Why going grey in a time of crisis can be a good plan
This article sets out some of the key themes from the HLG webinar – titled How should we use grey literature? It’s a bit of a grey area, where Deena Maggs and Kathy Johnson from The King’s Fund Library Service talk about their experience of using grey literature sources in their work and some reflections on working on projects during the current pandemic. The webinar is now available to view at
www.cilip.org.uk/eLearningHub.
AT the beginning of 2020, I was approached by CILIP’s Health Librar- ies Group (HLG) to deliver a webinar on grey literature, before we even knew what ‘Covid-19’ or the ‘r-rate’ meant and before experiencing lockdown and its impact on our daily lives. We thought we would be deliv- ering the webinar from The King’s Fund’s offices in Central London but instead we delivered it, each in our separate ‘home offices’ also known as living rooms.
This new world of working has not only challenged how we work within our organ- isations but has provided new challenges and opportunities as health librarians to help guide others through the blizzard of information available on Covid-19. Through the lens of The King’s Fund’s work on Covid-19, I aim to highlight our approach to grey literature and its role in our daily work. So, what is grey literature? It’s an unexcit- ing term and not very descriptive. It is a bit of a grey area – pun intended – and difficult to understand what it is and what it is not. And searching for grey literature can’t be as systematic as searching for clinical informa- tion, it requires a bit of rule breaking and lateral thinking.
Provenance is key when thinking about grey literature – not only for what is included in our library database, for liter- ature searches, but also for the material we signpost our library enquirers to. Our quality standard for provenance may also vary according to what we are using that grey literature for.
June-July 2020
Deena Maggs is Head of Library Services, The King’s Fund. Article was edited by Kathy Johnson of the King’s Fund.
Many of the resources we collect and add to The King’s Fund library database are what we would define as grey literature, for example, government guidance and policy documents, academic studies, reports and briefings, as well as unpublished works. We would also view practically everything that The King’s Fund publishes as “grey”. The King’s Fund is a health charity and think-
tank, and our work focusses on the delivery of the best possible health and care available to all. As an organisation, we look at future trends in health and care policy and this means we draw on a wide range of sources to support our research.
We produce a range of information prod- ucts (literature searches, alerts, reading lists)
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 47
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