Progetto letteratura grigia

Gray Literature deals with documentation that is unconventional (York, 1978) and not available through normal commercial fields.

It treats mainly technical, scientific and industrial material not controlled by commercial publishers. In this context, the Repertory of the CNR Central Library includes Reports (Preprints, Technical Reports, official documents, progress Reports, Reports of committees, commissions and study and work groups, market research reports); Degree and PhD theses; reports and communications at congresses, seminars, round tables, conferences etc; essays awaiting acceptance by academic journals; Statistics and Bibliographies; patent literature, clinical trials; Didactics and divulgative materials (Lecture notes, slides, posters etc). Other minor publications regarding institutional events; The Third International Conference on Grey Literature in 1997, defined grey literature as "that which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers". In 2004, at the Sixth Conference in New York City, a postscript was added to the definition for purposes of clarification: grey literature is "...not controlled by commercial publishers, i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body". This definition is now widely accepted by the scholarly community

Since 1985 Cnr Central Library is National Reference Center on Gray Literature, being part of the European network OpenGrey (System for Information on Gray Literature in Europe), an open-repository containing bibliographic references relating to the "gray literature" produced in Europe, provided by GREYNET and INIST-CNRS. In 2021 the OpenGrey Repository  - www.opengrey.eu -  started migrating as a database in the DANS data archive https://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/datasets/id/easy-dataset:200362  and in the Greyguide repository open portal provided by Isti-Cnr. The National Reference Center for Gray Literature is indexed in the International Directory of Organization in Grey Literature http://www.greynet.org/images/IDGL_2022.pdf.

Through the query mask of the National Cnr Repertoire it's possible to directly acquire the document present on the website of the producer body. For documentation not present, it is necessary to contact the single structure shown in the mask. The repertory is updated on a monthly basis. http://polarcnr.area.ge.cnr.it/cataloghi/bice/index.php?type=Grigia. Certain structures and related representatives of the CNR scientific network also collaborate in the implementation of the repertoire of Italian gray literature.

For information contact: dr.ssa Luisa De Biagi, Tel. +39 06 4993.3081, luisa.debiagi@cnr.it

Information by: Central Library of the Cnr