Grey Literature can be defined as:

“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 library holdings or institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body”.

Prague Definition 2010 of Grey Literature

To find Grey Literature see our Grey Literature Guide.

Quality may be an issue as it is often not peer reviewed or edited. To evaluate Grey Literature, you can use the AACODS Checklist.

The AACODS checklist was created by Jessica Tyndall from Flinders University Medical Library. The checklist includes the elements you should use when evaluating grey literature:

Authority
Accuracy
Coverage
Objectivity
Date
Significance

Further reading:

Tyndall, J. (2010) AACODS Checklist. Flinders University 

Tyndall, J. (2008) 'How low can you go? Towards a hierarchy of grey literature'. Presented at Dreaming08: Australian Library and Information Association Biennial Conference, 2-5 September 2008, Alice Springs.