The benefits and the costs of digital grey literature for collecting organisations and the world!

ALIA National 2014 Conference, 15-19 September 2014 Melbourne : together we are stronger

This conference presentation explores the role of grey literature in public policy and practice in Australia based on the results of the Grey Literature Strategies research project, an ARC Linkage project being undertaken by Swinburne University and Victoria University in partnership with the National Library of Australia, the National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA), the Australian Council for Educational Research and the Eidos Institute.

The presentation presents the findings from three online surveys conducted in 2013 of users, producers and collectors of research and information as well as interviews conducted with librarians, researchers and producing organisations. The paper will focus on the data from collecting organisations and other relevant results for the library community and will discuss the way in which libraries are both succeeding and still struggling in their approach to digital content. Topics that will be discussed include: the content users and collecting organisations consider most important; how users find and access content; views on copyright reform; strategies for dealing with deadlinks; selection and evaluation of digital content; contingent valuation and cost benefit analysis of grey literature.