Answered By: Amy Sisson
Last Updated: Jul 20, 2020     Views: 43

Unfortunately, the TMC librarians are not able to include grey literature in their searches, with the exception of the conference papers and abstracts that appear in such databases as Embase and Scopus.  Other grey literature (which may consist of sources as varied as informational brochures, internal memos and reports, drug package inserts, newspaper articles, and government information located on the Internet) cannot be reliably located through a standardized method, and the library unfortunately does not have the resources to devote to individualizing the process for each search topic.

In addition, the librarians cannot hand-search journals due to time constraints and the fact that they are not subject matter experts. Similarly, the librarians are unable to search subject-specific databases that are not curated and provided by the library's vendors, because these databases generally do not have the kind of advanced search functionality necessary for a precise search.

Patrons who wish to include grey literature in their systematic or scoping review projects should be prepared to allocate that responsibility to one or more members of their research team.

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