Grey Literature in the context of the UN 2030 Agenda

Lombardi S., Molino A., Giannini S.

Grey Literature  UN 2030 Agenda  GL2021 

The poster presents the results of a survey on Grey Literature distributed to a heterogeneous set of Italian libraries in a questionnaire. Our analysis moved from the observation that our involvement in the grey community led us in touch with European and international initiatives. However, we do not have a deep knowledge of the Italian panorama. We do not know how much Grey Literature is present in the Italian libraries, if and how it is managed, whether it has an informative value, and is available to the patrons. To fill this gap, we thought of a survey that refers to the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda, focusing on the importance of access to information. We reached 4096 email addresses and received 265 answers. In the poster, we report the results obtained, especially in terms of interest in Grey Literature, the specific types of documentation present in libraries, and the practices implemented to give visibility and favor the use of this documentation. The limited number of answers led us to imagine that Italian libraries do not consider GL a primary interest topic. However, librarians replying to our survey seem to think of GL as an essential portion of libraries' documentary resources either for the patrons or for the implementation of UN SDGs. Therefore, they would be available for future projects dedicated to GL.

Source: GL2021- Twenty-Third International Conference on Grey Literature. Digital Transformation of Grey Literature: Exploring Next Generation Grey, Online conference, 06/12/2021