Fishing in a Bucket: Gray Literature and the

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Fishing in a Bucket Gray Literature and the
Whats on the Shelf Syndrome

• Bonnie Osif
• Penn State
• bao2_at_psu.edu

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It is said

• Give people a fish and you feed them for a day.
  Teach people to fish and you feed them for a
  lifetime.

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I say

• Give a person a resource and you solve a problem.
  Give a person access to resources the world of
  resources
• (and teach them to use/evaluate them)
• and you give them the world.

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The Fishing in a Bucket Syndrome

• Use what is already known
• Use what is on the shelf in the office
• Use what is in my colleagues office
• Use whatever is on the web
• Dont use resources

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The Alternative

• Fish the entire ocean of resources. This requires
  
• Knowledge that the ocean exists
• Belief other information is valuable and worth
  the time and effort to find and use it
• Access to databases ( skills to use them)
• Access to resources
• In-house, on the web, or through ILL
• Ability to translate, if necessary
• Expert guidance

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Outline

• No answers - some summary observations to provide
  discussion points
• Quotes from recent documents
• Statistical snapshots
• Review of report bibliographies
• Gray vs. non-gray
• Local vs. global
• Comparison of 1998 study to 2004 study
• Dissertation glance
• ITRD holdings (LIST Committee study)

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This study of technologies imported from
non-English language sources has yielded evidence
that the limited availability of translations of
non-English documentation has delayed their
adoption in the United States. Computed
savings of 5million/year (conservative)Metcalf,
Sci-Tech News, Nov. 2003
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In fact, a vast amount of transportation related
information resources published by the U.S.
Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), state
departments of transportation (DOTs),
professional associations, and other publishers
is neither collected nor made available for use
by others with any systematic process.
Harder/Tucker Scoping Study for a National
Strategic Plan for Transportation Information
Management (Draft final report, 2003)
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Bibliography studies Gray literature

• TRIS 1995 73
• TRANSPORT 1996 85
• FHWA/TRB 1998 86
• International reports 1999 89
• International reports 2004 49

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Bibliography studies

• 1998 (percentage of gray literature)
• Finland 91
• Germany 80
• Netherlands 90
• Sweden 97
• FHWA 86

• 2004 (percentage of gray literature)
• Finland 58
• Germany 37
• Netherlands 69
• Sweden 42
• FHWA 17

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Bibliography Study (2004) Gray Resources - Local
vs. Global

• Finland 70
• Germany 79
• Netherlands 78
• Sweden 84
• FHWA 50

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ITRD Series Review

• 98 of the identifiable publishers are gray
• 42 are not held in the U.S. or Canada
• 84 are not held or the coverage is spotty at
  best
• Budgets are threatened, threatening the 16
  holdings

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Dissertation Snapshot

• 19 of references to gray literature
• lt2 of references to non-PSU resources
• 0 to international resources (except ISO)

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Observations

• Most commonly fished buckets are
• TRB
• USDOT
• International conferences
• Major transportation journals
• Local reports
• Numbers indicate the bucket may be getting
  smaller!

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Observations

• Of the 17 reports used in the 2004 bibliography
  scan, only 7 of the authors were found in TRIS or
  Compendex.
• Not everything that is being reported in the gray
  literature is being published elsewhere.

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Observations

• With access to TRIS, TRANSPORT, Compendex and
  NTIS, the dissertations still
• Used local material
• Major journals
• Gray literature from the U.S.

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Questions

• I have some questions.  How can we...
• work together to acquire, catalog, preserve, and
  ensure future access to core transportation
  research?
• form partnerships that facilitate access to all
  of our collections?
• leverage our participation in OCLC and the
  products and services it offers?
• get more of our holdings into OCLC?
• creative partnerships with all transportation
  information collectors, not just DOT
  libraries?
• learn to overcome geographic boundaries?
• encourage libraries with more resources to
  support, guide, motivate and encourage those with
  less?
• find ways to quantify what we do to the people
  who fund us?
• support each other in ways that ensure our mutual
  survival and research success for our patrons.
• Used by permission from Ken Winter (email to
  Tranlib 5/28/04)

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Editorial comments

• The bucket is getting pretty dry
• The fisher people are getting very hungry, even
  if some dont realize it!
• The ocean is lapping at our feet
• The cost of ignoring that ocean could be high
• The crisis is real, known, and growing

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It is time to fish or cut bait!