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2.5. We recognise the increasing importance of grey literature, however, both as a source for researchers themselves, and also as a channel for reporting the results of research to wider audiences. We suggest, therefore, that repositories can play an important role in providing access to the various kinds of grey literature produced by researchers, as well as in organising and preserving it; but we do not give extended consideration to grey literature in the rest of this report,[1] principally because our terms of reference focused our attention on access to peer-reviewed literature.
2.6. We note finally the growing volumes and importance of research data and other kinds of information produced during the course of research; the increasing interest in ensuring that such data are properly managed and, where appropriate, made available to others to scrutinise and re-use; and thus the increasingly close relationship between data and formal publications of research findings. Questions relating to access to research data itself, however, are being considered in the separate study being conducted by the Royal Society,[2] and we examine them only insofar as they impinge on issues relating to access and the use of formally-published findings.
- ↑ Definitions of grey literature are sometimes extended to cover working papers which are circulated to selected colleagues, or on occasion and in some subject areas—such as economics—distributed more widely. Since there is no formal publication process involved, we do not consider issues relating to them in this report.
- ↑ Royal Society, Science as an Open Enterprise, 2012
