Nancy L. Pelzer,William H. Wiese, "Bibliometric study of grey literature in core veterinary medical journals" J Med Libr Assoc. 2003 October; 91 (4): 434 –441

[Eugene Garfield]

Nancy L. Pelzer: npelzer at iastate.edu; William H. Wiese: wwiese at iastate.edu

Full Text at :
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J Med Libr Assoc. 2003 October; 91 (4): 434–441

TITLE   Bibliometric study of grey literature in core veterinary medical
        journals

AUTHOR  Nancy L. Pelzer, M.A.
        Associate Professor and Team Leader, Cataloging Dept.
        William Roberts Parks and Ellen Sorge Parks Library
        Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011

        William H. Wiese, M.A., Associate Professor and V
        Veterinary Medical Librarian Veterinary Medical Library
        Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011

JOURNAL J Med Libr Assoc. 2003 October; 91 (4): 434–441


ABSTRACT:
Objectives: Grey literature has been perceived by many as belonging to the
primary sources of information and has become an accepted method
of nonconventional communication in the sciences and medicine. Since little
s known about the use and nature of grey literature in veterinary medicine,
a systematic study was done to analyze and characterize the bibliographic
citations appearing in twelve core veterinary journals.

Methods: Citations from 2,159 articles published in twelve core veterinary
journals in 2000 were analyzed to determine the portion of citations from
grey literature. Those citations were further analyzed and categorized
according to the type of publication.

Results: Citation analysis yielded 55,823 citations, of which 3,564 (6.38%)
were considered to be grey literature. Four veterinary specialties, internal
medicine, pathology, theriogenology, and microbiology, accounted for 70% of
the total number of articles. Three small-animal clinical practice journals
cited about 2.5–3% grey literature, less than half that of journals with
basic research orientations, where results ranged from almost 6% to
approximately 10% grey literature. Nearly 90% of the grey literature
appeared as conferences, government publications, and corporate organization
literature.

Conclusions: The results corroborate other reported research that the
incidence of grey literature is lower in medicine and biology than in some
other fields, such as aeronautics and agriculture. As in other fields, use
of the Internet and the Web has greatly expanded the communication process
among veterinary professionals. The appearance of closed community email
forums and specialized discussion groups within the veterinary profession is
an example of what could become a new kind of grey literature.



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Eugene Garfield, PhD.  email: garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu
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