Exponential growth of Grey Literature in the current research: a statistical survey

Session theme. Frontline green in current research. The non-conventional literature namely "grey literature" is represented by all self-published documents whose potential is to become conventional literature. Usually grey literature is the result of studies and institutional activities circulating among researchers as informal communication, nevertheless it points out a valuable indicator of the standard in scientific production. The CNR Central Library "G. Marconi" is the most important Italian centre for grey literature whose aim is to emphasize the relationship between the grey literature and current research through questions, evaluation and statistical analysis using products coming from all the CNR Institutes. In a recent study we revealed a considerable amount of documents coming from CNR Institutes. The use of this kind of documents which do not circulate through the conventional pathways is obviously relevant, with special regard to the technical-scientific fields. To the purpose of establishing a proportional parameter between the development of technical progress and increase of grey literature, we involved in this project the Institutes with a list of questions since they are, at the same time, producers and users of scientific information. The goal of our investigation is to compare the progress of scientific research with the amount of unpublished literature, and to monitor the information flow of the scientific communication.