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Gray Goldmine: Charting the Course to Engineering Literature’s Treasures

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

June 26, 2024

Conference Session

Engineering Libraries Division (ELD) Technical Session 3

Tagged Division

Engineering Libraries Division (ELD)

Page Count

23

DOI

10.18260/1-2--47513

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/47513

Download Count

56

Paper Authors

biography

Jamie M. Niehof University of Michigan Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8533-8921

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Engineering Librarian
Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences, Engineering Education, Robotics, Integrated Systems & Design
University of Michigan — Ann Arbor

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biography

Sarah Barbrow University of Michigan Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8033-3945

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Sarah Barbrow is a librarian and the Assistant Director of the Engineering Library at the University of Michigan. She is a liaison to three departments: Computer Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.

Sarah graduated with an MSI in Library and Information Services from the University of Michigan School of Information. She also has an MSc in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology also from the University of Michigan.

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biography

Paul Grochowski University of Michigan Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-9075-8821

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Paul Grochowski is an engineering librarian at the University of Michigan. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a MLIS degree from Wayne State University.

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biography

Luesoni Kuck University of Michigan

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Luesoni Kuck is the Biomedical Engineering Librarian at the University of Michigan and provides instructional and research support for the students, faculty, and staff within the areas of Biomedical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Center for Entrepreneurship. Luesoni has a Master's of Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She also has a Master's in Biology from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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Abstract

The landscape of gray literature in the field of engineering has undergone significant evolution over the last two decades, driven by the proliferation of the internet and diligent efforts in digitization and cataloging. It is noteworthy that the last comprehensive investigation of gray literature in engineering was published in 2001. Gray literature encompasses a diverse array of document types, including but not limited to technical reports, patents, standards, clinical trials, dissertations, white papers, case studies, preprints, and university departmental documents. These resources are a vital part of the engineering research landscape, and scholars often lack the expertise to search for them, or even the knowledge they exist. This paper is designed to demystify the search process and facilitate the discovery and utilization of these elusive, valuable, and often under-appreciated resources, emphasizing their relevance to research and academic endeavors. This paper will focus on several gray literature formats: preprints, technical reports, conference papers and proceedings, datasets, clinical trials, syllabi, and a unique collection of nuclear reactor logbooks. These formats were chosen based on practical experience with engineering student and faculty requests at an R1 institution and as a means to highlight diverse forms of gray literature. For each of these gray literature content types, this paper seeks to provide a practical roadmap for librarians and researchers to navigate the often complex ways of finding and accessing gray literature.

Niehof, J. M., & Barbrow, S., & Grochowski, P., & Kuck, L. (2024, June), Gray Goldmine: Charting the Course to Engineering Literature’s Treasures Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47513

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015