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Covers how Dominic Farace, the GreyNet director, first became involved in the grey literature scene, and explains how and why the Grey Literature Network Service has developed. Discusses the future prospects of GreyNet and grey literature. Highlights many of the issues concerning the GreyNet movement and looks at Farace’s inspiration for his career therein.

While distribution channels of theses and dissertations have changed significantly in the digital age, they are generally still considered grey literature. This paper aims to argue the applicability of the concept of grey to electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).

The paper is presented as a debate between two contradictory opinions on the application of the grey literature concept to ETDs.

The paper provides a definition of grey literature and then discusses its application to electronic dissertations and theses. In particular, it assesses the aspects of acquisition, quality, access and preservation. Some arguments highlight the “grey nature” of ETDs, such as the limited access via institutional and other repositories. Other arguments (e.g. the development of ETD infrastructures and the quality of ETDs) question this grey approach to ETDs. The paper concludes that “greyness” remains a challenge for ETDs, a problem waiting for solution on the way to open science through the application of the FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability reusability) principles.

Library and information science (LIS) professionals and scientists should be careful about using the concept of grey literature. The debate will help academic librarians and LIS researchers to better understand the nature of grey literature and its coverage, here in the field of ETDs.

Some definitions from the print age may not be applicable to the digital age. The contradictory character of the debate helps clarify the similitudes and differences of grey literature and ETDs and highlights the challenge of ETDs, in particular, their accessibility and findability.

The study aims to showcase the developmental perspective of “grey literature” and its importance to different sectors of the society. Furthermore, issues, challenges and possibilities concerned with the existence of “grey literature” have also been discoursed.

The study is based on the existing literature published in the field of “grey literature” which was identified with the aid of three leading indexing and abstracting services, Web of Science, SciVerse Scopus, and Google Scholar. Keywords like grey literature, black literature, The Grey Journal, The International Journal on Grey Literature, International Conference on Grey Literature, non-conventional literature, semi-published literature, System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe (SIGLE), European Association for the Exploitation of Grey Literature (EAGLE), white literature, white papers, theses and dissertations, GreyNet, grey literature-electronic media, Grey market, open access, OpenNet, open access repositories, institutional repositories, open archives, electronic theses and dissertations, institutional libraries, scholarly communication, access to knowledge, metadata standards for grey literature, metadata heterogeneity, disciplinary grey literature, etc. were searched in the select databases. Simple as well as advanced search feature of the databases were made use of. Moreover, for more recent and updated information on the topic, the “citing articles” feature of the databases was also used. The “citing articles” were consulted on the basis of their relevance with the subject content.

The study helps to understand the definitive framework and developmental perspective of “grey literature”. “Grey Literature” has emerged as a promising content for enhancing the visibility of the ideas that were earlier unexplored and least made use of “Grey literature” has also overcome the problems and issues with its existence and adoption. Technology has played a catalytic role in eradicating the issues and problems pertinent to the “grey literature” to a greater extent.

The study is based on the published literature that is indexed by only three databases, i.e. Web of Science, SciVerse Scopus and Google Scholar. Furthermore, some limited aspects of “grey literature” have been covered.

The study will be of great help to various stakeholders and policymakers to showcase the value and importance of “grey literature” for better access and exploitation. It will also be of importance to those interested to know how the literature tagged as grey changed with the passing time and how it through its unseen characteristics has evolved as an important source of information at par with the “white literature”.

The study tries to provide a demarcated and segregated outlook of the “grey literature”. It also focuses on various issues, problems and possibilities pertinent to the adoption and existence of “grey literature”.

The purpose of this paper is to spotlight the research output in the field of grey literature (GL) during the 13-year period between 2007 and 2019 as reflected in the Scopus database.

This study has used Scopus, an abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, to collect data for the specified 13-year period. The sources, which had “grey literature” in their titles, were considered for the study and the period was from 2007 to 2019. The downloaded results were analysed using specific parameters. The SPSS and Excel have been used for analysing the retrieved data. The VOSviewer has been used for visualizing the network.

Scopus indexes different kinds of documents such as articles, books, chapters, conference papers, editorial, erratum, letters, notes, reviews and short surveys. There were 345 publications, which received 309 citations. GL-Conference Series: Conference Proceedings published the most number of articles. The majority 51.9 per cent of the articles were published in collaboration with authors from European countries. The term “grey literature” occurred most commonly as author keyword and index term.

The present study highlights how the area of GL has evolved during the 13-year period. The findings of the study pave the way for more detailed exploration of GL, which has relevance for the researchers.