Shades of gray literature
I believe that gray literature—blogs, this ejournal, a few similar publications and some lists—represents the most compelling and worthwhile literature in the library field today. (Walt Crawford, Cites & Insights, August 2007)
Having just gotten a rejection from my first submission to a peer-reviewed journal, this statement immediately caught my attention.
In preparation for writing my article, I did a literature review and read some scholarly articles. I also read a lot of blog posts and online publications. Reviewing the journal literature was helpful for background, and uncovered some things (mainly having to do with special libraries) that hadn’t been reported elsewhere. But for the most part I found the journals to be seriously behind the curve.
By the time I revised my article and submitted it to another journal, and then waited for review and publication, it would really be old news. While the idea of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal is appealing, in part because I work in a research environment, it is neither required nor supported in my current position. My real motivation in writing this article is sharing a story with my colleagues, and most of them are probably more likely to read it on a blog or listen to it at a conference than they are to pick up a journal and read about it there.
Crawford goes on to question the value role of peer review in furthering discussion in library science (note: not of scholarly publishing):
Which would you pay more attention to, and which would you regard as more likely to move discussion forward in useful ways: An article in a third-tier print journal by someone you’ve never heard of, or an “unrefereed” blog post by, say, Lorcan Dempsey or Eric Schnell or Laura Cohen or Iris Jastram or, for that matter, Mark Lindner or Walt Crawford?
I think there is probably a place for all kinds of literature in our profession, but right now it’s all I can do to keep up with the gray literature, and it feels more relevant to me as a practicing librarian.
[Edited for accuracy]
August 7, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I didn’t intend to question the value of peer review in library science–but there’s a lot of truth to the old saw that peer review doesn’t determine whether something gets published, only where. Note that I explicitly said “third-tier print journal.” And I certainly agree that there’s a place for all kinds of literature in the profession. (And boy, was I uncomfortable about publishing that particular essay…)
August 7, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I read that part of your essay again, and I think I did misinterpret what you said about peer review, so I’ve edited my post. It’s probably worth quoting part of your conclusion here for further clarity:
“For me, blogs now represent a critical part of the literature … . That does not mean print is dead. It certainly doesn’t negate the value of journals, the use of peer review … , the worth of carefully-prepared monographs.”
Thank you for publishing the essay. I read it just after I got my rejection and it made me feel a lot better—most importantly, it made me want to take the work I put into that article and retool it for a different audience, rather than just chucking the whole thing in the garbage.
August 7, 2007 at 3:02 pm
You’re welcome. It’s one I’d been thinking about for quite a while. The stuff that pushed the other related essays to the fore also convinced me to go ahead with that one.