Document Actions

No section

A Model Framework for publishing Grey Literature in Open Access

  1. PhD Matěj Myška
  2. PhD Jaromír Šavelka

Abstract

In this paper we present a model framework for placing grey literature documents into an online, publicly accessible repository, providing an effective mechanism to avoid liability for a grey literature repository operator. ‘Grey literature’ is a term (originating in library and information science) referring to documents that are not published commercially, e.g. research and technical reports, governmental documents and working papers. Despite their undeniable value (usually derived from their originality and from containing recent and up-to-date information), these documents are often difficult to access. This creates an obvious problem of not providing the public with valuable information associated with the necessity to fund the production of particular information that already exists and could have been easily offered to the public. One of many possible solutions to make grey literature available seems to be the establishment of centralised on-line repositories of grey literature supported (or maintained) by official agencies. Putting aside the most important issue of financing such an effort, the agency has to face many difficult legal issues, among others. As the task of the agency would be to actively seek the documents to be placed into the repository, it also has to deal with several legal issues. In this paper we try to identify and discuss these legal problems and design a framework for obtaining GL documents from various subjects in such a way that the risk of copyright infringement would be minimised. The proposed framework is based on the practical experience gained from the efforts of the National Library of Technology (of Czech Republic) to establish the National Repository of Grey Literature.

Keywords

Fulltext

License

Any party may pass on this Work by electronic means and make it available for download under the terms and conditions of the Digital Peer Publishing License. The text of the license may be accessed and retrieved at http://www.dipp.nrw.de/lizenzen/dppl/dppl/DPPL_v2_en_06-2004.html.

Number of citations

Visit Google Scholar to find out, how often this paper is cited.

JIPITEC – Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law
Article search
Extended article search
Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter
Follow Us
twitter