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Grey literature (or gray literature ) is materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. Common grey literature publication types include reports ( annual , research, technical , project, etc.), working papers , government documents, white papers and evaluations . Organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies, civil society or non-governmental organizations , academic centres and departments, and private companies and consultants.

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86-618: The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is an open access digital archive for archaeological research outputs. It is located in The King's Manor , at the University of York . Originally intended to curate digital outputs from archaeological researchers based in the UK's Higher Education sector, the ADS also holds archive material created under the auspices of national and local government as well as in

172-665: A bachelor's degree —increasingly repositories list advanced degrees (e.g. MA, MLS/MLIS, Ph.D.) and certifications as a position requirement or preference. In the UK, the National Archives (formerly known as the Public Record Office) is the government archive for England and Wales . The physical records stored by the National Archives amount to 185 km (115 miles) of shelving, a number that increases every year. The English Heritage Archive

258-746: A basis for nations to build their own standards. In the United States, ISAD (G) is implemented through Describing Archives: A Content Standard , popularly known as "DACS". In Canada, ISAD (G) is implemented through the Council of Archives as the Rules for Archival Description , also known as "RAD". ISO is currently working on standards. The cultural property stored in archives is threatened by natural disasters, wars, or other emergencies in many countries. International partners for archives are UNESCO and Blue Shield International , in accordance with

344-615: A body such as the American Library Association ). Subject-area specialization becomes more common in higher-ranking positions. Archives located in for-profit institutions are usually those owned by a private business. Examples of prominent business archives in the United States include Coca-Cola (which also owns the separate museum World of Coca-Cola ), Procter and Gamble , Motorola Heritage Services and Archives, and Levi Strauss & Co. These corporate archives maintain historic documents and items related to

430-559: A changing research environment, with new channels of scientific communication, grey literature needed a new conceptual framework. They proposed the "Prague definition" as follows: Grey literature stands for manifold document types produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats that are protected by intellectual property rights, of sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by library holdings or institutional repositories, but not controlled by commercial publishers i.e., where publishing

516-439: A collection of preprints on physics and other sciences, and RePEc is a collection of economics working papers. Many university libraries provide subject guides that give information on grey literature and suggestions for databases. ROAR and OpenDOAR are directories of open access institutional repositories and subject repositories, many of which contain some grey literature. Several academic search engines exist to combine

602-489: A formal publisher, generally lacks the channels for extensive distribution and bibliographic control. Information and research professionals generally draw a distinction between ephemera and grey literature. However, there are certain overlaps between the two media and they undoubtedly share common frustrations such as bibliographic control issues. Unique written documents such as manuscripts and archives , and personal communications, are not usually considered to fall under

688-555: A government archive, and frequent users include reporters , genealogists , writers, historians , students, and people seeking information on the history of their home or region. Many government archives are open to the public, and no appointment is required to visit. In the United States, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) maintains central archival facilities in the District of Columbia and College Park, Maryland , with regional facilities distributed throughout

774-424: A great deal of "grey" material, often for internal and in some cases "restricted" dissemination. The notion of evidence-based policy has also seen some recognition of the importance of grey literature as part of the evidence base; however, the term is not yet widely used in public policy and the social sciences more broadly. For a number of reasons, discovery, access, evaluation and curation of grey literature pose

860-604: A hazy definition of "grey literature" had existed previously, the term is generally understood to have been coined by the researcher Charles P. Auger , who wrote Use of Reports Literature in 1975. The literature he referred to consisted of intelligence reports and notes on atomic research produced in vast quantities by the Allied Forces during World War II . In a conference held by the British Lending Library Division in 1978, Auger used

946-687: A means of encapsulating, storing and sharing information for their own use, and for wider distribution. This can take the form of a record of data and information on a site or project (archaeological records, survey data, working papers); sharing information on how and why things occurred (technical reports and specifications, briefings, evaluations, project reports); describing and advocating for changes to public policy, practice or legislation (white papers, discussion papers, submissions); meeting statutory or other requirements for information sharing or management (annual reports, consultation documents); and many other reasons. Organizations are often looking to create

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1032-755: A number of European organizations, including the European Commission, choose to deposit their archives with the European University Institute in Florence. A prominent church archive is the Vatican Apostolic Archive . Archdioceses , dioceses , and parishes also have archives in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. Very important are monastery archives because of their antiquity, like

1118-464: A number of difficulties. Generally, grey literature lacks any strict or meaningful bibliographic control. Basic information such as authors, publication dates and publishing or corporate bodies may not be easily identified. Similarly, the nonprofessional layouts and formats, low print runs and non-conventional channels of distribution make the organized collection of grey literature a challenge compared to journals and books . Although grey literature

1204-574: A particular message to posterity. In general, archives consist of records that have been selected for permanent or long-term preservation on the grounds of their enduring cultural, historical, or evidentiary value. Archival records are normally unpublished and almost always unique, unlike books or magazines, of which many identical copies may exist. This means that archives are quite distinct from libraries with regard to their functions and organization, although archival collections can often be found within library buildings. A person who works in archives

1290-481: A publication date, for instance). Documents are often not assigned permanent URLs or DOI numbers, or stored in electronic depositories , so that link rot can develop within citations, reference lists, databases and websites. Copyright law and the copyrighted status of many reports inhibits their downloading and electronic storage and there is a lack of large scale collecting of digital grey literature. Securing long-term access to and management of grey literature in

1376-497: A significant concern, especially in academia, in recent years. The ADS offer advice to data creators on procedures and formats, including advice on the writing of Technical Appendices for AHRC applications. The website hosts a series of Guides to Good Practice (G2GP) on the following archaeological topics: All these G2GP were revised in 2012 funded in part by English Heritage and the US based Digital Antiquity project. The ADS archive

1462-715: A subject centre devoted to archaeology funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council via the AHDS. The AHDS closed in March 2008 as a result of a controversial decision by the AHRC to withdraw funding. The ADS now receives funding directly from AHRC , rather than through the AHDS, it is also funded by other Higher Education and cultural heritage sector organisations including the European Union . The original consortium members were

1548-550: A tendency to prioritize tangible items over ephemeral experiences, actions, effects, and even bodies. This type of potentially biased prioritization may be seen as a form of privileging particular types of knowledge or interpreting certain experiences as more valid than others, limiting the content available to archive users, leading to barriers in accessing information, and potentially alienating under-represented and/or marginalized populations and their epistemologies and ontologies . As Omnia El Shakry shows, dealing with destruction

1634-634: Is a challenge central to decolonial historiography. When faced with a lack of archival documents, historians resort to different sources and methods. For example, due to the lack of a Palestinian state archive, many historians of Nakba had to rely on sources in the Israeli state's archives. As a result of this perceived under-representation, some activists are making efforts to decolonize contemporary archival institutions that may employ hegemonic and white supremacist practices by implementing subversive alternatives such as anarchiving or counter-archiving with

1720-483: Is archived by the ADS and a number of journal series from learned societies such as the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland , have older digital versions of their journals made freely available from the ADS site. The ADS is the largest single source of archived grey literature , with over 20,000 examples available in its Library of Unpublished Fieldwork . Access to grey literature in the archaeological context has become

1806-502: Is available through specialized channels and may not enter normal channels or systems of publication, distribution, bibliographic control, or acquisition by booksellers or subscription agents". Thus grey literature is usually inaccessible through relevant reference tools such as databases and indexes, which rely upon the reporting of subscription agents. In 2010, D.J. Farace and J. Schöpfel pointed out that existing definitions of grey literature were predominantly economic, and argued that in

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1892-504: Is being created. Archives in colleges, universities, and other educational facilities are typically housed within a library, and duties may be carried out by an archivist . Academic archives exist to preserve institutional history and serve the academic community. An academic archive may contain materials such as the institution's administrative records, personal and professional papers of former professors and presidents, memorabilia related to school organizations and activities, and items

1978-531: Is called an archivist . The study and practice of organizing, preserving, and providing access to information and materials in archives is called archival science . The physical place of storage can be referred to as an archive (more usual in the United Kingdom ), an archives (more usual in the United States ), or a repository. The computing use of the term "archive" should not be confused with

2064-597: Is intended to follow the Open Archival Information System reference model, which is an ISO for data archive systems. There are no constraints on access although users must click a web form to accept the ADS Terms and Conditions, in essence these state that the all copyright is retained by the original data depositor, but they permit its reuse for teaching, learning and research purposes, but not commercial purposes. Off site back-up storage for

2150-551: Is kept on reels of specially developed film in a steel vault buried deep beneath the permafrost , with the data storage medium expected to last for 500 to 1000 years. The International Council on Archives (ICA) has developed a number of standards on archival description, including the General International Standard Archival Description ISAD(G). ISAD (G) is meant to be used in conjunction with national standards or as

2236-891: Is not the primary activity of the producing body. Due to the rapid increase web publishing and access to documents, the focus of grey literature has shifted to quality, intellectual property , curation, and accessibility. The term grey literature acts as a collective noun to refer to a large number of publications types produced by organizations for various reasons. These include research and project reports, annual or activity reports, theses , conference proceedings , preprints , working papers , newsletters , technical reports, recommendations and technical standards , patents , technical notes, data and statistics, presentations, field notes, laboratory research books, academic courseware , lecture notes, evaluations, and many more. The international network GreyNet maintains an online listing of document types. Organizations produce grey literature as

2322-400: Is often discussed with reference to scientific research, it is by no means restricted to any one field. Outside the hard sciences , it presents significant challenges in archaeology where site surveys and excavation reports, containing unique data, have frequently been produced and circulated in informal "grey" formats. Some of the problems of accessing grey literature have decreased since

2408-702: Is the public archive of English Heritage . The National Records of Scotland , located in Edinburgh , serves that country; while the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast is the government archive for Northern Ireland. A network of county record offices and other local authority-run archives exists throughout England, Wales, and Scotland and holds many important collections, including local government, landed estates, church, and business records. Many archives have contributed catalogs to

2494-671: The Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques is an affiliation of 49 European national and regional film archives founded in 1991. For a comprehensive look at the history of film preservation and the institutions and organizations that developed various practices, see Penelope Houston 's Keepers of the Frame. Non-profit archives include those in historical societies , not-for-profit businesses such as hospitals, and repositories within foundations . Such repositories are typically set up with private funds from donors to preserve

2580-620: The French Revolution . The French National Archives , which possess perhaps the largest archival collection in the world (with records going as far back as 625 A.D.), was created in 1790 during the Revolution from various government, religious, and private archives seized by the revolutionaries. In 1883, French archivist Gabriel Richou published the first Western text on archival theory, entitled Traité théorique et pratique des archives publiques ( Treaty of Theory and Practice of

2666-625: The National Overseas Archives (ANOM, 36.5 kilometres (22.7 mi) of physical records), the National Archives of the World of Labour  [ fr ] (ANMT, 49.8 kilometres (30.9 mi) of physical records), and all local public archives (departmental archives, or archives départementales , located in the préfectures of each of the 100 départements of France plus the City of Paris, more than 400 municipal archives in

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2752-499: The commercial archaeology sector. The ADS carries out research, most of which focuses on resource discovery, cross-searching and interoperability with other relevant archives in the UK, Europe and the United States of America. The Archaeology Data Service is listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data.org. In the late 1990s a consensus developed in the field of archaeology that archaeological data in digital form

2838-600: The open data provided by such open archives through OAI-PMH , as well as records from publishers deposited in CrossRef and other sources. They include BASE , CORE and Unpaywall, which indexes over 20 million open access publications as of 2020. The annual international grey literature conference series has been organized since 1993 by the Europe-based organization GreyNet . Research in this field of information has been systematically documented and archived via

2924-548: The ADS archive is held both at the University of York 's computer services and at the UK Data Archive in Essex. Beyond acting as a simple repository for datasets, the ADS has a number of interactive interfaces into complex archives including database search interfaces, Web GIS and interactive image galleries. The main search mechanism for the ADS catalogue, ArchSearch, contains aggregated resource discovery metadata for

3010-427: The ADS in the UK include: Significant EU funded projects include: 53°57′45″N 1°05′12″W  /  53.962364°N 1.086633°W  / 53.962364; -1.086633 Digital archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over

3096-463: The ADS internal Management Group, comprising the director, deputy director, European project manager, communications and access manager, and the systems manager. The current (2020) chair of the management committee is professor Sam Turner from the University of Newcastle . The ADS holds the digital outputs of numerous archaeological excavations or other research activities including some very well known sites such as Stonehenge and Sutton Hoo . Much of

3182-518: The California State Prison System describe what happened to them. The archive's mission is to gather stories from women who want to express themselves and want their stories heard. This collection includes transcripts and an audio recording of the women telling their stories. The archives of an individual may include letters, papers, photographs, computer files, scrapbooks, financial records, or diaries created or collected by

3268-609: The European Communities: A Guide , which contained the first usage of the term "grey literature" in a published work. The "Luxembourg definition", discussed and approved at the Third International Conference on Grey Literature in 1997, defined grey literature as "that which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers". In 2004, at

3354-601: The Greek word is ἀρχή ( arkhē ), meaning among other things "magistracy, office, government", and derived from the verb ἄρχω ( arkhō ), meaning "to begin, rule, govern" (also the root of English words such as "anarchy" and "monarchy"). The word archive was first attested in English in the early 17th century, and the word archivist in the mid-18th century, although in these periods both terms were usually used only in reference to foreign institutions and personnel. Not until

3440-532: The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property from 1954 and its 2nd Protocol from 1999. From a national and international perspective, there are many collaborations between archives and local Blue Shield organizations to ensure the sustainable existence of cultural property storage facilities. In addition to working with United Nations peacekeeping in the event of war, the protection of

3526-501: The International Conference on Grey Literature series. Greynet also produces a journal on grey literature and has been a key advocate for the recognition and study of grey literature, particularly in library and information sciences, The Grey Journal . The Grey Journal appears three times a year –in spring, summer, and autumn. Each issue in a volume is thematic and deals with one or more related topics in

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3612-466: The Public Archives ), in which he systematized the archival theory of the respect des fonds , first published by Natalis de Wailly in 1841. Historians, genealogists , lawyers, demographers , filmmakers, and others conduct research at archives. The research process at each archive is unique and depends upon the institution that houses the archive. While there are many kinds of archives,

3698-644: The Sixth Conference in New York City , a postscript was added to the definition for purposes of clarification: grey literature is "...not controlled by commercial publishers, i.e., where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body". This definition is now widely accepted by the scholarly community. The U.S. Interagency Gray Literature Working Group (IGLWG), in its "Gray Information Functional Plan" of 1995, defined grey literature as "foreign or domestic open source material that usually

3784-691: The United Methodist Archives and History Center of the United Methodist Church, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Film archives collect, restore, investigate and conserve audiovisual content like films, documentaries, tv programs and newsreel footage. Often, a country has its own film archive to preserve its national audiovisual heritage. The International Federation of Film Archives comprises more than 150 institutions in over 77 countries and

3870-540: The United States. Some city or local governments may have repositories, but their organization and accessibility vary widely. Similar to the library profession, certification requirements and education also varies widely, from state to state. Professional associations themselves encourage the need to professionalize. NARA offers the Certificate of Federal Records Management Training Program for professional development. The majority of state and local archives staff hold

3956-712: The University of Victoria , which contain a multitude of collections of donations from both individuals and organizations from all over the world. Many of these donations have yet to be cataloged but are currently in the process of being digitally preserved and made available to the public online. The Arctic World Archive is a commercially-run facility for data preservation located in the Svalbard archipelago, Norway, that contains data of historical and cultural interest from several countries as well as all of American multinational company GitHub 's open source code . The data

4042-704: The ability to post documents on the internet has resulted in a tremendous boom. The impact of this trend has been greatly boosted since the early 2000s, as the growth of major search engines has made retrieving grey literature simultaneously easier and more cluttered. Grey reports are thus far more easily found online than they were, often at no cost to access. Most users of reports and other grey documents have migrated to using online copies, and efforts by libraries to collect hard-copy versions have generally declined in consequence. However, many problems remain because originators often fail to produce online reports or publications to an adequate bibliographic standard (often omitting

4128-725: The academic library wishes to remain in a closed-stack setting, such as rare books or thesis copies. Access to the collections in these archives is usually by prior appointment only; some have posted hours for making inquiries. Users of academic archives can be undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff, scholarly researchers, and the general public. Many academic archives work closely with alumni relations departments or other campus institutions to help raise funds for their library or school. Qualifications for employment may vary. Entry-level positions usually require an undergraduate diploma, but typically archivists hold graduate degrees in history or library science (preferably certified by

4214-462: The ancient Chinese, the ancient Greeks, and the ancient Romans (who called them Tabularia ). However, those archives have been lost since documents written on materials like papyrus and paper deteriorated relatively quickly, unlike their clay tablet counterparts. Archives of churches, kingdoms, and cities from the Middle Ages survive and have often kept their official status uninterruptedly to

4300-507: The archaeology departments of the following Universities: and The University of Southampton and University College London were also involved in early discussions about the formation of a digital archive for archaeological material, and joined the consortium at an early stage. The ADS is run on a day-to-day basis by a director and a deputy director, however it is managed by a committee meeting bi-annually consisting of representatives of funding bodies, representatives of user communities and

4386-667: The archive material can be grouped together under 'programme' headings such as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) which involved over 100 different archaeological interventions. The ADS acts as the mandated digital archive for archaeological research, of any kind, funded by the AHRC , and also for English Heritage administered funds such as the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF). The online journal Internet Archaeology 's content

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4472-842: The archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Diplomatic Archives  [ fr ] , ca. 120 kilometres (75 mi) of physical records) are managed separately by their respective ministries and do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Archives of France Administration. In India , the National Archives (NAI) are located in New Delhi. In Taiwan , the National Archives Administration are located in Taipei . Most intergovernmental organizations keep their own historical archives. However,

4558-441: The archives requires the creation of "no-strike lists", the linking of civil and military structures, and the training of local personnel. Archives that primarily contain physical artifacts and printed documents are increasingly shifting to digitizing items that did not originate digitally , which are then usually stored away. This allows for greater accessibility when using search tools and databases, as well as an increase in

4644-429: The availability of digitized materials from outside the physical parameters of an archive, but there may be an element of loss or disconnect when there are gaps in what items are made available digitally. Both physical and digital archives also generally have specific limitations regarding the types of content that are deemed able to be preserved, categorized, and archived. Conventional institutionalized archive spaces have

4730-428: The challenges of reports literature, he recognized that it held a number of advantages "over other means of dissemination, including greater speed, greater flexibility and the opportunity to go into considerable detail if necessary". Auger considered reports a "half-published" communication medium with a "complex interrelationship [to] scientific journals". In 1989 Auger published the second edition of The Documentation of

4816-401: The cost and difficulty of finding and cataloguing grey literature mean that it is still difficult to find large collections. The British Library began collecting print grey literature in the post-WWII period and now has an extensive collection of print resources. Analysis & Policy Observatory has an extensive collection of grey literature on a wide range of public policy issues, ArXiv is

4902-526: The course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the history and function of that person or organization. Professional archivists and historians generally understand archives to be records that have been naturally and necessarily generated as a product of regular legal, commercial, administrative, or social activities. They have been metaphorically defined as "the secretions of an organism", and are distinguished from documents that have been consciously written or created to communicate

4988-496: The digital era thus remains a considerable problem. The amount of digital grey literature now available also poses a problem for finding relevant resources and to be able to assess their credibility and quality given the number of resources now available. At the same time a great deal of grey literature remains hidden, either not made public or not made discoverable via search engines. Various databases and libraries collect and make available print and digital grey literature; however,

5074-618: The education required for a position at a non-profit archive varies with the demands of the collection's user base. Web archiving is the process of collecting portions of the World Wide Web and ensuring the collection is preserved in an archive, such as an archive site , for future researchers, historians, and the public. Due to the massive size of the Web, web archivists typically employ web crawlers for automated collection. Similarly, software code and documentation can be archived on

5160-880: The engineering sciences in general, grey literature resources tend to predominate. In the last few decades, systematic literature reviews in health and medicine have established the importance of discovering and analyzing grey literature as part of the evidence base and in order to avoid publication bias. Grey literature is particularly important as a means of distributing scientific and technical and public policy and practice information. Professionals insist on its importance for two main reasons: research results are often more detailed in reports, doctoral theses and conference proceedings than in journals, and they are distributed in these forms up to 12 or even 18 months before being published elsewhere. Some results simply are not published anywhere else. In particular, public administrations and public and industrial research laboratories produce

5246-566: The formulation of sound search strategies. Grey literature may be made available to the public, or distributed privately within organizations or groups, and may lack a systematic means of distribution and collection. The standard of quality, review and production of grey literature can vary considerably. Other terms used for this material include report literature , government publications , policy documents , fugitive literature , non-conventional literature , unpublished literature , non-traditional publications , and ephemeral publications . With

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5332-700: The heading of grey literature, although they again share some of the same problems of control and access. The relative importance of grey literature is largely dependent on research disciplines and subjects, on methodological approaches, and on the sources they use. In some fields, especially in the life sciences and medical sciences, there has been a traditional preference for only using peer-reviewed academic journals, but studies of methodological quality and reliability have found that "reliability of published research works in several fields may be decreasing with increasing journal rank", contrary to widespread expectations. In other fields, such as agriculture, aeronautics and

5418-470: The history and administration of their companies. Business archives serve the purpose of helping corporations maintain control over their brand by retaining memories of the company's past. Especially in business archives, records management is separate from the historical aspect of archives. Workers in these types of archives may have any combination of training and degrees, from either a history or library background. These archives are typically not open to

5504-482: The individual, regardless of medium or format. The archives of an organization (such as a corporation or government) tend to contain other types of records, such as administrative files, business records, memos, official correspondence, and meeting minutes. Some archives are made up of a compilation of both types of collections. An example of this type of combined compilation is the Transgender Archives at

5590-634: The inherent impermanence and gradual change of physical objects over time as a result of being handled. The concept of counter-archiving brings into question what tends to be considered archivable and what is therefore selected to be preserved within conventional contemporary archives. With the options available through counter-archiving, there is the potential to "challenge traditional conceptions of history" as they are perceived within contemporary archives, which creates space for narratives that are often not present in many archival materials. The unconventional nature of counter-archiving practices makes room for

5676-546: The intention of making intersectional accessibility a priority for those who cannot or do not want to access contemporary archival institutions. An example of this is Morgan M. Page's description of disseminating transgender history directly to trans people through various social media and networking platforms like tumblr , Twitter , and Instagram , as well as via podcast . While the majority of archived materials are typically well conserved within their collections, anarchiving's attention to ephemerality also brings to light

5762-470: The introduction of desktop publishing and the Internet, new terms include electronic publications , online publications , online resources , open-access research , and digital documents . Though the concept is difficult to define, the term grey literature is an agreed collective term that researchers and information professionals can use to discuss this distinct but disparate group of resources. While

5848-557: The larger towns and cities of France, and 12 newer regional archives) which possess 3,591 km (2,231 miles) of physical records and 225.25 terabytes of electronic archives (as of 2020 ). Put together, the total volume of archives under the supervision of the French Archives Administration is the largest in the world. The archives of the French Ministry of Armed Forces ( Defence Historical Service , ca. 450 kilometres (280 mi) of physical records) and

5934-419: The late 1990s as government, professional, business and university bodies have increasingly published their reports and other official or review documents online. The informal nature of grey literature has meant that it has become more numerous as the technology that allows people to create documentation has improved. Less expensive and more sophisticated printers increased the ease of creating grey literature. And

6020-657: The late 19th century did they begin to be used widely in domestic contexts. The adjective formed from archive is archival . The practice of keeping official documents is very old. Archaeologists have discovered archives of hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of clay tablets dating back to the third and second millennia BC in sites like Ebla , Mari , Amarna , Hattusas , Ugarit , and Pylos . These discoveries have been fundamental to learning about ancient alphabets, languages, literature, and politics. Oral literature, such as Palestinian hikaye , can also have archival functions for communities. Archives were well developed by

6106-448: The maintenance of ephemeral qualities contained within certain historically significant experiences, performances, and personally or culturally relevant stories that do not typically have a space in conventional archives. The practices of anarchiving and counter-archiving are both rooted in social justice work. Grey literature Grey literature may be difficult to discover, access, and evaluate, but this can be addressed through

6192-484: The most basic principles of archival science may have an archive. In the 2004 census of archivists taken in the United States, 2.7% of archivists were employed in institutions that defied categorization. This was a separate figure from the 1.3% that identified themselves as self-employed. Another type of archive is the Public Secrets project. This is an interactive testimonial, in which women incarcerated in

6278-411: The most recent census of archivists in the United States identifies five major types: academic , business (for profit) , government , non-profit , and others . There are also four main areas of inquiry involved with archives: material technologies, organizing principles, geographic locations, and tangled embodiments of humans and non-humans. These areas help to further categorize what kind of archive

6364-595: The national " Access to Archives " program and online searching across collections is possible. In France, the French Archives Administration ( Service interministériel des Archives de France ) in the Ministry of Culture supervises the National Archives ( Archives nationales ), which possess 373 km (232 miles) of physical records as of 2020 (the total length of occupied shelves put next to each other), with original records going as far back as A.D. 625, and 74.75 terabytes (74,750 GB ) of electronic archives, as well as

6450-581: The national monument inventories of England, Scotland and Wales (hosted by English Heritage , the RCAHMS and the RCAHMW ) as well as numerous Historic Environment Records HERs . The ADS hosts a number of datasets, such as the Excavation Index, that are made available externally as web services and consumed by English Heritage 's Heritage Gateway search engine. Significant projects undertaken by

6536-668: The ones of Monte Cassino , Saint Gall , and Fulda . The records in these archives include manuscripts, papal records, local church records, photographs, oral histories, audiovisual materials, and architectural drawings. Most Protestant denominations have archives as well, including the Presbyterian Historical Society , the Moravian Church Archives, the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives,

6622-420: The other hand, grey literature is not necessarily always free, with some resources, such as market reports, selling for thousands of dollars. However, this is the exception and on the whole grey literature, while costly to produce, is usually made available for free. While research and production quality may be extremely high (with organizational reputation vested in the end product), the producing body, not being

6708-525: The papers and histories of specific people or places. These institutions may rely on grant funding from the government as well as private funds. Depending on the availability of funds, non-profit archives may be as small as the historical society in a rural town to as big as a state historical society that rivals a government archive. Users of this type of archive may vary as much as the institutions that hold it. Employees of non-profit archives may be professional archivists, paraprofessionals , or volunteers, as

6794-481: The present. They are the basic tools for historical research on this period. England, after 1066, developed archives and archival access methods. The Swiss developed archival systems after 1450. The first predecessors of archival science in the West are Jacob von Rammingen's manuals of 1571. and Baldassarre Bonifacio 's De Archivis libris singularis of 1632. Modern archival thinking has some roots dating back to

6880-426: The public and are only used by workers of the owner company, though some allow approved visitors by appointment. Business archives are concerned with maintaining the integrity of their company and are therefore selective about how their materials may be used. Government archives include those maintained by local and state governments as well as those maintained by the national (or federal) government. Anyone may use

6966-704: The record-keeping meaning of the term. The English word archive / ˈ ɑːr k aɪ v / is derived from the French archives (plural), and in turn from Latin archīum or archīvum , the romanized form of the Greek ἀρχεῖον ( arkheion ). The Greek term originally referred to the home or dwelling of the Archon , a ruler or chief magistrate , in which important official state documents were filed and interpreted; from there its meaning broadened to encompass such concepts as " town hall " and " public records ". The root of

7052-450: The required output, sharing it with relevant parties quickly and easily, without the delays and restrictions of academic journal and book publishing. Often there is little incentive or justification for organizations or individuals to publish in academic journals and books, and often no need to charge for access to organizational outputs. Indeed, some information organizations may be required to make certain information and documents public. On

7138-408: The term "grey literature" to describe the concept for the first time. His concepts focused upon a "vast body of documents" with "continuing increasing quantity" that were characterized by the "difficulty it presents to the librarian". Auger described the documentation as having great ambiguity between temporary character and durability, and by a growing impact on scientific research. While acknowledging

7224-547: The web, as with the example of CPAN . Some archives defy categorization. There are tribal archives within the Native American nations in North America, and there are archives that exist within the papers of private individuals. Many museums keep archives in order to prove the provenance of their pieces. Any institution or persons wishing to keep their significant papers in an organized fashion that employs

7310-502: Was highly fragile due to both an inadequate understanding of technical threats to its sustainability and the lack of an infrastructure to preserve it in the long term. In April 1996 a consortium comprising eight Departments of Archaeology from UK Universities joined forces with the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) to put a proposal to the Arts and Humanities Data Service Executive to establish an Archaeology Data Service. This service

7396-487: Was to host a digital archive for archaeologists and to provide advice and guidance to the archaeological community on how to create and manage their digital datasets. As a result, the ADS was established at the University of York Department of Archaeology in September 1996 with two full-time members of staff and under the directorship of Professor Julian D. Richards . From 1996 until 2008 the ADS hosted AHDS Archaeology ,

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