Grey literature as Valuable Resources in National Library of Iran: from Organizing to Digitization

Abstract

Grey literature is an important source of information due to the uniqueness of the content that gets published. Because commercial publishers are looking to make a profit on the materials they publish, they often overlook niche research areas that serve smaller populations. Grey literature is one way to search for information in emerging or less popular research areas. It seems that it reinforce research and accelerate continuous movement towards having a scientific society. Any source of information that has not been released to the market after printing is considered as grey literature. Grey literature is a special resource that is created for a specific purpose and audience and is replicated finitely. It is impermanent and invisible, and cannot be seen in the directory of publishers, bookshops and libraries. The National Library of Iran was founded in 1937. The main goal of this organization is collecting, preserving, organizing and disseminating information about printed and non-printed works in Iran, and taking measures and making decisions to guarantee the accuracy, ease and speed of research and study in all fields to promote national culture. In order to achieve these goals, and according to the law, all private and public publishers are required to submit a copy of their publications (book and non -book materials) to the National Library of Iran . There are more than 900 thousand issues in the grey literature group at the National Library, over 240,000 issues of which are digitized. After being collected, these

resources are organized and made available to users. Report, research project, standard and dissertations are among the most important sources of the National Library of Iran ’s grey literature, used by many researchers daily.In this research, the process of collecting, organizing and disseminating of information of these sources in the National Library of Iran will be expressed as a successful practical experience. Besides, it will be shown how the National Library of Iran has dealt with the problems it faced with.