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Grey Literature for Health Sciences and Medicine

This guide provides some useful sources of grey literature in Health Sciences and Medicine including tips on how to find it.

Preprint Servers, Open Archives and Repositories

Preprint Servers

Preprints are early versions of research papers that have not yet been peer reviewed. They are typically shared on preprint servers, where they may use open licences, such as Creative Commons licences.

  • bioRxiv.org
    bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences.
  • PsyArXiv
    PsyArXiv (psychology archive) is designed to facilitate rapid dissemination of psychological research. PsyArXiv is a creation of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science and the Center for Open Science.
  • MedRxiv
    medRxiv (pronounced "med-archive") is a free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences
  • SSRN
    SSRN is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks. New networks with preprints include Medicine, Public Health, Psychology and Dentistry. Search individual or all networks.

Repositories

Publications found in institutional repositories will vary but can include grey literature material such as reports, theses etc.

  • University or Melbourne Institutional Repository (Minerva Access)
    Showcases the research outputs of our University’s staff and students.
  • OpenDOAR
    OpenDOAR is a quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories. The tools lists repositories that provide free, open access to academic outputs and resources. Advanced Search allows the search for repositories with options to include limits such as country, content type and subject areas.
  • Sigma Nursing Repository
    "Communities" in this repository include Electronic Theses and Dissertations, Independent Submissions and Previously Published Materials. Simple or Advanced Search options as well as Browse.

Other

  • Organisation Web Sites - MedlinePlus.gov
    A collection of organizations providing health information arranged by topic or alphabetically by name
  • Australian Standards

    Full access to Australian Standards, plus access to international Standards IEC, EN, ETSI, NSAI, JSA, & ANSI, BSI, DIN and ASTM.

  • Therapeutic Goods Association

    Authority responsible for regulating medicines, medical devices, blood, and tissues. Contains regulatory and safety information.

  • International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

    Catalogue of International Standards. ISO catalogue may be browsed for free, ISO standards will need to be purchased.

  • IP Australia - AusPat

    Australian Government agency that administers intellectual property (IP) rights and legislation for patents, trade marks, design rights and plant breeder's rights (PBR). Quick, Structured or Advanced Search options.

  • International Patents

    Search other International Patent Offices. Directory of links to other International Patent Offices databases.

  • Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE)

    BASE is one of the world's most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources. BASE provides more than 300 million documents from more than 10,000

  • WorldWideScience
    WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway comprised of national and international scientific databases and portals. It uses federated search to drill down into the deep web, which contains a vast amount of scientific and technical information.