Urban Planning

Sources for searching for grey literature

Grey literature is information produced outside of traditional publishing - government documents, reports, working papers, urban plans, etc. This information is often produced by organizations "on the ground" (such as NGOs and IGOs) where dissemination of information and reporting on activities is the goal before publishing an academic article or book.

• Carleton University's Find Canadian Government Publications on the Web - Google Custom Search that searches across Canadian government websites with the option to limit to federal, provincial, or municipal information.

• Canadian electronic library: Canadian public policy collection - Publications from Canadian public policy institutes, government agencies, advocacy groups, think tanks, university research centres, and public interest groups.

• IGO Search - Google Custom Search of IGO websites for reports and other publications. 

• NGO Search - Custom Google Search of NGO websites for reports and other publications  

• Google Scholar - Searches scholarly literature across disciplines and sources and includes some grey literature.

• McGill Library Subject Guide for Theses and Dissertations - Lists sources for locating theses and dissertations from McGill and beyond.  

• McGill Library Urban Plan Collection - Database of reports and plans for urban and rural areas from all Canadian provinces. Some American and international material. Years covered at present are roughly 1950-2006. Database will provide a box number for the print material, which can be found along shelved along the south wall of the Blackader-Lauterman Collection on the 3rd floor of the Redpath Library Building.  

• Urban Studies and Planning Commons - Scholarship from hundreds of universities and colleges. Provides open access to peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.