Grey literature refers to information products, which are created and distributed in order to disseminate knowledge (ideas, facts, opinions) rather than to sell for a profit. It is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, which is not controlled by commercial publishers. These may include conference proceedings, newsletters, technical notes, theses/dissertations, translations, trade literature and house journals, government publications, working papers, committee reports, and more. An article appearing on the Internet in Information World Review in 1996, calls grey literature “the unsung hero, the foot soldier, the foundation of the building”. It possesses the following characteristics: a. Can provide information that is not available; b. Can offer the results of conferences and congresses faster that occurs with conventional literature; c. Permits corroboration of important information located in other sources; d. Is concise and aimed directly at the content of the issue, e. Is complete- items included in grey literature are often more detailed than those published later in official journals, and; f. Ease of exchange through the Internet. € | Electronic grey literature: The Internet and changes in publishing have focused attention on the expansion and diversification of grey literature. A large number of Web sites give access to progress reports on the new technologies that support medical, biological, archaeological, astrophysical, meteorological, and geological developments bringing together the new instrumentation used in laboratories, hospitals, clinical settings for medical, environmental, and technical research and commercial applications. Today physicians, health practitioners and scientists are able to take and retain radiological films and reproduce them at other location for others to view at the fast and high resolution. In the filed of human and animal genetics lot of research work has been done, scientists are now able to predict one’s likelihood of contracting a specific illness or disease. These databases cover subjects like molecular biology, virology and anatomy and offer information on cloning, reproductive health and interpretations of applied ethics. Use of embedded metadata in source documents, and ‘electronic journal’ type websites developed by universities, libraries and other organisations are increasing. Digitisation and networking provide authors and end-users with a mechanism for distributing and acquiring information without need for the professional institutions in the information chain. € | Access to grey literature: Searching for grey literature is difficult for a number of reasons. The core reasons for difficulties in identifying and acquiring this kind of literature are due to its “poor bibliographic information and control, non-professional layout and format, and low print runs” (Augur 1989,3). Publishing literature on the Web has become very easy because one needs not to comply with rigid editorial standards for publishing self-material. Portable Document Files (PDF) are becoming very popular tools for publishing in-house documents. This helps to reduce publishing and printing costs. Search engines such as Google are capable of searching for PDF files, and for information within PDF files - greatly improving the ability to search for relevant papers and reports. An Italian survey of grey literature put on and cited on the web servers of research institutes has shown that 61% of the institutes have published grey literature. Grey literature is being produced at an exponential rate. Its rate of growth is three to four times that of conventional literature. In 1992 the BLDSC (British Library Document Supply Centre, UK) held about 3 million grey literature, ten years later the collection grown to 17 million. The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), US has a collection of over 1.5 million Energy R&D reports and approximately 5 million bibliographic citations. The European Association for Grey Literature Exploitation/ System of Information for Grey Literature in Europe (EAGLE/SIGLE) is another significant co-operative network for identification, location and supply of Grey Literature. It produces and provides access to the bibliographic database SIGLE. € | Conclusion The Grey Literature has a great significance in supporting ongoing initiatives aimed at improving living standards in developing nations. It provides citizens with the information they require to make decisions about their lives and the societies they live. It covers nearly every aspect of Science & Technology and provides readers with research summaries, facts, statistics and other data and the information contained in it is usually valuable and unique. The greatest challenges involved with these items are the process of identification, since there is limited indexing, and acquisition; availability is usually marred with uncertainty. Absence of editorial control, raising questions about authenticity and reliability are the other constraints. Despite these considerations, gray literature is continually referenced in scholarly articles and therefore remains an issue that librarians must contend with. There is a need for specialised bibliographic instruments to facilitate the identification and retrieval of grey literature. Some Useful References on this subject are available at http://www.greynet.org/pages/3/ index.htm http://personal.ecu.edu/cooninb/ greyliterature.htm * http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/ehta/ chapter10.html For further information, mail to sibli@hub.nic.in