Bringing the Grey Literature Out of the Shadows: The Demise of a Technical Report Database Silo

At the Furth Library in the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), staff have been using a Microsoft Access database called PPLCat to keep track of a variety of materials held in the library including technical reports and journal articles since 1985. The database has grown outdated, is slow to use, and has limited functionality compared to newer publicly available databases.  Working with librarians from the Library Systems and Cataloging departments, a project was developed to identify and transfer relevant records from PPLCat into Princeton’s main library catalog.