The Grey Lit Café

Spineless Wonders is the splendid title for a splendid exhibition at the University of London's Senate House Library - an exhibition of unbound material in myriad formats, spanning five hundred years of printing.

This episode reviews the exhibition with its three curators:

• Tansy Barton (Academic Librarian)
• Christos Fotelis (Conservator)
• Leila Kassir (Academic Librarian)

We consider how the exhibition came about, how exhibits were selected, what the aim of the exhibition is, and which exhibits constitute the curators' favourites. 

And, as a by-product of our discussion we reflect on established themes of the podcast, namely how grey literature is defined and what relationship it has to ephemera.

Details of the exhibition, which continues to 15 November 2025, together with supporting digital resources, may be found on the University of London's website, here.

Further listening

We hope you found this episode rewarding. If so, you might find the following of particular interest:

• Before Spotify: the remarkable story of chautauquas
• But what about letters? Their scholarly use as grey literature
• How to define grey literature? The implications of letters

Credit 

The music is from Handel's Water Music, courtesy of the United States Marine Band and Marine Chamber Orchestra

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

If you're studying on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course, this episode is for you.

The episode focuses on the visual aspects of advice. 

It seeks to provide pragmatic recommendations that will make a marked difference to the communicative effectiveness of your poster presentation.

Contents

• 00:00 Navigation
• 01:56 Visual aspects of text
• 04:25 Contrast
• 07:21 Alignment
• 09:13 Naming
• 10:29 Further resource

Further Resources

Robin Williams, The non-designer’s design book, 4th edn (Peachpit
Press, 2014).

Writing, designing, and presenting a poster (a writing protocol): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bW8sj5j1W70PjYLUuLgPLPADyOvUOXVV/view/.

Credit: The music, from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, is courtesy of the US Marine Band. 

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

If you're studying on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course, this episode is for you.

The episode focuses on the (quite radical) implications of 

• the context of poster display
• spectators' behaviour
• aspects of inclusive practice.

These considerations will help you to optimise the communicative effectiveness of your poster presentation.

Contents

• 00:00 Key issues
• 03:29 Allocation of space on the poster
• 04:43 Non-linear sequencing
• 07:40 Inclusiveness

Credit: The music, from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, is courtesy of the US Marine Band. 

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

If you're a student on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode is for you.

Indeed, it focuses on considerations specific to the course, based on observations from previous cohorts' presentations.

This is the third of three episodes on presentations. There is a parallel set of episodes on poster presentations.

Contents

• 00:00 Group prsentations
• 01:35 Use of space
• 03:30 Q & A
• 09:14 Further resources

Link

The protocol, 'Giving a presentation', is available from the Frontinus website, here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QyT64vNnO7RXUhoWj9WBStOewtOwzv6s/view.

Credit: The music is from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, courtesy of the US Marine Band.

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

If you're a student on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode is for you.

The episode stems from consideration of the pitfalls presenters fall into concerning use of slides.

Simply by avoiding these pitfalls, you can make your presentation outstandingly communicative.

This is the second of three episodes on presentations. There is a parallel set of episodes on poster presentations.

Contents

• 00:00 Key issues
• 04:37 Audience engagement
• 07:10 The three functions of slides
• 12:57 Using slides interactively
• 15:51 Implications for time management

Credit: The music is from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, courtesy of the US Marine Band.

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

If you're a student on the University of Cambridge's Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode has been created for you.

The episode stems from consideration of the big pitfalls presenters often fall into and provides advice on how to avoid them.

Simply by avoiding the pitfalls, you can make your presentation outstandingly good.

Contents

• 00.00 'Presentation' and 'slides' aren't synonyms
• 02:37 Where to look and why
• 08:06 Creating flow
• 10:18 Getting the timing right

Further listening

This is the first of three episodes on presentations. The other two concern:

• slides
• tactics concerning group presentations and course-specific factors.

Credit: The music is from Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, courtesy of the US Marine Band. 

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

If you’re a student on the Multidisciplinary Design course (GM1), this episode has been created for you.

Understandably, students tasked with preparing a poster presentation tend to assume that it’s all about the poster itself. 

Of course, the poster’s the primary component of a poster presentation. But there’s more to poster presentation than that. 

This episode explains the why and the how concerning two further components of poster presentations. 

Attending to all three components of a poster presentation will help you to optimise the way you engage your audience and communicate your work.

Contents

• 00:00 What’s in the series?
• 00:58 What are the components of a poster presentation?
• 03:02 Who are you communicating with?
• 05:36 What does your poster not say?
• 07:07 How can you add value with supplementary resources?
• 10:23 Where next?

Further episodes

This episode is the first of a series of episodes on poster presentations. The others are:

• How to optimise your use of space on your poster
• How to optimise design features on your poster

A parallel set of episodes deals with presentations. 

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

"Three years have passed; five summers, with the length/ Of five long winters!" (as William Wordsworth wrote). This episode was recorded to mark the third anniversary of The Grey Lit Café's first episode ('Welcome to the Grey Lit Café') and the conclusion of our seventh season. 

We briefly review the season in the context of our developing conception of how best to discuss grey literature and we look ahead to the next season, which promises a novel focus.

Further listening

We hope you found this episode rewarding. If so, you might find the following of particular interest:

• Another season over and what have we done?
• How meetings work, with Carrie Goucher
• Don't fall in love with your work, with Sabuhi Essa

Credits

• Audio production and editing: Anthony Haynes
• Opening announcement: Engy Moussa
• Music: from Handel's Water Music, courtesy of the United States Marine Band and Marine Chamber Orchestra

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

A key role of grey literature is to provide an interface between industry and academic research. In this episode, we continue our focus on innovation in grey literature by interviewing Dr Joseph Gibbons, Principal Technical Advisor at Natural Power Ireland.

Joseph outlines a scheme he established to enable doctoral students to spend time in industry, working on research projects that formed the basis of their dissertations.

Joseph explains:

• what the scheme entails
• its rationale
• how it was implemented
• above all, the benefits of the scheme for all stakeholders.

Links

Joseph's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-gibbons/

Natural Power: https:www.naturalpower.com/uk

Further listening

We hope you found this episode rewarding. If so, you might find the following of particular interest:

• Dissertations and books: how are they related?
• How to give a presentation on engineering?

Credits

• Audio editing: Dr Bart Hallmark 
• Music: from Handel's Water Music, courtesy of the United States Marine Band and Marine Chamber Orchestra

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.

Anthony Haynes writes: A persistent theme on The Grey Lit Café is the role of grey literature genres in higher education. We've published episodes on abstracts, dissertations, essays, online lectures, posters, and slide decks.

In this episode, we take up a challenge from our recent episodes on essays: what alternatives - when it comes to expository and discursive communication - are there to essays?

Here, in the second of two interviews, Dr James Austin (University of Connecticut)  explains how his pedagogy encompasses student production of podcasts.

References

James's publications are itemised on his university page: https://english.uconn.edu/person/james-austin/.


Further listening

We hope you found this episode rewarding. If so, you might find the following of particular interest:

• Slide decks: their developmental use
• How effective are essays as an academic genre? The case of examinations
• How effective are essays as an academic genre? The case of examinations
• Online lectures: Bart Hallmark on pitfalls and good practice
• Posters as a form of research communication

Credits

• Audio editing: Dr Bart Hallmark 
• Music: from Handel's Water Music, courtesy of the United States Marine Band and Marine Chamber Orchestra

Support the show

About the publisher

This episode is published by Frontinus Ltd. We're a communications consultancy that helps organisations and individuals to communicate scientific, professional, and technical content to non-specialist audiences. 

We provide 

• consultancy 
• mentoring
• editing and writing
• training

and work on presentations, bids and proposals, and publications (for example, reports and papers).

To learn more about services or explore ways of working together, please contact us via our website, http://frontinus.org.uk/.