Jacques, and all,
There seems no doubt that new discoveries often take a long and winding path through what you call the "grey" literature of of obscure local bulletins and journals published in unfamiliar languages. True even for more familiar languages such as English, French, Spanish, German, etc. Given enough interest and importance, these discoveries might eventually be collated, synthesized, and/or translated for publication in major journals and a much wider distribution of the knowledge. This can occur in a matter of months but, sadly, it's also true that often the path of distributed knowledge takes many years.
Dar
Dar,
Actually, there is a difference betweem "obscure" local/regional publications, etc. and "grey" literature. The latter consists essentially of papers of various lengths (it may even include lengthy abstracts), usually presented in the context of conferences of various types. They end up circulating, at times rather widely, within specific research networks and may or may not end up reaching or achieving the publication status. They do, frequently, contain a lot of useful information, but of a type that is hardly accessible to people who are not part of the "networks". I would assume that the internet is slowly changing all that.
Jacques
