Information sources that have been written by academics, experts or creative practitioners in a particular field or discipline, and published in books, conference publications and academic journal articles, can usually be considered scholarly.
They may report on original research, review books and exhibitions, address current issues facing the creative industries, or examine events through the lenses of history and theory. They are written for the research community, approaching topics from analytical, critical and researched perspectives. They are your best source of information about practice and industry.
Both scholarly and non-scholarly materials have a place in creative industries research, but scholarly sources should always be used when completing a piece of academic writing.