- Email: [email protected]
Twenty years on
Library & Information Science Research 35 (2013) 255
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Library & Information Science Research
Editorial
Twenty years on
Reflecting back twenty years to our assuming the editorship of this journal we remember a time when there were fewer choices for someone seeking formal publication of a research study. For library and information science (LIS), two primary vehicles were publication in a peerreviewed journal or as a monograph. At that time, there were fewer journals and monograph publishers, and there was not widespread interest in publishing research or recognition of individuals as researchers. In the case of publishers of scholarly literature, recognition of journal reputation was based on the number of subscriptions (however, circulation rate might be unknown) and citations to individual papers, breadth of coverage in indexing and abstracting services, the ability to attract well-known scholars in the profession as authors, and similar variables. Today, the publishing market place has dramatically changed, as well as has scholarly communication itself. Publication in peerreviewed journals remains an important outlet, while monographic publishing has declined in importance for many new LIS scholars, in part because librarians are less likely today to commit much (if any) of their library budgets to the purchase of monographic literature in their own discipline. They value the literature of other disciplines more than they do their own; another way to state this is that they want to enrich those whom they serve much more than they want to enrich themselves. Publishers probably see research-based monographs in terms of much smaller print runs and do not seem willing to publish such monographs solely in an e-format. Practitioners prefer to read research in journals, as part of conference proceedings, or in repositories, either directly online or as downloaded files. Publisher recognition of a journal is also shifting to a new business model, one that is still emerging. The importance of coverage in indexing services and focus on circulation size has declined and been replaced by inclusion in major databases and number of downloads. The latter output metric is often not disclosed except to journal editors and advisory boards. The average new scholar/researcher is often drawn to journals that are widely known, have high rejection rates, and report a high impact factor; assuming (correctly or not) that journals with higher impact factors are more important than those with lower ones. Simply stated, impact factor depicts the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular time period. Impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years.
0740-8188/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2013.11.001
1. Expanding view of impact Most recently, new measures of scholarly impact (usually referred to collectively as altmetrics) have evolved that take into account the broader conversation that takes place around research output. This could include mention in disciplinary blogs and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus; reference in traditional and nontraditional news sources; capture to bookmarking sites such as Delicious or reference management tools such as Zotero or Mendeley; citation in Wikipedia; and downloads from institutional or subject repositories rather than publisher or commercial databases. Piowar (2013) points out that altmetrics can render a more nuanced and timely understanding of impact, is better suited to new forms of web-based publication, and considers impact on a more diverse audience than solely scholars. 2. LISR We are pleased that the 5-year impact factor for this journal is currently 1.52. For many disciplines in the sciences and social sciences such an impact factor would not be something to be pleased with. However, unlike some journals, we do not demand that authors cite LISR papers as a condition of publication, and generally speaking there are fewer researchers in LIS. Our impact factor is very respectable within the pool of peer-reviewed LIS journals. We attribute LISR's impact factor to our contributors, their choice of research topics and problem statements, and the readability of their writings. The Board of Editors and other reviewers pay no small part in this, as does a succession of copyeditors supported by the Graduate School of Library & Information Science at Simmons College. We look forward to maintaining a journal which you read and enjoy, and cite, and download, and blog and tweet about! References Piowar, H. (2013). Altmetrics: What, why and where? Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 39(4), 8–9.
Peter Hernon Candy Schwartz Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115-5898, USA E-mail addresses: [email protected] (P. Hernon), [email protected] (C. Schwartz).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Library & Information Science Research
Editorial
Twenty years on
Reflecting back twenty years to our assuming the editorship of this journal we remember a time when there were fewer choices for someone seeking formal publication of a research study. For library and information science (LIS), two primary vehicles were publication in a peerreviewed journal or as a monograph. At that time, there were fewer journals and monograph publishers, and there was not widespread interest in publishing research or recognition of individuals as researchers. In the case of publishers of scholarly literature, recognition of journal reputation was based on the number of subscriptions (however, circulation rate might be unknown) and citations to individual papers, breadth of coverage in indexing and abstracting services, the ability to attract well-known scholars in the profession as authors, and similar variables. Today, the publishing market place has dramatically changed, as well as has scholarly communication itself. Publication in peerreviewed journals remains an important outlet, while monographic publishing has declined in importance for many new LIS scholars, in part because librarians are less likely today to commit much (if any) of their library budgets to the purchase of monographic literature in their own discipline. They value the literature of other disciplines more than they do their own; another way to state this is that they want to enrich those whom they serve much more than they want to enrich themselves. Publishers probably see research-based monographs in terms of much smaller print runs and do not seem willing to publish such monographs solely in an e-format. Practitioners prefer to read research in journals, as part of conference proceedings, or in repositories, either directly online or as downloaded files. Publisher recognition of a journal is also shifting to a new business model, one that is still emerging. The importance of coverage in indexing services and focus on circulation size has declined and been replaced by inclusion in major databases and number of downloads. The latter output metric is often not disclosed except to journal editors and advisory boards. The average new scholar/researcher is often drawn to journals that are widely known, have high rejection rates, and report a high impact factor; assuming (correctly or not) that journals with higher impact factors are more important than those with lower ones. Simply stated, impact factor depicts the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular time period. Impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years.
0740-8188/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2013.11.001
1. Expanding view of impact Most recently, new measures of scholarly impact (usually referred to collectively as altmetrics) have evolved that take into account the broader conversation that takes place around research output. This could include mention in disciplinary blogs and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus; reference in traditional and nontraditional news sources; capture to bookmarking sites such as Delicious or reference management tools such as Zotero or Mendeley; citation in Wikipedia; and downloads from institutional or subject repositories rather than publisher or commercial databases. Piowar (2013) points out that altmetrics can render a more nuanced and timely understanding of impact, is better suited to new forms of web-based publication, and considers impact on a more diverse audience than solely scholars. 2. LISR We are pleased that the 5-year impact factor for this journal is currently 1.52. For many disciplines in the sciences and social sciences such an impact factor would not be something to be pleased with. However, unlike some journals, we do not demand that authors cite LISR papers as a condition of publication, and generally speaking there are fewer researchers in LIS. Our impact factor is very respectable within the pool of peer-reviewed LIS journals. We attribute LISR's impact factor to our contributors, their choice of research topics and problem statements, and the readability of their writings. The Board of Editors and other reviewers pay no small part in this, as does a succession of copyeditors supported by the Graduate School of Library & Information Science at Simmons College. We look forward to maintaining a journal which you read and enjoy, and cite, and download, and blog and tweet about! References Piowar, H. (2013). Altmetrics: What, why and where? Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, 39(4), 8–9.
Peter Hernon Candy Schwartz Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115-5898, USA E-mail addresses: [email protected] (P. Hernon), [email protected] (C. Schwartz).