More on OA Library Literature
October 18, 2006 at 4:54 pm | In libraries, open access | 4 CommentsThis is a response to Dorothea’s post “Open Access to the Library Literature” (at least, a response to some parts of it), but also a continuation of yesterday’s thoughts on an OA alternative to Library Journal.
While public librarians are not required to publish to the same extent that academic librarians do, this does not mean that they don’t want to publish. This also does not mean that articles written by academic librarians might not be of interest to public librarians; for example, research relating to use of instant messaging would be of interest to both groups (here’s an example of one public librarian frustrated at lack of access to professional literature, which is what originally started me thinking about public librarians and access). Academic libraries, like public libraries, can be used by a wide variety of people – at GSU, we have a large population of so-called non-traditional students who might have a lot in common with public library users. I doubt that we are unique in this. Our younger students were only recently potential YA users of their local public library; there are many connections here.
More importantly, while much of what appears online on blogs, wikis, and listservs is very valuable and stimulating, not much of it ranks as research – online activity is predominantly a vehicle for anecdotal discussions, sharing of information, that sort of thing. Very important, yes; but not really the kind of treatment one expects from an article (which can be more developed than, say, a blog post, but of course this is not necessarily so). Furthermore, research done by my colleagues suggests that many librarians are not tuned into blogs and do not look to blogs as a source of professional information (something that I lament, but there it is). While I really respect and value the professional discussions that happen online, we don’t want to limit public librarians to a situation where their opportunities for learning are ALA vehicles and what they can discover via blogs and listservs. If we truly value our professional research literature, then we need to make sure that it is readily available to our profession as a whole and not just to a segment of it.
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I see a slight disconnect here. There are already a number of OA journals in the library field, publishing research articles vetted through a proper refereeing process.
Library Journal is not a scholarly journal. It’s a magazine. Few of its articles are research-based (in the scholarly sense). Few if any go through a refereeing process. Most are paid contributions or staff-written. Like American Libraries (which has a much larger readership), it’s a magazine.
Want to start OA alternatives to LJ? More power to you. There are some OA library-related publications that aren’t scholarly journals (I publish one widely-read such animal myself). It’s really tough to make a generalist library magazine work, but perhaps it’s worth a shot with the right group behind it.
Comment by walt crawford — October 18, 2006 #
Walt, the disconnect is that I’m not talking about LJ in this post. “Continuation” was probably not the right word, as this post is shaped far more by the issues raised by Dorothea concerning library professional literature generally. Maybe the post should have consisted only of the last sentence, as that is the main point. Best, John
Comment by historylibrarian — October 18, 2006 #
Ah. Sorry I didn’t pick up on that. Otherwise, an interesting set of contributions to an important discussion. (Sez I, who pushed for ITAL to become fully OA, with no effect and no power to push further–but it’s now at least 6-month-delay and entirely “green.”)
Comment by walt crawford — October 19, 2006 #
Walt, it’s my bad – lazy writing (in both posts) led to the misunderstanding.
Comment by historylibrarian — October 19, 2006 #