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Journal of Scholarly Publishing – current issue TOC

Sharing the TOC of a journal I find very useful as a publisher. I think it also has a lot that would be of interest to academic librarians who do collection development.

Journal of Scholarly Publishing
Volume 46, Number 1

This Issue Includes:

University Press Forum 2014
Tom Radko
DOI 10.3138/jsp.46.1.001

Choice’s Compilation of Significant University Press Titles for Undergraduates, 2013-2014
DOI 10.3138/jsp.46.1.002

Monographic Purchasing Trends in Academic Libraries:
Elisabeth A. Jones and Paul N. Courant
This article describes an exploratory study examining one contentious aspect of the relationship between university presses and academic libraries: the trends in purchases of university press books by academic libraries. The study provides an empirical basis for evaluating the frequent claim that the declining fortunes of university presses can be blamed primarily on declines in monographic purchasing by academic libraries. Our analysis indicates that this relationship is not clear-cut for at least three reasons: first, to the extent that purchasing reductions have occurred, they have occurred much more recently than many accounts have suggested; second, purchasing trends vary significantly between different sizes of libraries; and third, purchasing trends for university press books are very different from those for monographs in general. These findings cast substantial doubt on the proposition that changes in university library purchasing behaviour dating to the 1990s ‘serials crisis’ are principally responsible for the current economic malaise of university presses.
DOI 10.3138/jsp.46.1.003

From Book Publishers to Authors:
Elea GimÃ©nez-Toledo, Sylvia FernÃ¡ndez-GÃ³mez, Carlos Tejada-Artigas and Jorge MaÃ±ana-RodrÃquez
The publishing processes and standards in scholarly journals are much better known than those of the publishers of scholarly books. Since scholarly books are key channels of communication and academic assessment in the humanities and social sciences, information provided by publishers concerning their publishing processes is very important both for authors and panelists (at funding and evaluation agencies). This article focuses on the analysis of the transparency of publishers in relation to the information they offer to authors. The main objective is to identify and analyze the publishing practices of two hundred scholarly book publishers of social sciences and humanities with respect to the information that they provide on their Web sites about their publishing processes. A lack of information on these Web sites is the main finding of the study. Among Spanish publishers, only 11.2 per cent explicitly state that they have a review system by experts. At the international level, the situation improves, but the shortcomings are still evident. Some guidelines for publishers are outlined and proposed.
DOI 10.3138/jsp.46.1.004

How to Be an Effective Peer Reviewer:
Stephen K. Donovan
Peer review is an essential component of modern academic publishing, but it is a task that is commonly learnt by trial and error rather than a published set of rules or principals. To review a research paper requires a close knowledge of the subject area, but contrasting reviews by a generalist and an expert in the field may provide a better appreciation of a paper’s merits to an editor than those of two experts. Reviews are there for the edification and information of the editor and to be passed on to the author; do your best to provide a constructive response.
DOI 10.3138/jsp.46.1.005

Mary Jane Curry and Theresa Lillis, A Scholar’s Guide to Getting Published in English: Critical Choices and Practical Strategies, reviewed by Steven E. Gump

Laura N. Gasaway, Copyright Questions and Answers for Information Professionals: From the Columns of Against the Grain, reviewed by Sanford G. Thatcher

Filed under: Publishing by — Rory Litwin @ 9:53 am

CAPAL15: Academic Librarianship and Critical Practice – CFP

Deadline for proposals: December 8th, 2014

Information Ethics Roundtable 2015 – CFP

Information Ethics Roundtable 2015

University of Wisconsin Madison
April 9th & 10th

Theme: Transparency and Secrecy

Information and the CFP here…

Filed under: Calls for Papers,Government Information,Information Literacy,Privacy by — Rory Litwin @ 9:12 am

Interview with Jessica Moyer Jessica E. Moyer is an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Literacy Education and MS and CAS degrees from the University of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Moyer has taught reference and readers’ advisory courses for the LIS programs at the University of St. Catherine, San Jose State, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as well and continuing education courses for the American Library Association. She is scheduled to teach some courses in Readers’ Advisory with Library Juice Academy coming up. Jessica agreed to do an interview on the Library Juice Academy blog to give people an idea of what they will get out of her courses, and a bit about her in general.

Interview with Jason Bengtson Jason Bengtson is the Head of Library Computing and Information Systems at the University of Oklahoma’s Robert M. Bird Health Sciences Library. A co-editor of the Technology column of the Journal of Hospital Librarianship, he is also a member of the NN/LM South Central Region Technology Advisory Committee and ASIS&T. Jason is teaching a series of courses on web technologies, focusing on client-side scripting using Javascript. He agreed to do an interview for the Library Juice Academy blog to tell people about his classes and what they can expect to learn from them, as well as a bit about himself.

Filed under: Library Juice Academy,People In Focus,Technology by — Rory Litwin @ 11:18 am

An ironic concern over net neutrality

In her January piece on net neutrality in Wired Magazine that I have just now seen, former ALA President Barbara Stripling says, “…[W]ithout net neutrality, we are in danger of prioritizing Mickey Mouse and Jennifer Lawrence over William Shakespeare and Teddy Roosevelt. This may maximize profits for large content providers, but it minimizes education for all.” (I found this article linked from Margaret Heller’s informative discussion of net neutrality on the ACRL Tech Connect blog, but that is not what I want to focus on here.)

The comment I have to make about this quotation from Stripling is that it is ironic given the increased focus on popular media in public libraries since the early days of the “Give ’em what they want” philosophy of collection development, pioneered by Charlie Robinson and Jean-Barry Molz of Baltimore County Public Library in 1979. This marked the beginning of collection development guided primarily by circulation stats, and it had the effect over time of stripping collections of materials deemed elitist and of interest to a limited number of patrons. It had the effect, really, of prioritizing Mickey Mouse and Jennifer Lawrence over William Shakespeare and Teddy Roosevelt. This trend has been in place for a long time and public library collections have been reshaped by it. I have never liked this trend, because I believe in the educational function of public libraries, but in my experience most public librarians really do not, believing that our role is not so “top down.” So this particular objection to net neutrality (and there could be others) lacks authority coming from the leader of a social institution that made the same baleful turn decades ago. Stripling may believe in the educational role of libraries as I do (I don’t know), and she may share my disgust at the way public libraries have developed since Charlie Robinson had his major influence, but I have not heard her offer the same argument regarding prevailing collection development policies as she has about net neutrality.

I apologize if I am unfairly focusing on a statement made in passing, but I think it does reveal a certain hypocrisy among the library community at large if we are so concerned about net neutrality favoring the interests of popular consumerism over higher cultural values when we are unconcerned about the same problem in our libraries.

Filed under: American Library Association,Public Sphere,Technology by — Rory Litwin @ 8:04 am

Message from Patrick Keilty on the Salaita dismissal

Dear Colleagues,


All best,

Patrick Keilty
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto

New book: Critical Journeys: How 14 Librarians Came to Embrace Critical Practice Critical Journeys
How 14 Librarians Came to Embrace Critical Practice

Author/Editor: Robert Schroeder
Price: $28.00
ISBN: 978-1-936117-92-5

A growing number of librarians are engaged with critical theories such as critical pedagogy, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, or post-colonialism. Because librarians have backgrounds in all disciplines and inhabit a uniquely central space in our culture, they are combining these theories in unique ways. By remixing ideas from Foucault, Freire, hooks, and Habermas, new and creative practices are emerging. In this book you will hear the story of fourteen librarians and how they each came to be engaged in a critical practice. In each chapter a different academic or public librarian will be interviewed. Interviewees will include instruction librarians, catalogers, archivists, administrators, and library school professors. Discover what these librarians find inspirational about critical theories, how they work to create a critical practice in their professional lives, and how they see critical practices growing in our profession. Hear these librarians reflect on their own critical practices of librarianship and perhaps become inspired to begin a critical journey of your own.




Maria T. Accardi
Jonathan Betz-Zall
John Buschman
Deidre Conkling
John Doherty
Emily Drabinski
Dave Ellenwood
James Elmborg
Benjamin Harris
Julie Herrada
Mark Hudson
Heidi Jacobs
Alana Kumbier

Bob Schroederâs Journey

Filed under: About Litwin Books & Library Juice Press,Books,People In Focus,Theory by — Rory Litwin @ 10:44 am