About JLSC

Focus and Scope

Heeding Benjamin Franklin’s prescient proposal for “promoting useful knowledge,” the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication seeks to share useful innovations, both in thought and in practice, with the aim of encouraging scholarly exchange and the subsequent benefits that are borne of scrutiny, experimentation and debate. As modes of scholarly communication, the technologies and economics of publishing, and the roles of libraries evolve, it is our hope that the work shared in this journal will inform practices that strengthen librarianship and that increase access to the “common Stock of Knowledge.”

JLSC is particularly interested in the intersection of librarianship and publishing, and the resulting roles for libraries in both content dissemination and content creation. The scholarly communications system is global and the solutions to challenges are likely to be globally relevant. JLSC pursues a global authorship and aims at a global readership. 

Areas of interest include: new methods for the creation, dissemination and exchange of information; the theory and practice of the organization, use and curation of information; and issues related to the review, credentialing, reputation and impact of scholarly work. More specifically, topics to explore could include: 

  • Open Access
  • Library as publisher and library/press partnerships; including, but not limited to:
    • Emerging modes and genres of publication
    • Organizational and business models
  • Policy issues; including, but not limited to:
    • Publishing/deposit mandates
    • Impact of governmental or institutional policy
    • Policy development for library services
  • Digital collection management
  • Institutional and discipline-specific repositories
  • Digital curation
  • Research data
  • Technological developments and infrastructure
  • Intellectual property
  • Resources, skills, and training
  • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in scholarly communication, including such areas as anti-racism, anti-oppression, and decolonization
  • Interdisciplinary or international perspectives on these issues

In addressing these topics, authors are encouraged to emphasize the practical applications of their knowledge and findings for fellow library practitioners. Discussions of theoretical models/frameworks, when accompanied by practice-oriented recommendations or examples, are also encouraged.

In addition to focusing on practical applications, JLSC also seeks articles that include substantive discussion of the impact of library services on academic institutions and scholarly communication at large, that describe best practices for outcomes research or programmatic evaluation, or that otherwise provide successful methods of demonstrating the value of library involvement in these activities.

Publication Frequency

The journal is published online continuously in annual general issues. Articles included in special issues are published at one time, and the issue is then closed to additional articles.

Open Access Policy

JLSC provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

In order to lower barriers to publication for authors, JLSC does not charge submission or any other form of author fees.

Archiving Policy

The journal’s publisher, Iowa State University Digital Press, focuses on making content discoverable and accessible through indexing services. Content is also archived to ensure long-term availability. JLSC is indexed by the following services:

Scopus, ProQuest (ProQuest Central), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and Google Scholar. In addition, the journal is available for harvesting via OAI-PMH.

To ensure permanency of the journal, JLSC utilizes the Portico archiving system to create permanent archives for the purposes of preservation and restoration. 

If the journal is not indexed by your preferred service, please let us know by emailing editors@jlsc-pub.org. 

As a condition of publication in Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, all authors agree to the following terms of licensing/copyright ownership:

  • First publication rights to original work accepted for publication is granted to Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication but copyright for all work published in the journal is retained by the author(s).
  • Works published in Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication will be distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). By granting a CC BY license in their work, authors retain copyright ownership of the work, but they give explicit permission for others to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the work, as long as the original source and author(s) are properly cited (i.e. a complete bibliographic citation and link to the JLSC website). No permission is required from the author(s) or the publishers for such use. According to the terms of the CC BY license, any reuse or redistribution must indicate the original CC BY license terms of the work. Exceptions to the application of the CC BY license may be granted at the editors’ discretion if reasonable extenuating circumstances exist. Such exceptions must be granted in writing by the editors of the Journal; in the absence of a written exception, the CC BY license will be applied to all published works.
  • Authors may enter into separate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.
  • Authors are permitted to post their work online in institutional/disciplinary repositories or on their own websites. Pre-print versions posted online should include a citation and link to the final published version in Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication as soon as the issue is available; post-print versions (including the final publisher's PDF) should include a citation and link to the journal's website.

It will be the responsibility of the authors to secure all necessary copyright permissions for the use of third-party materials in their manuscript. Authors will be required to provide written evidence of this permission upon acceptance of their manuscript.

JLSC policies and other non-article website text are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). To the extent possible under law, the creator of the JLSC logo and wordmark has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights (CC0). This work is published from: United States.

History

The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication was launched in 2012 by Founding Co-Editors Isaac Gilman and Marisa Ramírez. Since then, the journal has grown and evolved under Editors-in-Chief Mark Newton and Melanie Schlosser, and now Anne T. Gilliland, Rebekah Kati, and Jennifer Solomon. In addition, many librarians and scholarly communication practitioners have helped shape and guide the journal in other editorial roles or as members of the Editorial Board.