Purpose
This paper aims to determine the gender composition of journal editorial boards in the field of library and information science and to identify trends in the gender composition of different editorial roles and the country of affiliation and occupation of people fulfilling these roles.
Design/methodology/approach
In an analysis of 13 selected Library Information Science journals published by the Emerald Publishing group, data relating to 549 editors and editorial board members were obtained from the Open Editors online database. Data were assessed by role, gender, country and continent of their affiliation, and occupation.
Findings
Women were found to be under-represented as editors and editorial board members in 10 of the 13 journals. This was most evident in the highest-ranking role of editor or editor-in-chief. The majority of editors and editorial board members were from English-speaking countries located in Europe and the Americas, followed by Asia. The vast majority of editorial personnel belonged to the teaching and learning profession, with relatively few support staff, or researchers taking on these roles.
Originality/value
The findings of this study highlight the gender inequality in prestigious and career-advancing academic roles across multiple research areas. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no such research has yet been conducted in the field of library and information science.
Altmetrics indicators are useful for assessing the impact of research and have been increasingly used alongside traditional citations in recent years. Mendeley provides readership statistics which give an early indicator of the impact of research outputs. This study aimed to investigate how Mendeley early readership indicator was associated with later citations across nine selected library and information science (LIS) journals. This study examined bibliographic data of 9 LIS journals extracted from the Scopus database over a 17 months period from June 2019 to November 2020. Data were extracted using Webometric Analyst. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to characterize the relationship between these two variables. The number of readers per paper, and of each journal are described using mean, standard deviation, frequency, and geometric mean. Readership growth was increased in all selected journals, but citation growth was unstable in most of the journals. Early readership statistics positively correlated with early citation analysis in all journals except the Journal of Educational Media and Library Science, which had a weaker positive correlation. The correlation between early readership and later citation numbers varied, with some journals being moderately positive and some weakly positive.
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