Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians from 1993 to 1997

Abstract

This study examined the contribution to the peer-reviewed literature of library and information science by practicing academic librarians in the United States. Data on authors were obtained from articles published from 1993 to 1997 in thirty-two journals. Of 3,624 peer-reviewed articles in these journals, 1,579 (43.6%) were authored by at least one practicing academic librarian. These librarians represented 386 institutions of higher educa tion. This study provides benchmark data for publication productivity of academic librarians and identifies a core list of peer-reviewed journals for them. Approximately six percent of these librarians wrote three or more articles in the five-year period. In nineteen journals one-third or more of the articles were authored by academic librarians. Libraries from Research I universities that were members of the Association for Research Libraries were the most productive. The contribution of practicing academic librar ians to the literature of their field is significant. he literature on publication pat terns in library and information science (LIS) usually focuses ei ther faculty in LIS schools or practicing academic librarians. Both groups have made significant contributions to scholarship within their discipline. Both groups come from an environment that val ues research and publication, but each tends to bring a different perspective. Practitio ners can make important contributions to the scholarly publications in a practicebased discipline. The degree to which prac ticing librarians contribute to the knowledge base of LIS is the focus of this investigation. To examine this question, the present study analyzed academic librarians' contributions to the peer-reviewed literature, documented their publication patterns, and compared these patterns with findings of earlier stud ies of publication patterns by academic li brarians and LIS faculty.Two recent studies have reviewed pub lication patterns of LIS faculty. Karen E.

JAL in the Past Decade: A Comprehensive Analysis of Academic Library Research

“…Overall, academic librarians are making active contribution to scholarly communications -more than three-fourths of the JAL articles included at least one librarian author, which is much higher than findings from previous studies (Krausse & Sieburth;Watson, 1985, Weller, Hurd andWiberley, 1999;Wiberley, Hurd & Weller , 2006), where only 40 to 50% of LIS journal articles were authored by academic librarians.…”

“…They not only identified the authors' institutions, but also ranked individual authors based on their productivity. Two later studies conducted similar content analysis of LIS journals from 1993 to 1997, and from 1998 to 2002, respectively (Weller, Hurd and Wiberley, 1999;Wiberley, Hurd & Weller , 2006). In addition to determining the percentage of articles authored by academic librarians and their institutional affiliations, the studies also ascertained co-authorship patterns in terms of the number of coauthors and the type of collaborators (e.g.…”

Beyond Gatekeepers of Knowledge: Scholarly Communication Practices of Academic Librarians and Archivists at ARL Institutions

“…Academic librarians and archivists make substantial contributions to the Library and Information Science (LIS) literature, although there are indications that such contributions may be on the decline. 11 Publications by librarians increasingly tend to be concentrated in a few journals 12 and receive fewer citations than articles published by LIS faculty. 13 The reading practices of academic librar-ians also reflect this concentration, with librarians consistently following only a handful of research journals; 14 in one study, "only 15% read more than four research journals."…”

Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians from 1998 to 2002

“…2 In the present study, the authors replicate their 1999 investigation of publication pa erns of U. S. academic librarians. 3 In many ways, their study was a successor to investigations by Budd and Seavey (1990) and Paula D. Watson (1985). 4 All three studies analyzed journals, the type of publication most favored by academic librarians.…”