Publish or Practice? An Examination of Librarians’ Contributions to Research

Abstract

This article examines authorship of LIS literature in the context of practitioner and nonpractitioner production of published research. For this study, 4,827 peer-reviewed articles from twenty LIS journals published between 1956 and 2011 were examined to determine the percentage of articles written by practitioners. The study identified a decrease in the proportion of articles authored by practitioners between 2006 and 2011. Topic analysis of articles revealed subtle yet distinct differences in research subject matter between practitioner-authored and non-practitionerauthored articles. If present trends continue, the character of LIS literature may shift away from many issues relating to practical librarianship.

Disciplinary, national, and departmental contributions to the literature of library and information science, 2007–2012

“…These six journal types are generally consistent with those identified in previous research (Finlay et al., ; Ni et al., ; Ni, Sugimoto, & Jiang, ). They represent all three of the LIS research perspectives identified by Milojević, Sugimoto, Yan, and Ding ()—libraries, information, and scientometrics—and are consistent with the subfields described by Tuomaala, Järvelin, and Vakkari ().…”

“…Finlay et al. () and Stewart (, ) are the only authors to have adopted this approach in recent years. Access to each article was obtained through full‐text databases, online subscriptions, and print subscriptions.…”

“…These trends are difficult to interpret because no two studies have used the same methods or the same set of journals. However, one recent investigation provides a more direct comparison, showing that from 1962 to 2011 the proportion of librarian‐authored articles in 10 LIS journals declined from 52% to about 31% (Finlay et al., ).…”

“…Third, the links between research and practice may be closer in LIS than in many other fields. Several well‐known LIS journals receive more than half their contributions from librarian authors (Finlay, Ni, Tsou, & Sugimoto, ), and even the most technical or theory‐based journals occasionally publish research by practitioners. Some evidence suggests that librarians contribute to the professional literature to a greater extent than practitioners in other professional fields such as public administration (Bushouse et al., ; Candler, ; Su, Yu, Lin, & Hung, ).…”

Librarian readiness for research partnerships

“…While journals such as the American Journal of Public Health [2] outline individual author roles in the publication, these details are not required by all International Committee of Medical Journal Editors journals [3]. Several studies and reports discuss research performed by librarians and the barriers or support mechanisms that influence librarian participa tion in research [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], Many factors contribute to readiness to collaborate on research: personal and motivational factors, job duties, structural support, and skill-based preparation. In 2010, Luo found only 61% of 49 accredited library programs require a research * Based on a paper presented at MLA '13, the 113th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association; Boston, MA; May 7, 2013. This article has been approved for the Medical Library Association's Independent Reading Program < http://www.mlanet .org/education/irp/>.…”