Logistics professionals face a challenge today -how to best allocate precious budgetary resources and reading time to a growing array of logistics-related publications. Time-challenged members of the logistics community would benefit from the knowledge of what publications are widely used and found to be of value. This article generates insight into these issues and provides guidance for individuals in search of valuable information tools.Unlike traditional studies of this nature, which base evaluations on the academic prestige or the research impact of periodicals (e.g., Heischmidt and Gordon 1993;Howard and Nikolai 1983), this study focuses on functional usefulness. Certainly, educators will have a direct interest in their peers' ratings of the periodicals in terms of research, outreach, and teaching merits. Additionally, logistics managers can use the rating results to help identify appropriate information resources for analogous industry activities (e.g., employee training and personal professional development).The analysis of periodical usefulness is presented in four major sections. The first two sections lay the foundation for the study, discussing the ideal structure of a periodical ranking study and how the current study was designed to attain an accurate assessment of logistics periodical usefulness from the target population. The third section reveals results of the study, including periodical ratings, group comparisons, a bias analysis, and usefulness index scores. The final section presents insights gleaned from the study, its potential uses by key constituents, and its caveats.
BACKGROUNDThe evaluation of periodicals is neither a trivial topic nor one of exclusive interest to educators. Studies providing a benchmark of specialty periodicals can be used for a variety of purposes, in addition to those described above. The evaluation results can be used by practitioners to become more aware of valuable resources and information outlets (Fawcett, Vellenga, and Truitt 1995), university administrators to assess faculty research performance (Hull and Wright 1990), and periodical publishers to keep their editorial objectives and content in sync with reader needs (Zivney and Reichenstein 1994).