Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Looking for OA library journals

Brian Surratt, Where are the open access library journals? Texadata, July 11, 2006. Excerpt:

I'm currently working on a paper that I would like to publish in a peer-reviewed library journal. Choosing a journal for publication is a serious issue, there are a number of criteria to consider. I would like to publish in an open access journal, and there are a few in the library profession, but there are significant reasons for not considering extant OA library journals....

When I look at the top library journals, there are very few that meet all of [my] criteria. DLib is one of the premier open access journals, but it is focused on digital libraries from a research perspective. I'm looking for a journal whose audience consists of practicing librarians, not researchers. None of the premier journals that cover academic libraries in general (such as College and Research Libraries, portal: Libraries and the Academy, and the Journal of Academic Librarianship) are open access. Some of the journals with a narrower focus (Library Research, Collections, and Technical Services) aren't even online, except perhaps in full-text databases like Wilson Web.

There are a few open access library journals, but they are not generally high impact. The Directory of Open Access Journals and Ulrichsweb.com have listings of OA journals in LIS. Thompson's Journal Citation Reports provides statistics on the impact of various LIS journals.

One would think that College and Research Libraries would be open access. It's publisher, the Association for College and Research Libraries, is a big supporter of open access.