FEATHER RIVER INSTITUTE 1998

WHEN WRITE IS WRONG: IS ALL OUR PROFESSIONALLITERATURE ON THE SAME PAGE?

WILLIAM FISHER

Professor, School of Library & Information Science

San Jose State University

San Jose, CA 95192-0029

Internet: fisher@sjsu.edu

Abstract—This article looks at recent descriptions and analyses of the library andinformation science professional literature, primarily journal publications. Otherprofessional literatures are also reviewed. Finally, a brief analysis of the content of sixprofessional journals for articles published in 1993 is included. © 1999 ElsevierScience Ltd

Keywords—Library and information science, Library publications

INTRODUCTION

Those of you who have ever written for publication, as well as those of you who either need toor want to write for publication, know that the hardest step in the process is getting started. Andof course, a big part of getting started is selecting a topic and then deciding what approach or whichaspect of the selected topic you will use. Well, the answer to the question “What should I writeabout?” has been right in front of you. If you cannot decide on a topic to write about and contributeto the literature, then write about the literature itself. As a profession, we do not seem to lackself-analysis; if anything, we seem to revel in it. In addition to questioning our image and status asa profession, we have also analyzed our professional literature. This is not a recent phenomenon;we were looking at the quality of our professional literature as far back as 1937, with a letter to theeditor of theALA Bulletindescribing contemporary library publications as lifeless [1]. And in alllikelihood, things started even earlier. What have we found after all that analysis and introspection?A synopsis of how our professional literature is depicted leads us to believe that most of whatmakes its way into print is not very good; most of the literature is not research-based; what research

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has been done is not overly rigorous; and, for the most part, the people publishing are in theacademic sector and they only publish once or twice, just enough to get tenure and/or promoted,so the literature also lacks continuity. Other than that, our literature is fine.

Of course, it is not just our professional literature that has been described in this manner.Historian and former University Librarian at Harvard Oscar Handlin (and many others) has placedmuch of the blame on the way the academic reward system operates, much of it supported by grantmonies—a system that appears to emphasize quantity of work produced over the quality of thework produced [2]. While President of Stanford University, Donald Kennedy proposed thatcandidates for tenure should only be allowed to submit a limited number of publications in supportof their tenure bid in an effort to stress quality over quantity [3]. Furthermore, everyone here knowsthat just because there is more and more information being produced, that does not mean that it isaccessible. As more material becomes available, it seems academic libraries are acquiring less, asthe economics of scholarly publishing work against the narrowing scope of many of today’s serialsand monographs [4].

In looking at the recent (since 1986 or so) array of literature about our literature, there appearsto be five categories into which the bulk of this material fits. The first group of readings providesa descriptive analysis of our literature—what topics are written about, by whom, how often, and soforth. Also included in this category are the attempts to evaluate the journals themselves withregard to quality or prestige to identify a “core” group of journal titles in library and informationscience (LIS). The second category of literature includes citation-analysis studies, which try todetermine whom LIS authors cite, who cites LIS authors, and if core titles can be identified by wayof citation analysis. The next group of readings looks at the review process followed in getting amanuscript published—how decisions are made, who makes those decisions, and how long doesthis take. The fourth category looks at what I call “ethical” issues regarding publication. Theseissues range from multiple authorship to duplicate submission of the same paper to cases offraudulent research being published. Finally, the last of the five categories consists of commen-taries about the status of our professional literature and general works, such as hints on how to getpublished. Those of you who have or had collection-development responsibilities for specificsubject areas may find these categories applicable to the subject literature with which you arefamiliar. I did not have time to do an exhaustive search of other professional literatures, however,I did look at the nursing literature and the accounting literature. I found numerous similaritiesamong issues discussed in these two fields and the LIS literature. As we look at each of the fivecategories in more detail, I will try to bring in related information from these other fields.

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE

As indicated above, the first of our five categories tries to describe the professional literature.One of the first ways to do this is to identify a core group of journal titles and focus your effortson that identifiable group. The first problem we run into, however, is that the core changesdepending on whom you ask. In 1985, Kohl and Davis asked directors of ARL libraries anddeans/directors of library and information science programs to evaluate a list of titles for their“prestige in terms of value for tenure and promotion” [5]. Using a five-point Likert-type rating (fivewas high, one was low), the ARL directors gave 11 titles a rating of 3.0 or higher, while the LISdeans gave 16 titles a rating of 3.0 or higher. All 11 of the directors’ choices were among the 16selected by the deans. However, when this same kind of study was conducted with other groups,the results were quite different. Blake used a group of library school faculty with a specializationin school library media centers and compared their evaluations to those of district-level school

62 W. FISHER

library media coordinators [6]. Here the educators had 12 titles rated 3.0 or higher, while the districtcoordinators rated only five titles that high. All five were among the 12 titles from the faculty.Finally, Blake and Tjoumas compared the ratings of library school faculty with school librarymedia center specializations to ratings of library school faculty with a public library specialization[7]. Here the public library faculty rated 11 titles at 3.0 or higher, while the school media centerfaculty rated 12 titles at 3.0 or higher. In this case, however, there was agreement on only six titles,so a considerable difference of opinion exists between these two groups of LIS educators.

It is important to get a sense of where we stand as a profession with the core journals concept,because as we will see many of the other attempts to analyze the literature focuses on this “core”and studies the content of these titles. One such attempt analyzed 2.5 years of articles in 16 journals,looking at a total of 1,725 articles or 16,966 pages of content [8]. This author found that most ofthese articles were written by a single author (60%), with another 20% having two authors. Genderdistribution was about even, with 52% of the authors female and 48% of the authors male. Froman occupational perspective, library school faculty were the most likely to publish, followed byacademic public service librarians, followed by directors of academic libraries—40% of theauthors were in one of these three groups. In terms of page count, 62% of this literature sample wasnot research-based, with most of the research consisting of surveys and historical studies. Nourlooked at the content of articles published during 1980 and found surveys to be the most widelyused methodology, with theoretical/analytic approach and bibliometrics rounding out the top threeresearch methodologies used [9].

One of the primary areas of interest in determining the content of our professional literatureappears to be the contributions faculty at the accredited schools of library and information sciencehave made to the literature. Garland has looked at a number of aspects of faculty publishing,finding that the average number of publications per year for LIS faculty is lower than for facultyin most other academic disciplines [10]. When looking at the possibility of gender differencesimpacting publication productivity, Garland stated, “the findings of studies of gender differencesin productivity of library and information science faculty are inconclusive” [11]. This studycovered LIS faculty publishing for the years 1980–1984. Garland also found that 40% of the LISfaculty included in her study had not published anything during this 5-year time span. Otherresearchers have looked at the impact of having a Ph.D. program on the research productivity offaculty and found that faculty at schools with Ph.D. programs publish significantly more, especiallyin refereed journals, than their colleagues at schools without a doctoral program [12]. Dalrympleand Varlejs compared three studies of LIS faculty in the years 1978, 1983, and 1988. Even withfewer faculty in 1988 (not to mention fewer schools), more faculty were authoring more publica-tions than 10 years before (from 41% of all faculty in 1978 to 52% of all faculty in 1988), with solidgains in per capita publications for all faculty and per capita gains for faculty who publish [13].

John and Jane Olsgaard studied authorship characteristics in five journals, looking at gender(65% of the authors were male, 35% female), employment (half of the authors were eitheracademic librarians or faculty members), and geographic differences (most of the authors werefrom the Northeast and Midwest) [14]. Adamson and Zamora then took the profile created by theOlsgaards, applied it to other journals aimed at special librarians, and found many similaritiesbetween their sample and the authors in the Olsgaard study [15]. Terry gets even more specific bylooking only at authors inCollege & Research Libraries, comparing the years 1989–1994 withprevious studies [16]. Terry noted distinct trends in the increase in female authors (from 22% ofthe authors in 1939–1944 to half of the authors in this later time period) and an increase in jointauthorship (from 25% of the articles in 1939–1944 to 60% of the more recent articles). Authorshipin LAPT’s first 19 volumes was also studied, and these results were similar to what Terry found forC&RL above [17]. (Note: ThisLAPTarticle is one of the most recent and as such has a very good

63When Write is Wrong

title-by-title comparison of previous studies.) Academic librarians were the focus of one study,which found for a 5-year (1983–1987) period some 1,373 academic librarians contributing to theprofessional literature [18]. This study also found only 128 of these individuals writing two or morearticles in that 5-year time span. Finally, Chapman and Pike looked at the publishing productivityof public librarians and found that not only did public librarians contribute a very small portion ofthe general professional literature, but even in journals specifically directed toward a public libraryaudience they comprise only 30% of the authorship [19].

How does our interest in our professional literature compare with other disciplines? If thenursing and accounting literature are indicative, then we are not alone in our interest. A couple ofexamples should suffice. The nursing field is interested in how their literature has been developing,with one study demonstrating how the field has grown professionally and the literature improvedin its scholarship [20]. In another study, the productivity of graduate nursing faculty is analyzed,proving if nothing else that professional school faculty seem to be of interest regardless of theprofession [21]. The accounting field checks in with studies of journal quality [22], content analysisof one specific journal [23], and publication productivity of doctoral degree recipients, which couldinclude non-faculty, but we all know who was the primary group being studied [24].

CITATION ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE

This brings us to the use of citation analysis as the next category of articles about theprofessional literature. Proponents of citation analysis will tell you it is a more scientific method-ology for analyzing literature, especially research literature, where the standard practice is for oneauthor to establish the basis for his/her research by looking at the previous work in the field andciting that material in his/her current study. Numerous citation studies have been conducted;however, a few examples should provide an idea of the kind of research involved. Mary Kim tookthe list of journals identified in the Kohl/Davis study cited above and compared that list based onperceptions of library directors and library school deans with a citation analysis of those samejournals [25]. Overall, Kim found that the journals receiving the most favorable evaluations fromthe directors and deans were in fact the journals that were cited the most. When Kim looked at avariety of citation factors, differences began to appear, most notably that the directors placed morevalue on journals that focused on more recent developments in the field and were cited morerapidly by other authors. Thompson used “Price’s Index,” a citation measure used to determine the“hardness” or “softness” of scientific literature, to analyze a set of library science journals and aset of information science journals [26]. Price’s Index looks primarily at the recency of thereferences cited, as well as the number of citations per article. Both sets of journals combined metPrice’s criteria as a hard science for the recency of citations; however, when the journals wereseparated, the library science journals met the criteria in only 2 of the 5 years used in the study.With regard to the number of citations per article, both sets of journals combined only met the hardscience criteria in the last 2 years used; however, the information science set met the criteria in allbut the first year used, while the library science set of journals did not meet the hard science criteriafor citations at all. Meyer and Spencer used citation analysis to see how non-LIS disciplines wereciting the LIS literature [27]. Using a set of 24 journals, the authors found a total of 14,378 citationsreferencing articles in that journal set. Some 1,931 (13.4%) of those citations were found innon-LIS publications, with four subject areas having the most citations: computer applications/cybernetics, education/educational research, ergonomics, and psychology. A total of 94 non-LISsubject areas were identified. Finally, another use of citation analysis is to determine who is citingtheir own work, or self-citation, as it is called. For a given set of journals over a given period of

64 W. FISHER

time, a recent study found an LIS self-citation rate of 50% of the articles, a higher rate thananything reported in either the sciences or social sciences [28]. However, when self-citation wasseen as a percentage of the total citations in those articles, that resulted in a figure of 6.6% of thecitations being self-citations, which is more in line with the self-citation rates of other disciplines.

Citation analysis has been employed in other disciplines to help identify some very interestingcharacteristics of those literatures. A couple of examples help illustrate this point. Campbell usedcitation analysis to demonstrate chauvinistic tendencies of health science authors in the U.S. andthe U.K. [29]. Campbell found that U.S. and U.K. authors rarely cited material from othercountries, even though over half the medical journals in the world are published in other countries.He further found that U.K. authors cited U.S. material much more than U.S. authors used U.K.sources. A study of the accounting literature took an interesting angle to the LIS study by Kimmentioned earlier. This study took peer assessments of specific articles and compared thoseassessments to a citation analysis of those articles [30]. Three different sets of articles were usedrepresenting three time frames. For the oldest set of articles, only 5 of the 10 articles selected byaccounting faculty as the most significant were among the 10 articles cited the most. In the secondtime span, the faculty were on target with 7 of the 10 articles they selected, and by the most recenttime frame the faculty were on target with 9 out of their 10 selections.

OTHER ASPECTS OF THE LITERATURE

While the literature that formed the first two categories identified was fairly distinct and easyto deal with as separate groups of readings, the last three areas—peer review process, ethicalconcerns, and more general comments on the status of the professional literature—have a tendencyto overlap at times. For most professional journals, the peer-review process is one of the keyelements that helps distinguish those titles from other works prepared by editorial staff or wherecontent is based solely on an editor’s decision. Though somewhat dated now, one of the morecomprehensive studies on peer reviewing was done in the mid-1980s [31]. This study found thatmost of the reviewers did not work from formal evaluation criteria, did not know what the finaldecision was on manuscripts they reviewed, nor did they know if their comments ever made it backto the submitting author(s). In a more recent review of journals in the medical field, publishedauthors indicated they felt the peer-review process had been constructive to them in getting theirmanuscripts into print [32]. However, only a handful of authors indicated that peer comments leadto a change in their conclusions, while other respondents said they received conflicting advice fromdifferent reviewers. This last view seems to be supported by the nursing literature. A 1994 studyfound that many nursing authors were resubmitting manuscripts that were revised based onreviewers comments, only to get the manuscript back a second (and even third time) requesting stillmore revisions [33]. This later article also indicated that two-thirds of the journal editors surveyedhad no editorial or journalism background prior to their current editorship. These editors were alsoasked about evaluating the peer reviewers for their journals, and most of the responding editors didnot have a systematic evaluation process in place. The accounting field is concerned about editorialboards from the perspective of how representative they are when looking at the institutions whereboard members either currently work or got their Ph.D. degrees. One study concluded that for the13 journals evaluated, a small number of schools dominated the make-up of their editorial boards[34]. One other aspect of the manuscript review process involves the accuracy of the material thatdoes make its way into print. Some journals make a point of checking every reference cited;however, the more common practice is to leave that verification to the author. This may not be the

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best method, as studies in both library science and health science have shown [35,36] For example,in the study of library science literature only 45 of the 100 citations analyzed had no errors at all.

The next area for consideration involves a number of issues that can collectively be viewed asethical concerns. While the professional literature of library and information science is not immunefrom these issues [37], the primary concern about these topics appears to be in the science andmedical fields. For example, in the case of multiple authorship with five or more co-authors listedit becomes very difficult to accurately determine who is really responsible for the content of thearticle. Some journals have a prescribed order by which authors are listed based on theirinvolvement in the article, but then it is up to the group submitting the article to make thatinformation clear. Over the past few years, I submitted two different co-authored papers to twodifferent journals. Both of the co-authors were students, and since the articles originated as papersthey had done in classes they had with me, each of the students was listed as the first author. Yet,when each article appeared in print, I was listed as the first author.

The duplicate publication issue occurs on two levels. The first way duplicate publication occursis when an author submits the same, or virtually the same, manuscript to multiple publicationssimultaneously without letting any of the publications know this has been done. The author canthen either take the best offer if multiple publications accept the manuscript or have a couple ofdifferent versions of the same article appear in different journals at approximately the same time.The other aspect of duplicate publication occurs when the author takes a study and breaks it downinto what are called “least publishable units” or LPUs, in effect getting two or three or even morearticles out of one piece of work. And the current academic-reward system, with an emphasis onquantity of publications, simply reinforces this practice. Other ethical issues, such as plagiarism andthe reporting of fraudulent data, are factors that concern every editor. However, we are fortunatethese practices do not seem to be a major problem for the LIS literature, so we will not dwell onthem.

The last area of focus is a general, catch-all category. However, this is where we can find articlesproviding suggestions on how to get published or what to do if your submission is rejected by apublication [38,39]. While there has not been much of this kind of help in our professionalliterature, the kinds of suggestions made are fairly universal, so reading in this area from anysubject perspective is useful. With regard to why manuscripts are rejected, one study from thenursing literature categorized things into three areas: 1) Design or methodological issues; 2) contentissues; and 3) writing style [40]. Looking at the problem from the viewpoint of how to writesomething that will be publishable, it still comes down to a variation on the three factors justmentioned. Writing for perspective authors in the education field, one author cautions about fivethings: 1) know something about the publication where you are submitting your manuscript; 2)know something about the style that publication accepts; 3) check and recheck for grammaticalerrors; 4) say something—have some substance to your article; and 5) say what you have to saysimply and clearly [41]. If it were only that easy!

CURRENT STATUS OF THE LITERATURE

Have conditions changed over the last few years? The answer appears to be “no”. A 1997 articleby Floyd and Phillips looks at the perception of quality by both authors and editors of journalsaimed at academic librarians [42]. They looked at a number of factors, which all pointed to poorquality of our professional literature. The authors surveyed were more forthright in their assessmentof the journal literature; however, both the author group and the editor group agreed that thestandards for publishing in the LIS field were at best on par with the standards for other disciplines,

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and often our standards appear less rigorous than others. Postings to the Cristal-ed listserv seem toconfirm this view. (Cristal-ed is a listserv maintained by the University of Michigan’s School ofInformation. Topics and moderators rotate every 3 weeks or so.) The question of faculty status forlibrarians was the discussion topic in early March 1998, and this led to comments about theresearch/publication requirement for promotion/tenure. Paul Weiner of SUNY-Stony Brook hadthis to say, “as for scholarship, in 19 years I have read countless papers by librarians (and writtena few) analyzing how libraries work, stating how they should work and why they don’t work.Almost never have I read an article that would qualify as true research, which to me means a studythat uncovers and puts in a new context information that was not available before” [43]. Weinercommented further, “it should also be added vis-a-vis ‘scholarly research’ that a great deal of whatis published as such, especially in the non-sciences, by teaching faculty is garbage, pseudo-information, or bloated, ridiculous nonsense and no more should guarantee promotion and tenurethan a librarian reading stories to toddlers” [44]. Rosemarie Fouard of Idaho State (the moderatorfor this topic) took a more balanced view, “as participants in this intellectual process, we librarianshave a certain obligation to engage in scholarship. Librarians’ contribution to a substantial body ofliterature within the field should not be dismissed as irrelevant. Granted, not everything publishedis of high quality, but that can be said for other disciplines as well” [45]. When the tenure andresearch issues resurfaced on Cristal-ed a few weeks later, Weiner proposed the following:

Resolved: that librarians seeking tenure and/or promotion should no longer be required topublish research because research into librarianship is no longer possible.

Quite simply, this is because: 1) there is no evidence that prior research by librarians has led toany significant development or change in library administration; and 2) because whatever infor-mation and conclusions are gathered in such an effort are always outdated by the time they arepublished, because implementation of library policy always follows a timetable completelyindependent of the verifiability of new knowledge [46].

To further evaluate the status of the professional literature, I conducted a brief study to see if myresults would confirm the results of the earlier studies. I arbitrarily selected the year 1993 andanalyzed the content of six journals for that year. I selected journals that would be research-orientedfor the most part, but also represent the primary branches of the profession. I usedLibraryQuarterly andLibrary Trendsas general sources, in addition toCollege & Research Librariestorepresent academic librarianship;Public Library Quarterlyto represent public librarianship;SchoolLibrary Media Quarterlyto represent school librarianship; andSpecial Librariesto represent thatbranch of the profession. For these six titles, I looked at 146 articles that represented the work ofsome 204 authors (196 individual contributors; 8 people each had two articles published in thesetitles in 1993). I focused my attention on the following areas: single or multiple authorship, genderof author, occupation of author, very generally what the topic of the article was, and finally,whether these authors had published prior to 1993 or since then.

Most of the results compare favorably with the earlier studies. As Table 1 indicates, we stillprimarily write alone; of the 146 articles identified, 101 (69%) were single authors, 36 articles(25%) had two authors, while only 9 articles (6%) had 3 or more authors. Gender was determinedfor 203 of the 204 authors (for one author gender could not be determined by name, and there wasno other indication of gender with the article) and 125 authors (62%) were female and 78 authors(38%) were male, as identified in Table 2. In many of the previous studies, women were theminority or the breakdown was more balanced. The trend, identified earlier, of more women gettingpublished appears to be continuing. As we might imagine, the academic sector continues to producethe most authors. Table 3 illustrates that academic librarianship lead the way with 78 (38%) of the204 authors included in this study. LIS faculty accounted for 53 (26%) of the authors, whilenon-LIS faculty contributed another 8 (4%) authors. These three groups were responsible for 68%

67When Write is Wrong

of all authors. The remaining fields are represented as follows: special librarians—18 (9%), publiclibrarians—8 (4%), school librarians—5 (2%), and an “Other” category—34 (17%). (“Other”includes vendors and consultants, for example. Also in this category were 11 students [both MLISand Ph.D.], which means more students were published in these six journals than either publiclibrarians or school librarians.)

Six very broad categories were used to identify the major topic of each of the 146 articles, asindicated in Table 4, with “Other” being used to capture those topics falling outside the six primaryareas. Library management was the most popular topic with 38 (26%) articles. The next topic ofinterest was technology/automation with 21 (14%) articles. The remaining four topics cumulativelyaccounted for 35% of the total articles, leaving 36 (25%) articles in the “Other” category.

This leaves us with the question of whether these authors are writing just enough for apromotion/tenure review, or if there is a consistent pattern of publication both pre- and post-1993.A Wilsonline search of Library Literature helps us answer that question (at least within the contextof the library literature). Among the 204 authors identified are 196 individual authors (8 authorspublished twice in these journals in 1993). Over half of these authors, 108 (55%), had publishedboth prior to 1993 and after 1993, as identified in Table 5. For 18 authors (9%), 1993 representedthe first time they were published; however, all of these individuals have published at least oncesince 1993. For 36 authors (18.5%), 1993 appears to be the last time they were published, but allthese authors had been published at least once prior to 1993. This leaves 34 individuals (17.5%)who published in 1993 with no evidence of having been published either before or since. This

TABLE 1Multiple Authorship (by number of articles)

# ofauthors

TotalN 5 146

C&RL1

N 5 35LQ

N 5 17LT

N 5 36PLQ

N 5 17SLMQN 5 16

SLN 5 25

1 101/69% 17/49% 15/88% 27/75% 12/71% 11/69% 19/76%2 36/25% 13/37% 1/6% 7/19% 5/29% 4/25% 6/24%3 7/5% 3/9% 1/6% 2/6% — 1/6% —4 1/.5% 1/2.5% — — — — —6 1/.5% 1/2.5% — — — — —

1 C&RL 5 College & Research Libraries, LQ 5 Library Quarterly, LT 5 Library Trends, PLQ5 Public LibraryQuarterly, SLMQ5 School Library Media Quarterly, SL 5 Special Libraries.

TABLE 2Gender of Authors (by number of authors)

TotalN 5 203*

C&RL1

N 5 61LQ

N 5 20LT

N 5 47PLQ

N 5 22SLMQN 5 22

SLN 5 31

Female 125/62% 34/56% 12/60% 28/60% 12/55% 17/77% 22/71%Male 78/38% 27/44% 8/40% 19/40% 10/45% 5/23% 9/29%

* Unable to determine gender for one author (C&RL) from information provided.1 C&RL 5 College & Research Libraries, LQ 5 Library Quarterly, LT 5 Library Trends, PLQ5 Public LibraryQuarterly, SLMQ5 School Library Media Quarterly, SL 5 Special Libraries.

68 W. FISHER

seems to be something of an improvement over earlier findings; however, the prior trend appearsto be validated: that librarians in the academic arena publish enough to meet whatever is neededfor promotion/tenure, while others find the rewards for publishing not to be worth the repeatedeffort to do so.

CONCLUSION

Based upon this very brief analysis of the professional literature as represented in these six LISjournals in 1993, the results of prior studies appear to be validated. While there is an urge to ask

TABLE 3Employment of Authors (by number of authors)

TotalN 5 204

C&RL1

N 5 62LQ

N 5 20LT

N 5 47PLQ

N 5 22SLMQN 5 22

SLN 5 31

Faculty (LIS) 53/26% 7/11% 10/50% 17/36% 4/18% 12/55% 3/10%Faculty (non-LIS) 8/4% 4/6.5% — 1/2% 2/9% 1/4.5% —Academic librarian 78/38% 46/74% 6/30% 10/21% 9/41% 1/4.5% 6/19%Special librarian 18/9% — 3/15% 4/9% 1/4.5% — 10/32%Public librarian 8/4% 1/3% — 2/4% 5/23% — —School librarian 5/2% — — 1/2% — 4/18% —Other* 34/17% 4/6.5% 1/5% 12/26% 1/4.5% 4/18% 12/39%

1 C&RL 5 College & Research Libraries, LQ 5 Library Quarterly, LT 5 Library Trends, PLQ5 Public LibraryQuarterly, SLMQ5 School Library Media Quarterly, SL 5 Special Libraries.* Includes vendors, consultants, students, non-profit organizations, government, and reading specialists.

TABLE 4Primary Topic of the Article (by the number of articles)

TotalN 5 146

C&RL1

N 5 35LQ

N 5 17LT

N 5 36PLQ

N 5 17SLMQN 5 16

SLN 5 25

Lib educ2 15/10% — 5/29% 10/28% — — —Lib mgmt 38/26% 11/31% — — 7/41% 6/38% 14/56%Lib techn 21/14% 6/17% 1/6% 1/2.5% 4/24% 3/18.5% 6/24%Lib lit* 18/12% 3/9% — 11/31% 1/6% 3/18/5% —Coll dvlp** 13/9% 6/17% — 5/14% 1/6% — 1/4%Orgn info*** 5/4% 1/3% 1/6% 1/2.5% 1/6% — 1/4%Other**** 36/25% 8/23% 10/59% 8/22% 3/18% 4/25% 3/12%

1 C&RL 5 College & Research Libraries, LQ 5 Library Quarterly, LT 5 Library Trends, PLQ5 Public LibraryQuarterly, SLMQ5 School Library Media Quarterly, SL 5 Special Libraries.2 Lib educ 5 Library education, Lib mgmt5 Library management, Lib techn5 Library technology, Lib lit5 Libraryliterature, Coll dvlp5 Collection development, Orgn info5 Organization of information.* Includes professional literature, publishing, reading/literacy.** Includes subject collections, archives, preservation.*** Includes cataloging, indexing, access to information.**** Includes user services, research, library buildings, professional issues, vendors.

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“What should be done about our professional literature?,” perhaps the first question to ask is“Should anything be done about our literature?” There has been, continues to be, and in alllikelihood will remain, a tension in our professional literature between the demand for morerigorous empirical/theoretical research and more applied research that focuses on specific job-related issues. This tension is not necessarily a bad thing. Any profession needs to be concernedabout advancing the profession through research and experimentation to test new ideas. At the sametime, the profession also needs to be concerned with the application of these new ideas and theidentification of “best practices” and/or showcase organizations. Perhaps one of our problems hasbeen that many of our journal publications try to deal with both of these concerns simultaneously.So the reader looking for rigorous research reports is satisfied with only part of a journal’s contents,and the practitioner looking for the “how we done it good” article is also only partially satisfiedwith the contents of a journal. A clearer statement of a journal’s objectives might help alleviate thissituation.

As for the quality of the articles themselves, this is a bit more problematic. There are as manydifferent writing styles as there are authors, and no doubt twice as many critics. What one readerdoes not like, the next two readers will think is wonderful. To improve our professional literature,we must all do our part. Readers should contact journal editors and provide feedback on the articlesbeing published, letting the editors know what they found valuable and what they found valueless.Editors (and reviewers, when used) should carefully scrutinize each manuscript to ensure that thecontent, organization, and writing style all help to impart the author’s message. And finally, authorsplay a pivotal role in the process by submitting their manuscripts to “get the ball rolling.” Whileit is easier said than done, perhaps the best succinct advice for authors comes from the educationwriter referenced earlier: Step 1—say something; have some substance to your article, and Step2—say what you have to say simply and clearly. Happy writing and happy reading!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges the diligent efforts and contributions of Michele Benitez,who worked as my research assistant while this article was being prepared.

REFERENCES

1. Marshall, B. “Library Periodicals!!”ALA Bulletin, 31 (1937), 269.2. Handlin, O. “Libraries and Learning.”American Scholar, 56 (1987), 205–218.

TABLE 5Publishing Output of Authors (by Individual Contributors)

TotalN 5 196

Published both pre- and post-1993 108/55%Did not publish after 1993 36/18.5%Did not publish before 1993 18/9%Published only in 1993 34/17.5%

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3. Mooney, C. J. “Efforts to Cut Amount of ‘Trivial’ Scholarship Win New Backing from Many Academics.”Chronicleof Higher Education, 37 (1991), A11.

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