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64th IFLA Conference Logo

   64th IFLA General Conference
   August 16 - August 21, 1998

 


Code Number: 120-118-E
Division Number: VII.
Professional Group: Editors of Library Journals
Joint Meeting with: -
Meeting Number: 118.
Simultaneous Interpretation:   No

Critical Issues Facing LIS Journals: A Reader's View

Maurice B. Line
Chair, Editors of Library Journals
Harrogate, UK
E-mail: mbl@hgte.demon.co.uk


Abstract

LIS journals suffer from gross over-production; while LIS articles are inter alia often repetitious, badly written, poorly presented, boring, unduly reverent, and parochial. Unlike books, articles are published with little consideration of their market, and there is no regular feedback. Selection of the useful from the useless is becoming more and more difficult, and means need to be found of making it easier.


Paper

INTRODUCTION

I could make a claim to represent all four parties in today's debate. I edit one journal and one annual review. I have written some 300 articles for journals. While I was in the British Library my responsibilities included several publications, including one LIS journal. And I am a voracious - but highly discriminating - reader. I am aware that the criticisms I shall make as a reader may rebound on me in my other capacities. I am also conscious that this paper may be scrutinized in terms of my own criteria.

What I shall have to say about LIS journals is applicable to journals in most if not all other subjects. That makes the situation neither better nor worse: it is never an excuse for misbehaviour to say that others too misbehave.

OVER-ABUNDANCE

First, there are far too many journals. Many of these are subsidized. In some cases subsidy is right: for instance, journals produced for librarians in countries like Hungary or Croatia with languages that are spoken nowhere else and so have a limited market. But it is often hard to see any reason for publication of a particular journal other than to give visibility to a local branch of a library association or provide a vehicle for articles that other journals do not want - a sort of bibliographic refuse cart. Very rarely do these last journals contain anything that is worth reading.

So why bother about them? If a local body wants to waste money and paper, why not let it? The trouble is that these journals are abstracted in databases such as LISA, and the abstracts often make it appear that they have something useful to say. If all the articles were worthless (in the sense that they say nothing that is not said elsewhere) one might dismiss such articles; but that might be unwise, because once a year or so an article that is actually useful is included. There is no way of telling whether an abstract has squeezed everything good out of an article or whether the article itself is worth reading.

Even in widely respected journals, there is a great deal of repetition. Take as an example the topic of libraries in the electronic society. I must have scanned at least 40 papers on this topic (and I confess I have contributed to it myself), and the chance of finding anything new is now very small. The same could be said about articles on the value of TQM in libraries, the possibilities offered by online catalogues, and many other subjects. Perhaps journal editors feel that their journals are incomplete without something on hot topics of the day.

It might be said that one does not have to read all this stuff, but there is always the possibility that a contribution will contain something new or perhaps offer a good synthesis. How is one to know in advance which are the pearls in a pile of ordinary stones? This problem of selection is serious, and getting worse all the time.

The main underlying reason for over-production is presumably the wish of individuals to gain recognition - though there is no fundamental reason why publishers should give it to them. The librarians who are best known in their countries, and certainly across the world, are those who have written a lot, rather than those who have achieved a lot. The two are of course not mutually exclusive; some doers are also good thinkers, and some thinkers are also good writers. But there are too many writers who are neither good doers nor good thinkers. The 'publish or perish' syndrome is particularly strong in academic circles; but faced with the choice of publishing or perishing I cannot help concluding that some have chosen the wrong option.

DEFICIENCIES IN WRITING AND EDITING

ABSENCE OF FEEDBACK

One problem with LIS articles is that unlike books, which get reviewed, there is very little feedback on articles (though I like the starring system used by the Journal of Academic Librarianship in its bibliographic section). Citation measures are useless; they relate almost entirely to the research literature, and within that limitation they are biased towards certain types of article - for example, citation studies (if you want to be cited, write about citations). I would like to see some surveys carried out that ask librarians how much professional literature they read (I guess we would be shocked at how little that is), what articles they have read in the last month, which if any articles have made an impact on them in the last five years, and why. At the end of such a survey, we might well be asking 'what is LIS literature for?'

If and when most LIS literature is accessible online, publishers will be able to find out which articles are read and which are not, and will doubtless do so. That will be only a start, as it will not answer the other important questions. It could also be positively misleading, if publishers use the information to reject articles that are very little read without enquiring further. An article reporting important research may be of value to only three or four people, but that value may be potentially greater than the value of a widely read but trivial piece.

ALL-ONLINE SYSTEMS

One big issue for the very near future is whether articles, and if so which articles, need to appear in printed form - or rather, whether the printed form should be generated at the publisher's or the user's end. Since I gave a paper on this topic last year, I will not address the subject again. I will only repeat that the printed form has advantages that online access does not, including the ability to quickly sift good from bad and useful from useless; and add that in an electronic world there is no need to fill up a certain number of pages, so that articles can be of any length (preferably as short as possible).

AN INTERNATIONAL ANGLE

I have been speaking from the perspective of an English-speaking reader. I would like to try and put myself in the position of a librarian from a country like Hungary whose native language is not understood elsewhere and few of whose population are familiar with English. As well as being kept informed of developments in Hungarian libraries, I would wish to have some idea of what is going on in the rest of the world, particularly in countries where librarianship was rather more advanced. I would want this information to be conveyed clearly and concisely, not in long descriptive articles. This seems to be exactly what Péter Szántó's journal TMT is doing. Such journals will never have a very wide readership, and may never recover their costs; but their value to the profession seems to me so great that subsidy is entirely justified.

I actually want to know more of what is going on in other countries, especially in non-English speaking ones. It was incidentally partly for this reason, and partly to save the time of readers who would never have time to read more than a small fraction of original literature, that Librarianship and Information Work Worldwide was established. (I might add that Linda Hajdukiewicz is responsible for its publication within Bowker-Saur, and both Peter Lor and Péter Szántó have written chapters for it.) If much LIS literature is garbage, LIWW might be described as compressed garbage.

CONCLUSION

If I had to name one big issue facing LIS journals, it would be that of selection from an overwhelming mass of material. There are no gaps in coverage of topics that I want filled, but there is a great deal of redundancy and triviality. Greater conciseness and precision in articles would be very welcome, and should be attainable if editors and publishers can stop equating size with value, but it would not by itself reduce the number of articles. It seems very unlikely that the total mass will be reduced. So the best hope must lie with critical abstracts and reviews that would enable readers to sift useful from useless, good from bad. Indicators might be attached to every article abstract for (e.g.) originality, practical usefulness, and readability;. This may seem invidious and subjective, but it is more or less what is done with book reviews. It is in fact already done by MCB University Press for its online journals, but one can hardly expect a publisher to be too critical of the articles he publishes, and it would be much better if it were done by another organization

I have accused authors of over-production, and of various faults in their products. I have accused editors of sloppy editing, and implicitly of insufficient discrimination. I have accused publishers of too often going along with wordy and half-literate authors and with lazy editors. Even though I have certainly not accused all these parties of all these things all the time, I have probably offended most of the audience, as well as many others. Nevertheless, if a prize were instituted for the least necessary article of the year (self-nomination by authors not allowed), I guess there would be many submissions.

I will end on a positive note, by naming three authors, each of whom fulfils one or more of my criteria in an exemplary manner. They all happen to be American, though two of them were born in Britain and did not emigrate to the US until they had established library careers in the UK. My shining example for clarity of presentation of research is Wilfrid Lancaster; for good and innovative thinking, always interestingly presented, Richard de Gennaro; and for entertainment value and disrespect of authority, Michael Gorman. Authors, please study and emulate.