Editorial Policy of JLAMS

JLAMS is a Library Administration and Management Section electronic journal, published semiannually by LAMS for LAMS members.

The Purpose of JLAMS is to:

1. Provide NYLA members and subscribers with a high quality, library management focused journal. 2. To disseminate best practices and best thinking within the profession. 3. To encourage research in library science within the state. 4. To nurture research abilities and professional thinking among the membership. 5. To provide a forum for conflicting and new ideas.

We encourage information professionals to help us improve New York libraries and information professionals. Library faculty and students are encouraged to maintain an awareness of JLAMS as an opportunity to share their ideas and research with their colleagues in all types of libraries.

Submission Policies

 Articles are accepted from any qualified individual within the library and allied professions on a broad range of library topics provided it be from a management perspective. For example, a document on information literacy in children’s services would be sought if it would be of use in designing or improving related services or be of interest to an administrator. We solicit original articles which will be subject to peer review as well as shorter, 1000 – 2000 word articles which will be reviewed by the editors. Examples of shorter articles are descriptions of conference poster sessions and presentations of projects or works in progress.

 The editors will decide if an article should be sent to referees or would be more suitable as an editor reviewed manuscript. There will be two referees for each peer reviewed article. Proposals for articles should be sent to the editors. (A form for submission is available on our web site). The editors will decide which articles to send to referees. (See “LAMS Publications Proposal Worksheet). Papers should be structured to include an abstract, an introduction, objectives, a literature review, methods, results, discussion, conclusion and a bibliography. The abstract should be no more than 200 words.

Criteria for Acceptance

 Manuscripts must be written in clear, concise and readable English. All listed authors should have seen and approved the submitted article. The source of all information quoted or referred to in the text should be referenced and written permission received for direct reproduction of copyrighted material from the author and original publisher. For bibliographic format use Chicago Manual of Style.

 Manuscripts should not have been published elsewhere, or concurrently submitted to any other journal. Presentation of a paper at a conference or inclusion of a preliminary report in published proceedings is not considered to be prior publication provided that the submitted manuscript is substantially different from the original.

Structure

 Is the title suitably informative?  Is an abstract (informative or structured in the case of a research report) included.  Is it clear what question the paper is attempting to answer?  Are the objectives of the work clearly stated?  Does the author refer to relevant papers in the literature?  Is there a discussion of the results and are the implications of any findings carefully presented?  Is the bibliography complete and up to date?  Does the paper provide anything new, either in the way of evidence or interpretation to what is already known in the field?  Does it present ideas of interest or practical use to personnel in the library environment?  Does the paper discuss an issue of current concern in the field?  Are the arguments sound?  Is experimental data capable of supporting the conclusions drawn?  Are there gaps or omissions in the coverage, data, logic, presentation?  Is the paper well written and the data clearly presented by means of appropriate tables, graphs, or diagrams?  If numeric data or mathematical calculations are included, are these correct?  Normally referees will be given 21 days to return their comments. After 21 days referees will be sent a reminder. If no response is received after 40 days the manuscript will be sent to a further referee, or the Editors will review the paper. The Editors will write to the author notifying them of the procedure and giving an approximate date for further contact. Names of referees will not be given to the author. On receipt of comments from at least two referees the Editors will review the paper. If referees take completely different views, the manuscript may be sent to a third referee.  For shorter articles the Editors will acknowledge the manuscript within five days with suggested revisions if necessary.

Review Procedure  After a manuscript is received, the Editors send a response within 14 days. If selected as an original article the Editors, using the database of expertise, will select two appropriate referees. The Editors will contact referees to ascertain their availability. Within 14 days of the decision to review, the manuscript will be sent to the referees with a “Manuscript Evaluation” form. All referees are informed that manuscripts are sent on the understanding that strict confidentiality is maintained.

Decision-making Process

Manuscripts that have received a full review are evaluated using the criteria above and decisions are made taking into account the referees’ ratings in the categories:

 acceptable,  acceptable with minor revision,  substantial revision necessary,  not acceptable.

Revision of Manuscripts

 Referees’ comments to the editors are confidential and in passing on to the author will remain anonymous. The final decision for acceptance/rejection rests with the Editors. When a paper is finally accepted the Editors will notify the author and ask them to send a copy of the final version of the manuscript on disk, and complete a “Copyright” form this must be completed before the manuscript goes into production.  Some manuscripts will be provisionally accepted with or without pending revisions. The Editors will write to the author informing him or her of this and if revisions are deemed to be needed, providing a checklist of points which should be addressed. At this stage the author will be asked to provide a copy of the final version on disk in either Word or PageMaker. The author will be given a date by which the manuscript should be returned. Revised manuscripts must be approved by all authors. Once the revised or resubmitted manuscript has been returned, the Editors will ascertain that all points in the checklist have been addressed. The final decision on acceptance/rejection rests with the Editors, who will inform the author of the decision and where a manuscript has been accepted ask the author to complete a “Copyright Assignment” form. Once a paper has been accepted it will be published as soon as possible taking into account page allocations, special issues etc. If a delay of more that one year is anticipated, the author will be notified and is then free to withdraw their contribution if they wish.

Rejected Manuscripts  The Editors will write to authors of rejected papers, giving reasons for rejection. If the paper is simply not suitable for this journal the Editor will suggest submission to another journal. A decision for rejection is final; a rejected manuscript cannot be simply revised and resubmitted for consideration. However, if authors of rejected manuscripts are able to make new advances that go far beyond the original submission, they may consider submitting a new manuscript, which will go through a completely new review cycle.

 In some cases, authors of rejected papers are invited to resubmit if they can address the major criticisms by revision/and or additional material. The Editors will write to the author giving a checklist of points to be considered before resubmission. All re-submitted and revised manuscripts are subjected to careful re-examination and no guarantee is made about their ultimate acceptability. Revised manuscripts must be signed and approved by all authors.

Publishing Method

 Articles will be distributed, or made available for download, in electronic format as html documents to all members of the LAMS.

 NYLA members or Institutions may choose LAMS as their primary section or may add LAMS as an additional section for $5.00.