Instructions for Authors

The journal is published quarterly, on the 15th of March, June, September, and December. The Editorial Board welcomes submissions throughout the year. The journal aims to provide rapid turnaround for manuscripts requiring peer review (i.e., three months) but cannot guarantee publication in a particular issue.

  • The editors are responsible for final decisions regarding publication and reserve the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and consistency of style.
  • A final decision to publish or not is made by the appropriate editor after the anonymous peer review is completed.
  • All submissions to peer reviewed sections (Research Articles, Reviews, Features, Evidence Summaries, and Classics) should be fully anonymized in preparation for peer review. See Ensuring an Anonymous Review for more information.
  • All submissions to EBLIP should adhere to the guidelines set forth in the EBLIP Publication Manual and the American Psychological Association (APA) Style Guide, 7th edition.
  • All authors should ensure that their user profile includes information on their affiliation and position title.

Research Articles

Submissions are welcomed on all areas of evidence based librarianship including:

  • Application of evidence based librarianship
  • Collaborative and inter-professional evidence based practice
  • Developing and applying evidence based tools
  • Evidence based practices from other disciplines applicable to library and information practice
  • Future prospects for the evidence based information profession
  • Harnessing evidence to support new innovations
  • Management and administration issues related to evidence based librarianship
  • Maximizing the value and impact of information services
  • Research on education in library and information studies programs
  • Research tools (statistics, data collection methods, etc.)

Submissions should report on research conducted using rigorous qualitative or quantitative methods, which should be described in appropriate detail as part of the article. Submissions reporting on survey research should include a copy of the data collection instrument as an appendix. Submissions using a case study approach should include a description of how the case study can be generalized to other situations. 

  1. Research articles should include a structured abstract (250-500 words) using the following headings:
    • Objective
    • Methods
    • Results
    • Conclusion
    See: Bayley, L. & Eldredge, J. D. The structured abstract: An essential tool for researchers. Medical Library Association. http://www.mlanet.org/page/structured-abstract
  2. Research articles should be written in a formal/academic style using the following headings as appropriate:
    • Introduction: Background and introduction to the paper and why the work was carried out.
    • Literature Review: An overview of relevant literature, summarising previous work in the area and highlighting the gaps and where this work fits in.
    • Aims: Aims of the paper/research—it is useful to include the research question(s) used to frame the research study.
    • Methods: How the study was conducted—this should provide enough information for someone to replicate the study, such as how the data were collected and analyzed.
    • Results: The main findings from the study should be presented clearly and concisely.
    • Discussion: A discussion of the findings from the study set in the context of the wider literature or issues arising from the study. Note any problems or limitations with the study, how these could have affected your results, and how they could be avoided in future studies.
    • Conclusion: A summary of what was undertaken and what was discovered—this should not contain any new information but rather describe how the aims of the study were achieved.
  3. Research articles of 4,000 to 7,000 words (excluding references, tables, figures, and appendices) are most suitable, although longer works may be considered. A total of no more than six tables and/or figures is recommended. 

Review Articles

Review articles aim to establish new and authoritative findings based on an analysis of existing evidence using an established review framework and objective, reliable, and reproducible research methods. Reviews may take several different forms, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, narrative reviews, meta-analyses, or state-of-the-art reviews, among others. For a detailed explanation of the types of reviews possible, please consult: Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91-108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

EBLIP welcomes review articles on topics of relevance to practitioners in library and information studies. We are particularly interested in reviews which contain information on the state of research on a specific topic. 

  1. Review articles should include a structured abstract (250-500 words) using the following headings:
    • Objective
    • Methods
    • Results
    • Conclusion
    See: Bayley, L. & Eldredge, J. D. The structured abstract: An essential tool for researchers. Medical Library Association. http://www.mlanet.org/page/structured-abstract
  2. Review articles should be written in a formal/academic style using the following headings as appropriate:
    • Introduction: Background and introduction to the paper and why the work was carried out
    • Aims: Aims/objectives of the paper.
    • Methods: How the review was conducted—this should not be too descriptive but it should provide enough information for someone to replicate the study.
    • Results: The main findings from the review of the literature on a topic should be presented clearly and concisely.
    • Discussion: A discussion of the findings from your review. Note any problems or limitations with the study, how these could have affected the results, and how they could be avoided in future studies.
    • Conclusion: A summary of what was undertaken and what was discovered, including the implications for practice and any further research needed.
  3. Review articles may be up to 10,000 words in length, excluding references, tables, figures, and appendices.

Note: EBLIP does not publish review protocols, but authors who are interested in registering their protocols prior to submission of a manuscript may do so in other venues, such as the Open Science Framework (see Welcome to Registrations for more information). See also Where to Prospectively Register a Systematic Review.

Using Evidence in Practice

Submissions to this section of EBLIP should be brief reports of library and information practitioners' use of evidence to assist with decision making. Using Evidence in Practice articles do not go through peer review.

  1. No abstract is required.
  2. Using Evidence in Practice articles should be written in a formal/academic style using the following headings as appropriate:
    • Setting: After including a brief overview of your article, describe the practice setting where the use of evidence took place. Things to note include type of institution, type of users, environment, country, and service currently being offered that you are focusing on.
    • Problem: Describe the problem that arose to make you question the service you were offering. Why did you think there might be a better way to do things?
    • Evidence: Give an overview of the evidence you used to assist with your decision making. This could be evidence from the research literature or local data you compiled. How was the evidence located or collected? Why was this evidence compelling? What did it tell you and why did you believe it? Why did you use this evidence?
    • Implementation: Describe how you implemented a change based on the evidence you found. Provide practical details of what it meant to implement this change
    • Outcome: What was the result of your implemented changes? What impact did the changes have? Were the changes successful or not?
    • Reflection: Reflect on the process of trying to implement change in your practice by using evidence. Was this a difficult process or fairly straightforward? Did you encounter any obstacles? What would you do differently next time?
  3. Using Evidence in Practice articles should be approximately 1500 words in length, excluding any references, tables, and figures.

Commentaries

Commentaries are opinion pieces on a topic related to evidence based practice. They should be approximately 1500-3000 words in length.

Evidence Summaries

Evidence Summaries follow a structured format and are written by a team of writers under the direction of the Associate Editor for this section. If you are interested in writing evidence summaries or would like to suggest a research article to be reviewed, please contact the Associate Editors (Evidence Summaries). Author guidelines for Evidence Summaries are made available by request.

Classics and Special Topics

The Classics and Special Topics section consists of reviews of publications that have had a significant impact on library and information practice. Classic works often have an enduring legacy even when most contemporary practitioners no longer reference these works specifically, while recent works may highlight innovative ideas, theories, methods, or practices that are having an important influence in the field. In addition to reviewing the work, authors may provide a fresh perspective on or reconsideration of the work’s significance.

Authors should organize their reviews into two major parts: the Abstract and the Commentary.

  1. Authors should summarize the work concisely using standard structured abstract headings (250-500 words):
    • Objective
    • Methods/Implementation
    • Major Findings
    • Conclusion/Implications for Practice
  2. Authors should review the work’s significance and may provide a fresh take on or reconsideration of the work. Authors should describe the context at the time of the publication, as well as existing professional practices and any previous research inquiries related to the subject. Articles should be written in a formal/academic style and attempt to answer the following core questions:
    • How did this work influence subsequent applied research?
    • Is there anything that we can learn from the author’s approach that might guide today’s applied research?
  3. Classics and Special Topics articles are typically between 1000 and 2500 words in length, excluding references, tables, figures, and any appendices. If you are interested in suggesting a work or writing a review that should be featured in the Classics and Special Topics section, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Features

Features appear in select journal issues and feature a theme or conference/symposium. Features typically have one or more guest editors, and include papers in various categories—research articles, review articles, commentaries, and editorials. Features are scheduled in advance and contributors are usually invited directly to submit manuscripts for consideration. For those interested in editing a feature or suggesting a theme, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

News

News items can be submitted through the Online Journal System or emailed directly to the Editor-in-Chief who reserves the right to make final publishing and editorial decisions. Deadlines for including a news item in a particular issue are 30 days prior to the issue publication date (March 15, June 15, September 15, December 15).

Letters to the Editor

Letters can be submitted through the online journal system or emailed directly to the Editor-in-Chief who will decide whether to publish the letter or respond privately. Letters will only be considered for publication if they are within the scope of the journal and/or relevant to a recent EBLIP publication. Deadlines for including a letter in a particular issue is 30 days prior to the issues publication date (March 15, June 15, September 15, December 15).

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

When submitting their manuscript, authors should not list AI tools as a co-author, as AI tools cannot assume responsibility for authorship.

Authors may use AI technologies as research tools in the preparation of their manuscripts (e.g., to assist with data analysis or the creation of images). Authors should describe any use of AI technologies as research tools in the methods section of their manuscript in the interest of transparency, reliability, and integrity.

If authors discover sources through the use of AI tools, they must access those sources directly in order to use and cite them in their manuscripts.

Authors should not use AI tools to write their manuscript, but they may use AI tools to help improve the syntax and readability of their manuscript. Authors should keep in mind that EBLIP editors and readers want to “hear” the authors’ own unique voice come through in their articles, and they value authenticity and originality of expression. Authors who use AI tools to improve their manuscript’s readability should disclose their use of these tools in a note to the editor upon submission of their manuscript.

Writing for Diverse Audiences

EBLIP publishes high-quality research in the field of library and information science for an international audience, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing and the greater global exchange of knowledge. We welcome submissions from a diverse range of authors from all countries, backgrounds, career stages, and perspectives.

In writing their articles, prospective authors are encouraged to use language that is inclusive and accessible to a broad readership, taking care to avoid language that might alienate or exclude readers based on their nationalities, experiences, or identities. Authors should avoid making assumptions about what readers know by thoroughly explaining the context and setting of their research so that readers can fully understand the results and conclusions.

Writers should also be respectful when describing research participants and other individuals or groups by using bias-free language that avoids making negative judgments and perpetuating stereotypes regarding sex, race, and other characteristics. See the American Psychological Association’s Bias-Free Language page for further guidance.

ORCID

An ORCID is a digital identifier that distinguishes authors from others, and EBLIP recommends that all authors register for an ORCID identifier. ORCiD numbers for each author will be included in an article’s author list.

Author Contributions

CRediT, Contributor Roles Taxonomy is a means of recognizing the different roles of authorship using a standardized list of contributor roles. In the interests of promoting transparency in research and scholarship, EBLIP joins many other scholarly journals in adopting the CRediT standard.

An Author Contributions statement will be requested from authors of research articles, review articles, and using evidence in practice articles upon acceptance of the submission. All authors should discuss and agree upon their contributions before submitting this information to EBLIP, and the listed roles should accurately reflect contributions to the work. Individuals whose contributions do not warrant authorship may be recognized in an Acknowledgements section at the end of the paper. Single-author papers do not require an Author Contributions statement.

The 14 contributor roles (described on the NISO website) include the following: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, and Writing - review & editing. Individual contributors can be assigned multiple roles, and a given role can be assigned to multiple contributors. Authors also have the option of listing contribution qualifiers (lead, supporting, equal).

The Author Contributions statement will be placed at the end of the text before the References, and will be formatted with each author name followed by a list of the appropriate contributor roles, as illustrated in the following examples:

Example 1

Zhang Lee: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software Aditi Singh: Data curation, Writing - original draft Neeru Acharya: Visualization, Investigation Noel Jenson: Supervision Vijay Kumar: Software, Validation Caryn Dillon: Writing - review & editing

Example 2 (illustrating optional degrees of contribution)

Pierro Correia: Writing - review & editing (equal) Anna Berkowitz: Conceptualization (lead), Writing - original draft (lead), Formal analysis (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal) Yolanda Roberto: Software (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal) Takaaki Yamada: Methodology (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal) Qian Wu: Conceptualization (supporting), Writing - original draft (supporting), Writing - review & editing (equal)

Data Sharing

EBLIP provides open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. In addition to making all articles available, the journal also promotes open data, that is, the availability of research data underpinning research published in the journal.

At EBLIP, we believe that sharing research data advances research and promotes evidence based library and information practice. Data sharing has several benefits:

  • Making publicly-funded research data available to all
  • Encouraging collaboration among researchers
  • Enabling the reproducibility and verification of data
  • Optimizing the use and re-use of existing data for further research
  • Supporting new research questions, investigations, and interpretations of data
  • Providing transparency in research and safeguarding against misconduct

Authors submitting their research to EBLIP are encouraged to deposit, cite, and link to their data using the following guidelines:

  1. Authors are responsible for ensuring that appropriate ethical considerations and permissions have been obtained prior to depositing the data. If necessary, data should be cleaned to ensure confidentiality of human participants is protected.
  2. Types of data which may be included with the deposit include but are not limited to: raw data, processed data, algorithms, protocols, and software.
  3. Use of non-proprietary, unencrypted, uncompressed formats is recommended. Best practices for data file formats are available from Cornell University and the Library of Congress.
  4. Data should be deposited at the time the manuscript is submitted. Data files may be uploaded to the Online Journal System in the Data Set At the time the manuscript is accepted for publication in EBLIP, the editor will deposit the data file in the University of Alberta’s instance of Dataverse and it will be assigned a DOI for use in the citation.
  5. If depositing the data with the journal for hosting internally is not feasible (e.g., if there is a competing requirement from a funding agency), data should be deposited in a public repository and a citation provided including a persistent identifier.
  6. In cases where the data sets are already available in a public repository at the time of manuscript submission, a citation should be provided including a persistent identifier.
  7. Metadata should be included with the deposit. A README file should contain supporting documentation necessary to help with interpretation of the data, e.g., the codebook. Guidelines for creating README files are available from Cornell University and University of Southampton.
  8. The citation should include a DOI and follow the EBLIP Publishing Manual regarding the data citation style. The format adheres to that proposed by the FORCE11 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles. For example:
    Author(s). (Year). Dataset title. Data repository or archive, version, DOI.
  9. A data availability statement will be included with the article upon publication. Alternatively, a statement on availability of the data (e.g., through contacting the author or a third party) may be included.
  10. Peer review of the research data is not required. If the data are submitted at the time of the manuscript, they may be consulted by the peer reviewers during the review process.
  11. The author(s)' willingness to deposit data does not affect a submission’s consideration or acceptance for publication in the journal.
  12. Data should be made available without restriction at the time the article is published

Preprints

A preprint is the version of an article before it has been submitted for peer review. Authors who have uploaded their manuscript to a noncommercial preprint server may still submit it to EBLIP.

When submitting their manuscript, authors should include a note to the editor indicating the repository to which they have posted their preprint. Authors should keep in mind that posting a preprint online could compromise the anonymity of the review process.

If their work is subsequently published with EBLIP, authors should update the preprint of their article with a note that states, “This is an original manuscript of a work that has been published in Evidence Based Library and Information Practice on [date], available at [URL].”

Writing Assistance

Writing Assistants provide guidance to non-native English speakers who submit promising papers to EBLIP but who need help in terms of organization, grammar, and general clarity of language to strengthen their submissions. This is a service that is provided free of charge by EBLIP as part of its commitment to support a greater global exchange of knowledge.

EBLIP Editors refer authors to a Writing Assistant on a case-by-case basis. Writing assistance volunteers act as advisors only. It is up to the author(s) of the manuscript to make all of the appropriate revisions and respond to the reviewers’ comments. Working with an EBLIP writing assistance volunteer does not mean that the final revised manuscript will be accepted for publication; it may still need to be submitted for a further round of editorial/peer review. Writing Assistants may be acknowledged in published submissions.