Title Abstract Introduction Purpose Methods of Data Collection Chronology of Sections and Columns Authors and Institutions Cited Articles and STS Metrics Subject Coverage Conclusions Acknowledgements References

Reflections on ISTL

A Descriptive Review of ISTL: The Journal of the Science and Technology Section of ACRL

Nestor L. Osorio
Professor
Northern Illinois University
nosorio@niu.edu

Abstract

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship (ISTL), a publication of the Science and Technology Section (STS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), was created as a web-based, open access journal in 1996. This article is a descriptive review of ISTL contributions during the last twenty-five years.

Keywords: STEM open access; Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship; Science and engineering information services; ACRL STS Section.

Recommended citation:

Osorio, N. L. (2021). A descriptive review of ISTL: The journal of the Science and Technology Section of ACRL. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 99. https://doi.org/10.29173/istl2691

Introduction

The creation of the World Wide Web occurred at CERN in 1989, but it entered the public domain only in April 1993. This action allowed for the creation of web-based journals, making the second half of the 1990s the beginning of the transformation of the academic scholarly world.

Crawford (2002), from The Research Libraries Group (RLG), in looking at the early development of open access publications, studied the success and endurance of free electronic journals from 1996 to 2001. In this work Crawford concluded: "Librarians have one long-standing success story: Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, sponsored by ACRL's Science & Technology Section" (Crawford, 2002, p. 119). Two other LIS journals are mentioned in this study: MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship and LIBRES. According to Crawford's study it is possible to conclude that ISTL is one of the first three academic web-based open access LIS journals in the world. The MC Journal started publication in 1998, LIBRES (as a web-based publication) in 1996.

The first issue of the web-based ISTL was the combined issue number 13 for Fall 96 - Winter 97, published in 1996. Therefore, with this celebratory issue number 99, the journal has published 87 issues in the last 25 years. Prior to 1996, ISTL had a humble beginning in 1991, it was an ASCII-based newsletter distributed by email to the members of the ACRL STS. A description of the origins of ISTL was presented by the author in the ISTL 15th anniversary issue (Osorio, 2011).

Issue number 13 (1996) had five “Board Accepted” articles, one “Book Review”, one “Science and Technology Resources on the Internet” article, two “Conferences and Workshops” contributions, and one “From the Director's Chair” item. As in its humble beginnings in 1991, this 1996 issue did not have an editorial announcement of its new format, access, and coverage. The author understands this announcement was made in messages posted in the ISTL listserv.

More importantly, the first web-based issues had two articles discussing the status of digital journals at that time (Brown & Duda, 1996, 1997). In the first of these articles, the authors presented a summary of the state of online journals. Fourteen prominent STEM publishers are surveyed. In most cases, all or a partial number of their journals began online access during 1995, 1996, or 1997, and print subscriptions were combined with online access with or without additional fees. It was the beginning of significant changes in the scholarly publishing industry.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to summarize the most significant productivity elements of ISTL.

Methods of Data Collection

In this descriptive analysis, bibliometric principles and practices such those presented in De Bellis (2009) are used. The following bibliographic data collections are used:

Chronology of Sections and Columns

Through the years, sections and columns have been created, while others have been discontinued. This is not a complete chronology, rather a description of some of the changes that occurred.

Table 1. Major sections and columns of the journal
SectionNumbersStarting Issue and DateEnding Date
Refereed articles 177 # 27, 2000 Active (#98, 2021)
Board accepted articles 209 # 13, 1996 #80, 2015
Book reviews 121 # 13, 1996 #84, 2016
Science and technology resources in the Internet 67 # 13, 1996 Active (# 93, 2019)
Electronic resources reviews 57 # 27, 2000 Active (# 98, 2021)
Viewpoints 40 # 37, 2013 Active (# 96, 2020)
Tips from the experts 35 # 55, 2009 Active (# 98, 2021)
There's an app for that 17 #76, 2014 Active (#98, 2021)
Short communications 10 # 81, 2015 Active (#98, 2021)
Science librarianship & social justice 4 # 94, 2020 # 97, 2021
Webliographies 1 # 93, 2019 # 93, 2019
Sub total 738
Others (see note below) 111

Two important changes occurred: Board Accepted articles were discontinued after issue 80 (2015), and Book Reviews were published only until issue 84 (2016).

Some other sections with the number of contributions are:

Sub-total= 111. Therefore, a total of 849 contributions have been published from issue 13 (1996) to issue 98 (2021) for an average of 9.87 contributions per issue. In addition, the journal has published 30 issues with a designated theme.

figure1

Figure 1. Growth of major sections of ISTL

Figure 1 shows the continuous growth of major sections of the journal; of particular interest is the increase in the number of Refereed articles.

Authors and Institutions

A total of 952 names are found as authors or coauthors of the 849 contributions. Of those, 89 were in three or more articles, 38 were in four or more articles. Table 2 is the alphabetical list of the most productive authors; those with five or more contributions.

Table 2. Authors with five or more contributions in alphabetical order by last name
Name of AuthorNumber of Contributions
Ayers, Meredith 6
Barsky, Eugene 6
Bussmann, Jeffra D. 5
Butkovich, Nancy J. 5
Duda, Andrea L. 7
Duffy, Jane C. 5
Flaxbart, David 14
Fosmire, Michael 10
Gelfand, Julia 12
Hughes, Janet 5
Jensen, Ann 6
Johnson, Bill 6
Lafferty, Meghan 5
Osorio, Nestor L. 7
Shrode, Flora 6

A total of 320 institutions were found for the 952 contributors. Most of these institutions are colleges and universities; other types are publishers, government agencies, public libraries, and research laboratories. Geographically there is a strong presence from the USA, followed by Canada and UK. Table 3 shows the most represented institutions.

Table 3. Institutions with 10 or more contributions in alphabetical order
Name of InstitutionFrequency
Cornell University 22
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta 13
Indiana University Bloomington 11
Kansas State University, Manhattan 13
Northern Illinois University 17
Oregon State University, Corvallis 13
Pennsylvania State University, University Park 31
Purdue University, West Lafayette 25
University at Buffalo 15
University of California, Berkeley 29
University of California, Irvine 13
University of California, Santa Barbara 19
University of Colorado at Boulder 10
University of Florida, Gainesville 10
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 14
University of Maryland, College Park 15
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis/ St. Paul 18
University of Saskatchewan 10
University of Tennessee, Knoxville 20
University of Texas at Austin 22
University of Washington 10
Wayne State University 10

Cited Articles and STS Metrics

A Search in Publish or Perish (12/22/21) by publication/journal name produced 754 results during the period from 1996 to 2021.

The most cited articles are shown in Table 4. Of the top ten, articles ranked first, fifth, ninth, and tenth are Board Accepted, while those ranked second, third, fourth, sixth, and eighth are Refereed articles, and the seventh ranked is an Invited article.

Table 4. Most cited articles
RankCitesAuthorsTitleYear
1 150 AB Wagner Open access citation advantage: An annotated bibliography 2010
2 149 I Lawal Scholarly communication: The use and non-use of e-print archives for the dissemination of scientific information 2002
3 144 AM Gooden Citation analysis of chemistry doctoral dissertations: An Ohio State University case study 2001
4 136 DH Morse, WA Clintworth Comparing patterns of print and electronic journal use in an academic health science library 2000
5 133 EM Corrado The importance of open access, open source, and open standards for libraries 2005
6 128 R Gilmour, L Cobus-Kuo Reference management software: A comparative analysis of four products 2011
7 126 RE Luce E-prints intersect the digital library: inside the Los Alamos arrive 2001
8 126 JA Sears Chat reference service: An analysis of one semester's data 2001
9 97 S Hiller How different are they? A comparison by academic area of library use, priorities, and information needs at the University of Washington 2002
10 93 LS Mercer Measuring the use and value of electronic journals and books 2000
11 91 K Hoffmann, F Antwi-Nsiah, V Feng, M Stanley Library research skills: A needs assessment for graduate student workshops 2008
12 83 S Fingerman Web of Science and Scopus: Current features and capabilities. 2006
13 80 HG Rempel, JR Davidson Providing information literacy instruction to graduate students through literature review workshops 2008
14 61 VF Scalfani, J Sahib A model for managing 3D printing services in academic libraries 2013
15 57 D Dietrich, T Adamus, A Miner, G Steinhart De-mystifying the data management requirements of research funders 2012
16 57 JR Garritano, JR Carlson A subject librarian's guide to collaborating on e-science projects 2009
17 57 NL Osorio Web sites of science–engineering libraries: An analysis of content and design 2001
18 56 HM Dess Scopus 2006
19 51 M Strutin Making research guides more useful and more well used 2008
20 49 VH Resh Science and communication: An author/editor/user's perspective on the transition from paper to electronic publishing 1998
21 48 C Hightower, C Caldwell Shifting sands: science researchers on Google Scholar, Web of Science, and PubMed, with implications for library collections budgets 2010
22 45 M Fosmire, S Yu Free scholarly electronic journals: How good are they 2000
23 42 C Gabaldón, J Repplinger GIS and the academic library: a survey of libraries offering GIS services in two consortia 2006
24 41 J Arendt Are article influence scores comparable across scientific fields 2010
25 40 M Burright Google Scholar—Science & technology 2006

Table 5 shows bibliometric data created in Publish or Perish from data in Google Scholar. It is important to note the good reported values for the h-index of 32, and for the g-index of 54. For the definitions of these metrics the reader can consult Harzing (2011).

Table 5. ISTL metrics
Metrics
Publication years: 1996-2021
Citation years: 25 (1996-2021)
Papers: 754
Citations: 5074
Cites/year: 202.96
Cites/paper: 6.73
Cites/author: 4.55
Papers/author: 0.68
Authors/paper: 1.48
h-index: 32
g-index: 54
hI, norm: 28
hI, annual: 1.12

Subject Coverage

The subject coverage was obtained based on citations collected in Library Literature and Information Science, which produced 746 items for the period 1996-2021. The data was then converted into an Excel file. After deleting name of libraries, institutions, states, countries and other nonsignificant topical terms, Table 6 shows the descriptors with ten or more hits.

Table 6. Top descriptors obtained from Library Literature and Information Science
DescriptorFrequencyDescriptorFrequency
Websites -- Directories 151 Academic library collection development 16
Databases 74 Bibliography (Documentation) 16
Information literacy 72 Academic libraries & faculty 15
Librarians 69 Publications 15
Academic librarians 63 National Center for Biotechnology Information (U.S.) 14
Academic libraries 61 Chemistry 13
Science & technology libraries 56 Computer network resources 13
Library science 49 Data libraries 13
Electronic journals 40 Information science 13
Websites 40 Information sharing 13
Engineering 35 Learning 13
Open access publishing 35 Science students 13
Electronic books 34 Continuing education 12
Library orientation for engineering students 34 Information science -- Computer network resources 12
Science & technology librarians 28 Library orientation 12
Electronic information resources 27 Library outreach programs 12
Data management 26 Research libraries 12
Information literacy research 25 Sciences 12
Science 25 Bibliographical citations 11
Geographic information systems 23 Data quality 11
Citation analysis 22 Management of library collection development 11
Institutional repositories 20 Medicine -- Computer network resources 11
Mobile apps 20 Bibliography (Documentation) -- Software 10
Academic library research 19 Collection development in libraries 10
Library orientation for biology students 19 Consumer preferences 10
Library resources 19 Library materials 10
Scholarly sources 19 Plagiarism 10
Medical libraries 18 United States. Patent & Trademark Office 10
Research 17

Conclusions

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship is a successful contribution to the open access movement, particularly because it is run by volunteers, authors are not subject to publication fees, and without cost to the ACRL Science and Technology Division, it has been housed initially at the University of California, Santa Barbara and presently at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. In addition, it has a generous author copyright policy.

It has been a very productive twenty-five years. A well-defined purpose, and consistent cooperation among teams have made it possible for this publication to continue. For this project to proceed for the next quarter century, maintaining this focus and collegial spirit will be of great importance. Finally, it is also proper to recognize the leadership of ISTL general editor and founder Andrea Duda.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the insightful input provided by Edward Eckel from Western Michigan University as well as for the support provided by Northern Illinois University.

References

Brown, E. W., & Duda, A. L. (1996). Electronic publishing programs in science and technology: part 1: The journals. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, 13. https://doi.org/10.5062/F4N58JC9

Brown, E. W., & Duda, A. L. (1997). Electronic publishing programs in science and technology: part 2: Abstracting and indexing services. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, 14. https://doi.org/10.5062/F4JD4TSZ

De Bellis, N. (2009). Bibliometrics and citation analysis: From the Science Citation Index to cybermetrics. Scarecrow Press.

Crawford, W. (2002). Free electronic refereed journals: Getting past the arc of enthusiasm. Learned Publishing, 15(2), 117–123. https://doi.org/10.1087/09531510252848881

Harzing, A. (2011). The publish or perish book: Your guide to effective and responsible citation analysis. Tarma Software Research Pty Ltd.

Osorio, N. L. (2011). Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, the official journal of ACRL’s Science and Technology Section: A historical perspective. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, 67. https://doi.org/10.5062/F4H41PB8

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Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship No. 99, Fall 2021. DOI: 10.29173/istl2691