College and Research Libraries Ratings of Journals by ARL Library Directors and Deans of Library and Information Science Schools David F. Kohl and Charles H. Davis A study of the perceived prestige of a core group of library journals by directors of ARL libraries and library school deans reveals a prestige hierarchy for each group. Although in rough agree- ment on the rating of two-thirds of the journals, the deans and directors differ significantly on the ratings of the remaining one-third. The subset of ARL directors in institutions where li- brarians have faculty status as evidenced by tenure does not rate journals substantially more like library school deans than do ARL directors as a whole, and library school deans are shown to agree much more as a group on their ratings than the ARL directors. n the academic world one of the most important issues is the evaluation of publications, par- ticularly journal publications. These evaluations typically play a major role in promotion and tenure decisions and, in .most cases, affect salary decisions as well. It has long been the conventional wisdom-and not just in the library field- that the evaluation of a journal article is in- fluenced in part by the perceived prestige of the journal in which the article appears. Although purists may argue that an article should be evaluated only on its intrinsic merits and considered independently of any outside opinion or context, it is a diffi- cult proposition to put into practice. The academic community is a community based on shared opinions, and the aca- demic enterprise derives much of its strength from such interchange. The edi- tors, assistant editors, boards, and ref- erees involved in the publication of an aca- demic or professional journal are necessarily part of that community and appropriately so. Furthermore, · each of their journals presents an ongoing public record of which articles they, in their indi- vidual or collective judgment, have con- sidered of significance to the discipline or profession. The conventional wisdom is that not all these public records are equally well established or regarded and that con- sequently some journals are considered more prestigious than others. 1 The issue which particularly intrigued us was whether there were any consensus in the perception of journal prestige, par- ticularly insofar as publishing for promo- tion and tenure was concerned. The issue of consensus is important not only be- cause consensus-or its lack-affects aca- demic promotion and tenure, but because it can begin to tell us something about the way information is shared in the library profession. For instance, a high degree of consensus focused on only a few, closely related high-prestige journals would sug- David F. Kohl is assistant director for undergraduate services and Charles H. Davis is dean and professor of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Both are at the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801. We would like to acknowledge, with thanks, the advice and comments of Stephen Hay, Survey Research Labora-- tory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 40 gest a structure of disseminating informa- tion very different from one in which there is no real consensus or one in which widely different kinds of journals are identified as having high prestige. As a first step towards determining whether such a consensus existed, we de- cided to conduct an exploratory survey similar to the perception study used by White to rank programs in library and in- formation science. 2 While perception studies have in the past engendered some criticism in academic circles as mere ex- pressions of opinion, we felt that in the ac- ademic environment-where peer review and evaluation play a particularly impor- tant role-studies reflecting and reporting these perceptions were both appropriate and helpful. 3 The critical point in our view is how the findings are interpreted. A per- ception study is not a prescriptive state- ment of how the world should be, nor do perception~ necessarily change as quickly as the reality being perceived. Percep- tions, like prejudices, often are remark- ably resistant to change. The point is to understand and clarify a phenomenon that has powerful consequences. CONDUCT OF THE STUDY A list of thirty-one core library journals was selected from Jesse H. Shera's " 'hard-core' of library literature for the American Librarian. ''4 We first added to it all new library publications since 1976, the date of Shera' s article, to reflect the surge in new library periodical publications. We then pruned the list by excluding most special-interest publications, e.g., Notes, Medical Library Bulletin, and most foreign publications, e.g., Canadian Library Jour- nal, Library Association Record, in order to focus on a core group of generally known library journals. The decision to exclude Canadian publications was particularly difficult and based on several factors. Al- though Canadian professionals were in- cluded in the population surveyed, they represented a distinct minority. More- over, U.S. professionals may not often monitor Canadian publications, while their Canadian counterparts are highly 'aware of American journals and other pe- riodicals. For these reasons, Canadian Ratings of Journals 41 journals were omitted in an effort to re- duce the anticipated bias that might have resulted from their inclusion in this partic- ular study. It is worth noting that this problem also existed in the case of the White survey of North American pro- grams in library and information science. The survey population chosen was di- vided into two groups, deans of all North American library schools having accred- ited programs (N = 66) and ARL directors (N =85). These groups reflect the two ma- jor areas of librarianship where publishing for promotion and tenure is most likely to be important. Individuals were asked to rank each of the journals familiar to them on a scale of one to five, depending on how important publication in that journal was for the con- sideration of promotion and tenure at their institution. If respondents were not familiar with a particular journal, they were asked to give no rating whatever. Re- spondents were also asked to identify, in no particular order, the five most presti- gious journals (again in the context of ten- ure and promotion) and to indicate whether faculty status and tenure applied to their professional staff. A one-page questionnaire using a Likert-scale format was sent out in fall 1982. A brief cover letter accompanied each questionnaire. Response was good enough that no follow-up was considered necessary. Usable responses were re- ceived from forty-seven (71.1 percent) of the library school deans and forty-three (50.6 percent) of the ARL directors. In- spection of identifiable responses indi- cated a generally representative sample of the larger population. In a few cases fac- ulty bodies or promotion and tenure com- mittees were polled, and multiple re- sponses were returned. In these cases the responses were averaged into a single rat- ing for the institution. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS The journals were rank-ordered for each of the two groups to see if there were enough consensus to form a hierarchy of perceived prestige. A single, weighted score for each journal was computed by summing each respondent's ranking for a 42 College & Research Libraries journal and dividing by the number of re- spondents. Since respondents were in- structed not to rank any journal with which they were unfamiliar, no response was treated as a zero value in the frame- work of the questionnaire. Inspection showed the responses did form a hierar- chy for each of the two groups, and table 1 shows the results of this overall ranking. · The second step was to determine how different or similar the rankings by ARL directors were from the rankings by li- brary school deans. Inspection of table 1 reveals that there is no one-to-one uni- formity. Consequently, means were com- puted for each journal, both as rated by ARL directors and as rated by library school deans, and each pair of means was January 1985 subjected to individual t-tests to deter- mine whether the differences were statis- tically significant. Eleven of the thirty-one journals had significant scores at the .05 level. These are listed in table 2. Since one or two type I errors can be ex- pected at the .OS level of significance out of a group of thirty-one t-tests, a conserva- tive estimate indicates that ARL directors and library school deans actually disagree on fewer than one-third of the rankings (see table 3). Of the journals where there is disagreement, subject matter is the clear cause in the majority of the cases. The third step of the analysis involved determining the degree of internal group consensus revealed by the ratings of ARL directors and library school deans (see ta- TABLE 1 AVERAGE RANKING OF JOURNAL PRESTIGE IN TERMS OF VALUE FOR TENURE AND PROMOTION ARL Directors library School Deans Average Average Journal Title Rankiiig Journal Title Ranking College and Research Libraries 4 .7381 Library Quarterly 4 .5106 Library Quarterly 4 .4048 Journal of the American Sociefo for Journal '1£ Academic Librarianship 4.3810 Information Science (ASIS ournal) 4.3830 Library esources and Technical Services 4.3810 College and Research Libraries 4.2128 Library Trends 4.2381 Library Trends 4 .1489 Information Technolofj and Libraries Journal '1£ Education for Librarianship 3.8511 (formerly Journal o Library Libra'J esources and Technical Services 3.7872 Automatwn) 4.1429 Drexe Library Quarterly 3.5745 Journal of the American Sociefo for Special Libraries 3.4255 Information Science (ASIS ournal) 4 .0952 Information Technolofj and Libraries Library Journal 3.8571 (formerly Journal o Library Amencan Libraries 3.5000 Automatwn) 3.4043 RQ 3.3810 • Library and I'lormation Science Research 1 Special Libraries 3.1667 (former..z ibrary Research) 3.4043 Wilson Library Bulletin 2.9762 Journal of cademic Librarianship 3.3830 Library and Ir;(;ormation Science Research Journal of Libraz History, Philosophy & (formerly ibra;y, Research) 2.8810 Comparative ibrarianship 3.3191 Journal of Libra{; istory, Philosophy & Library Journal 3.2128 Com~arative ibrarianship 2.6667 RQ 3.1277 Journa of Education for Librarianship 2.5714 School Library Media Quarterly Collection Management 2.5238 (formerly School Media Quarterly) 3.0426 Librad o[ Con~ess Quarterly Journal 2.5238 American Libraries 3.0213 Drexe Lzbrary Quarterly 2.4524 School Library Journal 2.8298 Harvard Library Bulletin 2.3571 Collection Man'Wzement 2.8085 Microform Revzew 2.2619 Wilson Libra?, ulletin 2.8085 Reference Services Review 2.2143 Information rocessing and Management 2.7872 Online 2.1667 Law Libra']{, Journal 2.5957 Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory 2.0000 Harvard Lz rary Bulletin 2.4468 Information Processing and Management 1.9286 Microform Revzew 2.4043 Public Libraries 1.7381 Public Libraries 2.3404 School Libral]i Journal 1.7381 Library of Congress Quarterly Journal 2.2979 International Library Review 1.5714 Online 2.2979 Microyrabhics Today 1.5714 Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory 2.2128 Schoo Li rary Medza Quarterly International Library Review 2.1915 (formerly School Media Quarterly) 1.5714 Micrographics Today 1.9574 International Journal of Law Libraries 1.5476 Reference Services Review 1.7660 Law Library Journal 1.5238 International Journal of Law Libraries 1.7021 Ratings of Journals 43 TABLE2 JOURNALS WHOSE ARL AND LffiRARY SCHOOL RATINGS DIFFERED SIGNIFICANTLY ARL LS Significance Journals Rating Rating Level College and Research Libraries 4.7381 4.2128 .001 Drexel Libra~ Quarterly 2.4524 3.5745 .001 Information rocessi~ and Management 1.9286 2.7872 .032 Journal of Education or Librarianship 2.5714 3.8511 <.001 Journal cif Academic ibrarianship 4.3810 3.3830 <.001 Informatwn Technolofj and Libraries (formerly Journal o Library Automation) 4.1429 3.4043 .006 Law Library Journal 1.5238 2.5957 .005 Library Journal 3.8571 3.2128 .005 Libra'] Resources and Technical Services 4.3810 3.7872 .001 Schoo Library Journal 1.7381 2.8298 <.001 School Libra'?c Media Quarterly (formerly chool Media Quarterly) 1.5714 3.0426 <.001 TABLE 3 DEGREE OF INTERNAL CONSENSUS AMONG ARLDIRECTORSWJOURNALRATINGS Top Adjacent* %of Standard Journal Totals Total Deviation College and Research Libraries 42 (4,5) 100.0 0.445 Library Quarterly 38 (4,5) 90.5 0.989 37 (4,5) 88 .1 0.764 Journal of Academic Librarianship Informatwn Technology and Libraries (formerly Journal of Library Automation) 36 (4,5) 85.7 1.072 . Library Resources and Technical Services 36 (4,5) 85.7 0.731 35 (4,5) 83.3 1.358 Library Trends Journal of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS Journal) 33 (4,5) 78.6 1.322 Library Journal 32 (4,5) 76.2 1.072 Amencan Libraries 25 (4,5) 59.5 1.366 International Journal c;£ Law Libraries 25 (0,1) 59.5 1.837 InteT1Ultional Libra'] eview 25 (0,1) 59.7 1.876 Law Libra'Klourna 25 (0,1) 59.5 1.864 Collection anagement 24 (3,4) 57.1 1.784 RQ 24 (3,4) 57.1 1.396 Microf'ab:hics Today . 23 (0,1) 54.8 1.727 Schoo Li rary Medza Quarterly (formerly School Media Quarterly) 23 (0,1) 54.8 1.595 23 (4,5) 54.8 1.710 Special Libraries Library and Information Science Research (formerly Library Research) 22 (4,5) 2 .015 School Libra~ Journal Information rocessing and Management *The sum of the two highest adjacent ratings () = adjacent ratings bles 3 and 4). Taking a heuristic approach, we chose to sum the responses in the two top adjacent score categories for each of the journals in each group. For example, the top two adjacent score categories for College & Research Libraries, as ranked by ARL directors, were four and five. To- gether these two categories accounted for 100% of the responses-an indication of a strong degree of internal consensus. Use of standard deviation was considered but 52.4 22 (0,1~ 52.4 1.594 21 (0,1 50.0 1.993 rejected as an inappropriate measure, both because it lacked the intuitive clarity of the heuristic approach and because it was too sensitive to extreme scores. In spite of these observations, the standard deviations for these scores also have been included for purposes of comparison. Considering the number of journals where the sum of the combined responses totals half or more of the total responses, it is clear that there is almost half again the 44 College & Research Libraries January 1985 TABLE4 DEGREE OF INTERNAL CONSENSUS AMONG LffiRARY SCHOOL DEANS IN JOURNAL RATINGS Top Adjacent %of Standard Journal Totals Total Deviation Journal a the American Society for Information Science (ASIS Journal) 45 (4,5) 95.7 0.795 Library uarterly 43 (4,5) 91.5 1.120 College and Research Libraries 40 (4,5) 85.1 0.883 Library_ Trends 39 ~4,5) 83.0 1.000 Journal of Education {lir Librarianship 35 4,5) 74.5 1.161 Journal o[ Academic ibrarianship 35 (3,4) 74.5 1.153 Drexel Lzbrary Quarte~ 34 (3,4) 72.3 1.118 Library Resources and echnical Services 34 (3,4) 72.3 0.907 Amencan Libraries 33 (3,4) 70.2 1.011 Library Journal 33 (3,4) 70.2 1.020 32 (3,4) 68.1 1.439 Collection Management Journal of Library History, Philosophy & Comparative Librarianship 31 (3,4) 66.0 1.400 Libra'J and Information Science Research (formerly Library Research) 31 (4,5) 66.0 1.728 31 (2,3) 66.0 1.090 Schoo Librat Journal Information echnology and Libraries (formerly Journal of Library Automation) 30 (4,5) 63.8 1.378 Microform Review 30 (2,3) 63.8 1.192 RQ 30 (3,4) 63.8 1.329 w:zcial Libraries 30 (3,4) 63.8 1.137 ilson Library Bulletin 30 (3,4) 63.8 0.992 Public Libraries 29 (2,3) 61.7 1.273 School Libra~ Media Quarterly (formerly School Media Quarterly) 29 (3,4) 61.7 1.398 Information rocessing and Management 28 (3,4) 59.6 1.731 Online 28 (3,4) 59.6 1.428 Micros,raphics Toda( 26 (2,3) 55.3 1.474 Law Lzbraz Journa 26 (3,4) 55.3 1.624 53.2 1.402 Relerence ervices Review 25 (2,3) Li rary of Congress Quarterly (Quarterly of Library of Congress) 24 (3,4) 51.1 1.545 degree of internal consensus among li- brary school deans _in their ranking of jour- nals as there is among ARL directors. Twenty-seven journals were ranked by over half of the libracy school deans in one or another of two adjacent top categories. Furthermore, such ranking covered a broad spectrum of scores, ranging from the two-three level through the four-five level. The same degree of consensus was reached by ARL directors on only twenty journals and only at the extremes. With only two exceptions, all the ARL directors' scores were in the four-five or zero-one range. Clearly, library school deans show a relatively high degree of consensus among themselves on how a journal's prestige is perceived, while ARL directors show what seems to be only a moderate degree of consensus. The fourth step in the analysis involved ascertaining the degree to which those ARL directors whose institutions ac- corded librarians faculty status (as evi- denced by tenure) would compare with li- brary school deans. To determine the degree, a Pearson's correlation coefficient was computed on the Likert means of the library school directors versus the ARL di- rectors' means as a total group and also versus the subset (N = 27) of ARL directors whose professionals had faculty status as evidenced by tenure. Although there was · a statistically significant correlation (.001) for both pairings, the increase in correla- tion provided by the subset (r2 = .5649) over the full group (r2 = .5246) was negli- gible. Two other issues were of interest to us. The first was the degree to which the list of journals selected did indeed represent a core. A category of "other" was included so that respondents could indicate jour- nals that they felt should be added. Twelve of the ARL respondents and six- teen of the library school directors sug- gested additional journals. These journals and the frequency with which they were mentioned are given in table 5. Only three journals were suggested by more than-two Ratings of Jownals 45 TABLES ADDmONAL JOURNALS SUGGESTED AS IMPORTANT IN TERMS OF PUBLISHING FOR PROMOTION AND TENURE ARL Directors Journals The Serials Librarian Government Publications Review Oklahoma Librarian Southeastern Librarian Libri The Chronicle of Higher Education The Education Boarit Vine State Library Association Bulletins/Journals PNLA Quarterly (Vague or illegible responses) II of votes 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 respondents. Two of these, Libri and the Journal of Documentation had been ex.- cluded by our original criteria and the third, The Serials Librarian, was mentioned by only three respondents. Accordingly, we believe that our choice of core libr;ny journals was affirmed. The second issue involved the possible identification of a select subset of particu- larly high-ranked journals. We asked re- spondents to circle the five most impor- tant library journals in the context of publishing for tenure and promotion. This approach provided data for a method of ranking that had a quite different basis from that on which table 1 is based, be- cause the "top five" approach allows no value to be added to a journal's score when given a medium or poor ranking. However, it does provide a simple and di- rect means for identifying the top jour- nals. This method corresponds to the method used by White in his study of li- brary school programs. The data are shown in table 6. These data underline the strong degree of consensus on journal prestige among responding library school deans. The top five journals ranked by this method cor- respond exactly to the order of ranking in table 1 and, with only minor variations, to the order presented in table 4. The ARL di- rectors show a similar consensus on~y Library School Deans Journals Journal of Documentation Libri Journal of Library Administration Public Library Quarterly Journal of Livrarianship UNESCD Journal of Information Science Librarianship and Archives Administration Canadian Library Journal Information Reports and Bibliographies Public Library Review Government Publications Review Ontario Library Review Medical Library Assoc. Bulletin IFLA Journal ASLIB Proceedings OnLine Review (Vague or illegible responses) II of votes 5 4 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 with their very top-ranked journal, i.e., top-ranked on all three of their tables (ta- bles 1, 3 and 5). After that, the rankings based on the "top five" method increas- ingly vary from the rank order established by the Likert scale in tables 1 and 3. These data suggest caution in the use of a "top five" selection methodology to rank-order items. Such an approach works well when there is a strong consen- sus within the group. However, the less the responses are clustered around a rela- tively few items, the less reliable the method. In a situation showing diffuse ratings, the advantage of the Likert-scale approach is that it allows secondary and tertiary ratings to influence the ranking. Respondents are not forced into extreme choices such as a "top five" rating or nothing, and so a fuller and more bal- anced picture emerges. The data also sug- gest that the use of a nonordered ''top five" approach to rank data may not be re- liable in this kind of survey when the con- sensus on a ranking drops much below 40 percent of the survey population. SUMMARY The data show that there is a perceived hierarchy of journal prestige. This may in- fluence where authors send their manu- scripts for publication, and, once pub- lished, the value that the article has for 46 College & Research Libraries January 1985 TABLE6 JOURNALS RELATED AMONG TOP FIVE IN THE LlliRARY FIELD ARL Directors # of* %of Journal Title votes total College & Research Libraries 22 .5116 Library Quarterly 17 .3953 Library Trends 13 .3023 Journal of Academic Librariansh% 12 .2970 Jourmll of the American Society or Information Science (ASIS Jounull) 10 .2325 Library Resources & Technical Seroices 8 .1860 Library Jounull · 5 .1162 Information Technolof)j & Libraries (formerly Jounull o Library Automatwn) 4 .0930 American Libraries 3 .0697 Library & !~ormation Science Research formerly Library Research 3 .0697 Haroard Library Bulletin 2 .0465 RQ 2 .0465 ~ecial Libraries 2 .0465 ollection Mana~ement 1 .0232 Drexel Library uarterly 1 .0232 Library of Congress Quarterly Jounull 1 .0232 Microform Review 1 .0232 Wilson Library Bulletin 1 .0232 *Not all ranked top five and not who did listed five tenure and promotion purposes. Not all journals are perceived as having equal "track records" for identifying those au- thors and materials contributing signifi- cantly to the growth and development of the profession. It is interesting to note that responding library school deans and ARL directors are in fundamental agreement on the rankings of two-thirds of the jour- nals. We find this reassuring evidence of a common intellectual community and dia- logue between educators and practition- ers. More intriguing, perhaps, is the smaller group of journals on whose rating library school 'deans and ARL directors disagree. While in most cases the journals on which there is disagreement are pre- dictable, they do provide insights into the priorities and interests of the two groups. Library School Deans # of % of Journal Title votes total Library Quarterly 29 .6170 Jounull of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS Jounull) 23 .4893 College & Research Libraries 22 .4680 Library Trends 19 .4042 Journal of Education for Librananship 12 .2553 Library & In&ormation Science Research formerly Library Research) 7 .1489 Information. Technolof)j & Libraries (formerly Journal o Library Automatwn) 5 .1063 Library Resources & Technical Seroices 5 .1063 School Library Media Quarterly (formerly School Media Quarterly) 5 .1063 Drexel Library Quarterly 4 .0851 Jounull of Library History, Philosophy & Comparative Librarianship 4 .0851 RQ 4 .0851 Information Processing & Management 3 .0638 Library of Congress Quarterly Journal 3 .0638 Law Library Journal 2 .0425 Library Jounull 2 .0425 Amencan Libraries 1 .0212 lntenultional Library Review 1 .0212 Jounull of Academic Librarianship 1 .0212 Microform Review 1 .0212 Special Libraries 1 .0212 The data show that library school deans appear to have a much greater consensus on the ranking of journal prestige than do directors of ARL libraries. Library school deans represent a smaller group than the ARL directors, and we suspect that the former may be a more cohesive and inter- active group. Also, the stronger research and publication environment of library school deans probably means that the sig- nificance of journal prestige, as well as publishing in general, plays a more central role in their lives than it does in the world of ARL directors. It is interesting that the subset of ARL responses from institutions granting ten- ure to their library professionals is not a substantially better predictor of journal ratings by library school deans than the ratings provided by the ARL group as a whole. Additionally, it was gratifying to find that the selection of core journals in library and information science was af- firmed, although there may well be an ele- ment of self-fulfilling prophecy in the pre- sentation of any list. It is also possible that the rating of Library Trends was affected somewhat, because both surveyors are as- sociated with the University of lllinois, where it is published. At least two directions for further re- search seem worth considering. The first is the .degree to which school or public li- brarians would concur with the rankings established here. Although the question of journal prestige could not be ap- proached in terms of the promotion and tenure issue, it might work as well simply to ask the question in terms of importance to their professional work. Such surveys might help determine the extent to which librarianship represents a single and co- herent profession. The second direction would involve tak-. Ratings of Journals 47 ing a close look at the ranking of the jour- nals to determine whether there are objec- tive factors that correlate with journal prestige. A citation analysis might be par- ticularly revealing in the context of a pres- tige hierarchy. Presumably the articles in the high-prestige journals would be more cited than articles in the less prestigious journals. In conclusion, it should be stressed that in a world where ppinions change, judg- ments differ, and mistakes are made, the prestige of a journal is only an indication, not a guarantee of the quality of its arti- cles. It is also important to keep in mind that, in this particular study, several worthwhile journals were excluded by de- sign and so not rated at all. Furthermore, librarians as a group do not publish only in library journals. 5 These are important limi- tations in the scope and nature of such a study, and they must be considered in or- der to maintain a proper perspective on the findings reported. REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. The issue of identifying ''quality'' journals appears to be particularly important for library school deans. Kingsbury's study of the evaluation of library school faculty, for instance, showed that the current use and importance assigned by library school deans to ''articles in quality journals'' was second only to "books or sole or senior author" in both programs that grant the Ph .D. and pro- grams that do not. While "publications in all professional journals" was ranked tenth in impor- tance in Ph.D. programs, it tied for third place with "honors or awards from profession" in pro- grams not granting the Ph.D . The difference between publishing in ''quality' ' journals or ''all professional journals'' increased even further when library school deans were asked about which criterion should be used to evaluate library school faculty. In this case "articles in quality journals' ~ was ranked first in importance by deans in Ph. D.-granting programs, compared to twelfth place for "publications in all professional journals"; while deans in programs that do not grant the Ph.D. continued to rank "articles in qual- ity journals" second after "books or sole or senior author" but ahead of "publications in all profes- sional journals," which they ranked in a tie for sixth place in importance. Mary Kingsbury, "How Library Schools Evaluate Faculty Performance," Journal of Education for Librarianship 22:219-38 (~ept. 1982). 2. Herbert S. White, "Perceptions By Educators and Administrators of the Ranking of Library School Programs," College & Research Libraries 42:191-202 (May 1981). 3. Such studies, for example, have been heavily used to rate graduate and professional school pro- grams; see David R. Gerhan, "Graduate & Professional School Rankings: Facing the Need to Know," Journal of Academic Librarianship5:215-21 (Sept. 1979). 4. Jesse H. Shera, Introduction to Library Science (Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1976). 5. See, for instance, Priscilla Geahigan and others, "Acceptability of Non-Library/Information Sci- ence Publications in the Promotion & Tenure of Academic Librarians," College & Research Libraries 42:571-75 (Nov. 1981).