College and Research Libraries


Production of 
Scholarly Articles 

by Academic Librarians 
and Library School Faculty 

Paula D. Watson 
Eleven major journals in the field of librarianship were examined for the period 1979 through 
1983 to determine the affiliation of authors of substantive articles. Findings indicate that re-
quirements for academic librarians to publish affect publication productivity. Results concern-
ing the productivity of library school faculties are fairly consistent with the findings of an ear-
lier quantitative study. Suggestions for further analysis are included. 

here have been studies done in 
several disciplines, which rank 
academic departments at vari-
ous institutions in terms of their 

contributions to a selected group of major 
journals in their field. 1 Such studies are 
generally conducted to provide some 
measure of the excellence of the academic 
programs in question on the presumption 
that faculties that are productive in pub-
lishing will provide a high-quality educa-
tional program for students. The pre-
sumption that excellence in teaching is 
tied to excellence in research is wide-
spread in the American higher education 
community. 2 Comparative studies of fac-
ulty publication productivity therefore 
claim to provide guidance for graduate 
students who want to identify the best 
schools in their field. Also, the studies 
purport to provide information to young 
academics who are seeking jobs in depart-
ments likely to have a high status in the 
field and to provide a stimulating intellec-
tual atmosphere conducive to profes-
sional growth. Publication output studies 
also examine II the sociology of the litera-
ture"3 in a particular discipline by deter-

mining who publishes where and what 
they publish. 

The primary purpose of the research re-
ported in this article was to examine the af-
filiation of authors of articles published 
during the period 1979 through 1983 in 
eleven major library science periodicals. 
The reasons for undertaking the study are 
related to those described above for simi-
lar studies in other disciplines. First, since 
library school faculty are included in the 
study, the results may provide some mea-
sure of the excellence of library school pro-
grams and, thus (as is claimed for studies 
in other disciplines), may supply some 
guidance to both prospective students 
and faculty job seekers in library science. 
Almost half of the authors of articles in the 
eleven journals selected for analysis are 
practicing academic librarians. Since 
many of the articles written by academic li-
brarians are descriptions and/or evalua-
tions of innovations in the practice of li-
brarianship, it might be argued that 
libraries with a high rate of publication 
productivity provide a stimulating work 
environment in which experimentation 
with new approaches and techniques is 

Paula D. Watson is assistant director of general seroices for central reference seroices at the University of Illi-
nois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 . 

334 



encouraged. Librarians seeking such 
work environments might refer to the 
results of this article in a job search, al-
though innovations in librarianship are 
not limited to those libraries that encour-
age librarians to publish. A third potential 
use of the findings is as a measure of the 
degree to which librarians with faculty sta-
tus are successful in meeting standards for 
research and subsequent publication pro-
ductivity applied to faculty in other fields. 
Obviously, the selection of journals to be 
analyzed is, to some degree, subjective 
(see below for selection criteria). Also, the 
writing of articles in the general library 
journals chosen for this study constitutes 
only one of the publication opportunities 
available to both librarians and library 
school faculty. The study ignores the pub-
lication of books, chapters in books, re-
ports, and articles in more specialized 
journals either in librarianship or in other 
subject fields. In a study of the publication 
output of librarians at ten academic li-
braries during the period 1969/70 through 
1973/74, Watson found that, "If book re-
views are discounted, it is evident that the 
librarians surveyed publish at least as fre-
quently in journals outside the field of li-
brary science as they do in journals in the 
field. " 4 

METHODOLOGY 

The journals chosen for analysis were 
College & Research Libraries, Information 
Technology and Libraries (formerly Journal of 
Library Automation), Journal of Academic Li-
brarianship, Journal of Library History, Li-
brary and Information Science Research (for-
merly Library Research), Library Journal, 
LibranJ Resources & Technical Seroices, Li-
brary Quarterly, Library Trends, RQ, and Se-
rials Librarian. Four are the official journals 
of American Library Association divisions 
and are therefore of obvious centrality to 
the literature. The others have all been 
published during the entire survey period 
and some are among the best-known and 
most well-established journals in the field. 
They provide an outlet for the ideas of a 
very broad range of librarians and library 
educators and deal with many of the pre-
dominant concerns in the field. All are ref-
ereed journals or contain articles by in vita-

Production of Scholarly Articles 335 

tion, both stringent methods of article 
selection that carry with them an indica-
tion of recognition for the author and for 
the institution with which he or she is affil-
iated. Of course, as was indicated earlier, 
focusing on the journals of more general 
content to some extent ignores the contri-
bution of the specialist to the overall publi-
cation productivity of library school facul-
ties or academic library staffs. 

Each article was coded for the institu-
tional affiliation of the author and, for 
practicing librarians, by type of library 
(i.e., public, academic, etc.). For multi-
author papers, credit was assigned frac-
tionally to each author. Therefore, for pa-
pers with two authors, each author was 
given .50 credits, and so on down to five- . 
author articles, for which each author was 
assigned .20 credits. Institutional credit 
was assigned on the same fractional scale. 
The information on affiliation was taken 
from the text of the article as it appeared in 
the journal or from the list of contributors. 
If the author had moved recently, credit 
was given to the institution at which the 
work had been done if that could readily 
be determined. (In fact such determina-
tions were generally quite easy to make.) 
Book reviews, research notes, contribu-
tions, and regular columns were excluded 
from consideration. No judgments were 
made as to the quality of the articles and 
no exclusions were made on the basis of 
length, except in cases where the journal 
editor seemed to be making a distinction 
between full-fledged research articles and 
"notes" or "contributions." Editorships 
of journal issues and papers presented at 
conferences and reprinted in journals 
were counted as articles. 

Libraries were coded by type as follows: 
public, special, academic, state, national 
(including the national libraries of foreign 
countries), school, and other library-
related organizations. The latter category 
included staff of networks and consortia 
and organizations such as the Council on 
Library Resources or the Association of 
Research Libraries. Other categorizations 
for authors were teaching faculty and 
graduate students in other fields (e.g., 
economics, marketing, business adminis-
tration, English, etc.), members of the cor-



336 College & Research Libraries July 1985 

porate sector (e.g., booksellers, informa- 0 0\0N'<f<c<)\ONO\L!)NOOit--.. 
O\t'-..('<)00001.!)00c<)rl'<f<C() (1') 

tion industry personnel, and library ci rl rl N rlNrlrl 1.!) z ,..., 
consultants), and a general category for 
II others," which included, for example, ""0 

<11 

free-lance writers and government offi- ;.::c: 
·~.g!- ON'<f<OOOOONL!)'<f< 00 cials. Library school professors were co- ~# oN "o\!:iric:::ic:::i . ·,.....; c:::i c -.::-

ded by academic rank whenever this in- :::::>~ 
formation was provided; students and 
emeritus professors were counted sepa- (1') 

"' 
rately. Despite the difficulty of determin-

00 t~ '<f<O'<f<\00(1')\0'<f<OOC()O\ (1') I J:. ?fi 
0\ 

0 ~ -.:t<orirr:io\!:irr:irio\mN -.:t< 
ing exactly what work individuals do t--.. 0\ 
based on their titles as recorded in the 

,..., 
{f) 

credits of journal articles, the positions .....J < o.. O.-. rlrlrlt'-..NOO\ON'<f<rlO rl 
held by working academic librarians were z 3]~ N tri,.....;,.....; t--: t--: rr:i rr:i -.:t< tri rr) tri 

~ 
,..., 

also recorded for use in a possible future 
amuysis to involve examination of correla- Q 
tions between article subject content and ~ ~E- '<f<t'-..L!)rlNC()OOO'<t<OON N u 
the job held by the author. z 6 ~~ o\rr:iri-D-.:t<NNoooNN m 

~ u. 
,..., ,..., 

FINDINGS 0 {f) 
Publication Productivity by >-

~ 
>. f) p::; \OOt'-..C()rl\0000\0\(1')00 0\ 

Journal and by Type of Author's < J5 8"2 ~~ rirr:iooNtri-Doo-Dooo\tri c:::i 
Institutional Affiliation ~ :.J 

raro ;:::::s - rl '<f<L!)rl'<f<rlNrl N 

E9 u. til 

The study analyzed a total of 1,537 arti-
.....J 
z 

des that appeared in the eleven selected g; <li e; ~ 0\C()0000\00\'<f<rlrll.f)L!) 0 
journals during the period 1979 through ~~ 6:3~ No "-.:t<o-.:t<N-Dmrr:iN tri 

~.....J 
(1') 

1983. Table 1 illustrates the distribution of ~~ 
the articles by journal and by the institu- ,:cZ 

<~ 
8~~ tiona! affiliation of the authors. The most ~{f) L!)OrlOO\OOOL!)t'-..0 .q< 

productive class of authors is that of aca-
p::; 

~:.J~ "oriooc:::ic:::ic:::ic:::ic:::ic:::i 0 0 
demic librarians followed by library sci-

- ::r: 
E-< 

ence faculty. Olsgaard and Olsgaard ~ < tO found similar results in their study of the ~ c:r:: ~ rlNOOOO\OOOt'-..(1')(1') 1.!) 
contributions during the ten-year period 0 ·~ :J ~ rit--:c:::ic:::ioc:::irr:i\!:i-.:t<N-.:t< N z z 1967 through 1977 to five library science 0 
journals: College & Research Libraries, Li- ~ 
brary Journal, Library Quarterly, and Library < ~C- C000000'<f<O\O\O\O'<f< 00 :J ~ ~~ "o "ooc:::ic:::ic:::iriNri . 
Trends . 5 The Olsgaards point out that li- ~ 
brary science faculty publish more in pro- ~ < 
portion to their numbers than do aca- ,_J n; . 

< ·- c: ~ rl00\00\0'<f<OOOL!)t--.. (1') demic librarians. This is not surprising z ~~ Nc:::ic:::iooriNNmrr:irr:i N 
since not all academic librarians (even 0 

(J) 

~ \'i those with faculty status) are required, nor ~ 0 t: 
do they have the incentive, to publish; ~ 

u . NOOOOC()\O'<f<\OOOC()'<f<\0 N <11 :.=c: ~ 
00 

whereas, presumably research and publi- ~ :]~ 
·-o .NM\!:i "trio\c:::irr) 00 c: 

(J) N ,..., ;a 
cation is a duty implicit in the job defini- ~ 8 ?: 
tion of most library science faculty. They ~ 

"' are also encouraged by benefits gained r:: ~ '<f<t--..'<f<\ONN0\(1')(1')00\ N "' <11 
~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ 

""0 

(e.g., tenure, salary raises) to publish . A .g 
1980 study by Rayman and Goudy found .5 >. 
(based on a 72 percent response) that li- 0 00 

<11 

brarians at only 15 percent of Association ~ 
of Research Libraries II are required to tO ~ .....J p::; (J) • . ~ E <t;.....J::C E-< 00 ..c: 
publish.'' 6 This finding is consistent with :::l ~E-<<t:.....J~--0P::E-<0.....J..;: t" ~ .....,_,_,,_J,_J.....J.....J.....JP::rJl 



results of a later study of ARL members by 
English. Based on a 100 percent response, 
English found that librarians at only fif-
teen (16.9 percent) of ARL libraries are 
evaluated through the "use of traditional 
faculty criteria" and that at almost all 
these institutions a "blend of professional 
and faculty criteria" are employed in eval-
uation. 7 

Table 1 shows high concentrations of ar-
ticles from particular types of institutions 
being published in particular journals . 
Not surprisingly, academic librarian au-
thors are the primary contributors to Col-
lege & Research Libraries and to the Journal of 
Acaqemic Librarianship. On the other hand, 
library school faculty predominate as au-
thors of articles in the Journal of Library His-
tory, Library and Information Science Re-
search, and Library Quarterly. Many articles 
in Information Technology and Libraries are 
written by personnel from ''other library-
affiliated organizations," the staff of li-
brary networks, consortia, and biblio-
graphic utilities. Some of these authors 
are not librarians, but are programmers or 
other technical specialists . Direct compari-
son of the present results for the five jour-
nals examined in the Olsgaard study is dif-
ficult because those authors used a 
different method for assigning publication 
credits, giving all authors on multi-
authored papers full instead of partial 
credit. However, a few divergences from 
the findings of the earlier study for specific 
journals may be significant . Olsgaard and 
Olsgaard found that academic librarians 
accounted for 18.9 percent of the contribu-
tions to Library Journal, while the present 
study found they accounted for a much 
higher proportion (32.2 percent) of the ar-
ticles. Another potentially significant dif-
ference is that library science faculty and 
students increased their contributions to 
Library Quarterly from the 34.4 percent 
found by the Olsgaards to the 48.8 percent 
found in the present study (seemingly 
largely at the expense of faculty in other 
fields). 8 

Publication Productivity 
of Libraries 

Two hundred and ninety-two academic 
libraries were represented in the sample, 

Production of Scholarly Articles 337 

but few had many published authors. The 
vast majority of libraries were represented 
by only one article in the sample. Table 2 
lists the twenty most productive institu-
tions. For academic libraries, the table also 
shows the status, benefits, and privileges 
enjoyed by librarians at those institutions 
that may encourage research and publica-
tion. This information was derived mainly 
from English's excellent and painstaking 
study of librarian status at eighty-nine 
U.S. members of the Association of Re-
search Libraries. 9 As a check on the effect 
of size on the productivity of various li-
braries, per capita production is also in-
cluded in column 2 of table 2. At twelve ( 63 
percent) of the twenty most productive li-
braries, librarians have faculty status, ac-
cording to English, as well as the major 
benefits and privileges that encourage re-
search and publication, namely, eligibility 
for indefinite tenure, access to funds in 
support of research, access to travel 
funds, and eligibility for both sabbaticals 
and research leaves. What is perhaps 
more surprising is the high percentage of 
institutions listed in appendix B

10 
of the 

English article (i.e., those whose adminis-
trators claim that their library faculty are 
judged using the same criteria used to 
judge the teaching faculty) that appear 
among the twenty most productive pub-
lishers in this survey. English states that 
fifteen libraries in the ARL (or 16.9 per-
cent) "claimed that the criteria used for 
evaluating librarian performance were the 
same as those used for the regular teach-
ing faculty." 11 However, careful analysis 
of the criteria provided by the responding 
libraries (listed in English's appendix B) 
indicates that only ten of the fifteen actu-
ally specify that research and publication 
are included in the performance evalua-
tion criteria used in evaluating librarians, 
and one of these (Tennessee) implies that 
either "scholarship, research, creative ac-
complishment, or professional develop-
ment" (emphasis is the author's) are ac-
ceptable. 12 (English's information for 
Illinois is, incidentally, incorrect. Illinois 
has stressed research and publication in 
its standards for judging librarians since 
1977.) Oregon, which undoubtedly once 
would have made an eleventh library in-



TABLE 2 
TWENTY MOST PRODUCTIVE LIBRARIES: STATUS, BENEFITS, AND PRIVILEGES OF LIBRARIANS* 

Number Per Faculty (F) Con tin- Criteria 
of Capita or Profes- Indef- uin~ Sab- Same 

Publi- Produc- sional (P) Faculty inite Appomt- Research Travel Research batical as Teach-
cations tivityt Status Rank Tenure ments Funds Funds Leave Leave ing Faculty 

Library (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) 

1. Universit{ of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 52.30 .43 F X X X X x:j: X x:j: 
2. Librar~ o Congress 22.70 .008 
3. Ohio tate 17.16 .16 F X X X X X X X 
4. Oregon 13.00 .28 F(1) X 1 X X X X X 
5. Pennsylvania 12.00 .13 p n X X X X 
6. California-Berkeley 10.50 .07 p e X X X X 
7. New York University 10 .33 .12 F e X X X X 
8. Northwestern 10.00 .09 p n X X X X 
9. Purdue 10.00 .13 F(2) X X X X X X X 

10. Southern Illinois 10.00 .16 F X X X X X X X 
11. Michigan 9.33 .07 p e X X X X 
12. University of Illinois at Chicago 9.00 .12 F X X X X X X X 
13. Penn7-lvania State 9.00 .09 F e X X X X X 
14. SUN -Albany 8.66 .17 F e X X X X X 
15. SUNY - Buffalo 8.33 .09 F e X X X X X 
16. California-Los Angeles 8.00 .05 p e X X X X 
17. Minnesota 7.70 .06 F(2) X X X X X X X 
18. New Mexico 7.66 .17 F X X X X X X X 
19. Iowa State 7.50 .15 F X X X X X X 
20 . Virginia Polytechnic 7.16 .13 F§ X X some X X II 

Explanation of symbols : x = yes; e = equivalent rank; n = numerical ranks; I = librarians are placed in two, distinct faculty categories; 2 = mix of faculty and professional positions . 
*The information in columns 3 through 11 for all universities except the University of Illinois at Chicago and Virginia Polytechnic and State University is derived from Thomas G . English, " Librarian 

Status in the Eighty-Nine U .S . Academic Institutions of the Association of Research Libraries: 1982," College & Research Libraries 44 : appendixes A and B (May 1983) . Information on the remaining two 
universities was obtained by telephone conversation with administrative officers of the libraries . 

+Per capita productivity for ARL libraries was computed by dividing the quantities in column one by the number of professional librarians listed in Carol A. Mandel and Alexandex Lichtenstein, comps ., 
ARL Statistics: 1982-3 (Washington: Association of Research Libraries, 1984). The figures for Virginia Polytechnic and the University of Illinois at Chicago were computed by dividing the quantities in 
column 1 by the number of professional librarians listed for each institution in the American Library Directory, 36th ed. (New York : Bowker, 1983) 

:f:Librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are eligible for research leave, even though English's article referred to above does not so indicate . Research is also among the criteria used to 
evaluate UIUC librarians even though it is not mentioned in English ' s appendix B. 

§ Until 1983librarians had full faculty status and were eligible for indefinite tenure . In 1983librarian status at VPI was redefined as " noncollegiate status ." Librarians no longer stand for tenure review , but 
are eligible for continuing appointments. 

II Sabbaticals do not exist in the traditional sense for any faculty at VPI. 



eluding research and publication in its 
performance standards, did not provide a 
list of criteria to English. This library has 
undergone a change in librarian status 
and presumably research and publication 
criteria no longer apply. 13 

It is a striking fact that seven of the ten 
ARL members found by English to be em-
ploying research and publication criteria 
in judging library faculty are among the 
top twenty most productive academic li-
braries in terms of publishing. An eighth 
(not an ARL library) that employs true fac-
ulty performance criteria in judging librar-
ians is the University of Illinois at Chicago. 
Including this library, 42 percent of the ac-
ademic libraries among the top twenty 
most productive publishers provide not 
only the benefits of faculty status to librari-
ans but also impose its requirements upon 
them. It might be noted in passing that En-
glish finds a large number of ARL librari-
ans have the benefits that are conducive to 
doing research and yet do not seem to be 
required to do so: 46 percent have what is 
called faculty status, 42.6 percent are eligi-
ble for indefinite tenure, 64 percent are eli-
gible for research leave, 50.6 percent are 
eligible for sabbatical leave, 93.2 percent 
have access to research funds, 100 percent 
are eligible for travel funds. 14 Yet librarians 
from most of these libraries are not heavily 
represented as authors in the present sam-
ple. 

It should be noted that eleven of the top 
twenty in publication productivity either 
do not have faculty status at all or, if they 
do, they do not have the incentive of eval-
uation according to true faculty criteria. · 
Except in the case of Illinois (Urbana-
Champaign), there is not a marked differ-
ence in productivity between those who 
must meet true faculty standards (includ-
ing research and publication) and those 
who need not. 

The Illinois situation is by any measure 
unique. Illinois is far and away the most 
productive of the academic libraries in the 
top twenty, even though analysis by per 
capita productivity provided in column 2 
of table 2 does bring Oregon closer to it in 
relative standing. (Otherwise, the spread 
in productivity increases somewhat, 
through the introduction of the size factor, 

Production of Scholarly Articles 339 

but not dramatically, except in the case of 
the Library of Congress.) The University 
of Illinois has a strong commitment to the 
involvement of librarians in scholarly pur-
suits, strives for a truly collegial milieu, 
enforces stringent evaluative criteria, and 
gives heavy weight to research and publi-
cation in its evaluation of librarians both 
for promotion and tenure and for annual 
salary increases. 15' 16 

Publication Productivity 
of Library School Faculty 

Although the primary focus of this pa-
per was to be on the publication produc-
tivity of academic libraries, results for li-
brary school faculty were also tabulated. 
Eighty library schools were represented in 
the sample (including schools in foreign 
countries), but 61 percent of the articles 
contributed to the journals in the sample 
were written by library educators at fifteen 
schools. Table 3 lists in rank order these 
fifteen most productive schools and the 
number of articles each contributed to the 
sample. In his review of studies rankinB 
professional library schools, Danton 
found that only one, by Hayes, 18 relied on 
quantitative data. Although Hayes' meth-
odology is completely different from that 
employed in the present study and his 
sample is also considerably different, 
eleven of the same schools appear among 
the top fifteen producers in both the 
Hayes and the present study. They are in 

TABLE 3 

FIFTEEN MOST PRODUCTIVE 
LIBRARY SCHOOLS 

Library School Number of Publica ti ons 

1. Chicago 21 .00 
2. Columbia 18.50 
3. Indiana 15.00 
4. North Carolina 13.45 
5. California-Berkeley 12.50 
6. Illinois- Urbana /Champaign 11.70 
7. Wisconsin- Madison 10.50 
8. Kentucky 10.00 
9. Califorma- Los Angeles 10 .00 

10. Minnesota 9.50 
11. Maryland 9.00 
12 . Toronto 8.50 
13. Drexel 8.33 
14. Michigan 8.00 
15 . Rutgers 8.00 



340 College & Research Libraries 

different rank-order except for the Univer-
sity of Chicago, which is number one on 
both lists. Table 4 presents library school 
article productivity by academic rank. The 
results are somewhat skewed since one 
journal, Library and Information Science Re-
search, in which library educators publish 
frequently, chooses not to include rank in 
its descriptions of authors in almost every 
case. Individuals in the "unspecified 
rank" category also frequently include 
deans, since their academic ranks are of-
ten not supplied. An article by Bidlack, 
which gives the percentage distribution of 
lecturers, instructors, assistant profes-
sors, associate professors, and professors 
and lists deans and directors separately, is 
used to establish norms for the popula-
tions in the various ranks for purposes of 
comparison with their productivity. 19 As-
sociate professors are publishing in pro-
portion to their numbers, but assistant 
professors and full professors, at least 
based on this sample, appear to be doing 
somewhat less than might be expected . 

Discussion 

The study was undertaken to identify 
academic libraries and, to a lesser extent, 
library schools at which significant 
amounts of publication are taking place. 
Publication by librarians at academic li-
braries is seen as an indication of an inno-
vative, progressive library environment. 
The identification of libraries in which it 
takes place may therefore serve as an aid 
to job seekers in the academic library mar-
ket. Similar but more modest claims for 
the usefulness of the data on library 
schools to prospective students and job 
seekers may also be made. However, for 
both types of institutions the publication 
outlets studied represent only a portion of 
the publication opportunities available to 
librarians and library school faculty, and 
this limitation may have even more signif-
icance for library school faculty than for li-
brarians. 

As to the findings on the publication 
productivity of academic libraries, it is 
clear that the University of Illinois at 
Urbana-Champaign occupies a unique po-
sition in terms of output relative even to 
institutions that claim to be meeting the 

July 1985 

"8 
~-~ ~ 
~~~ 
-- u~ 
!9< 
0 
f-

=;e 
U..c_. 

u . 
O"-' 
"'0 
.<d: 

...;...,; 
"'O 

.<d: 

-= ~ 
Cii .2 
£:~ 

,..J 

I I I I I 
0 II) 

<"i t.r) 

0:: 
['-. 

~ 
bO 
.5 

8~~5S85S8~~$8 
(1) 0.. 
-.::1< 

~ 
~C'i~~C'i~~~~~~ C'i ,..... ..--< N 

N (<) 

~ 
-~ 
"5I 
t: 

· ~ 
~ 

o · 00 00\00001\0 "'" II) ~~~ I~~~~~~~~ 00 -J .,0 -.::l<\0 (1)0"\00IIl-.::t<..--< 0\N ~ .2_ 
..--< ..--< \0 (1) N 

·~ 
~ 
""' l<l 
'0-

CH<">OOOOO<'">O"'OI" 
~ 

<::! 
~C"!~lf!~~~~~~~ C"!~ ~ IIlN-.::t<Nr<NO.--<II)II).--< ..--<00 II) 

..--< ..--< ..--< ..--< ..--< 00 (1) (1) ..£, 

a-.' 

~ 
~ 

II) I~~~~~~~~~~~~ ..--< <J) t.r) .--<.--<r<\OOON\Ot---.--< 0\(1) ~ 0 0 ..--< -.::I<N (1) 
-5 
Cfl 

~ 
..6 
;.:3 

0 IIlO I ~~~~~a; II) 
['-. 

"' I I lrr5 " rr) ..--<(<).--< NIIl .,0 0 
..--< 

~ 
C: 
::s 

Cfl 



same level of performance criteria. 
Among the most productive libraries, li-
brarians who do not have faculty status 
seem to publish at about the same rate as 
librarians at institutions where librarians 
do have faculty status. Still, based on En-
glish's data on criteria, it appears that the 
requirement to publish serves, not sur-
prisingly, as a strong incentive to do so. 

Further work on the data collected for 
this study will include an analysis of au-

Production of Scholarly Articles 341 

thor characteristics by gender, age, pro-
fessional experience, position held, and 
the subject content of articles published. 
The degree to which librarians with less 
than six years of professional experience 
are successful in breaking into print is 
clearly central to the true success and eq-
uity of a full faculty status system for li-
brarians in which both the benefits and 
the requirements of such a system are 
completely embraced. 

REFERENCES AND NOTES 

1. Examples of such studies include: Karin McCallum, "Research/Publication Productivity of U.S . 
Speech Communication Departments," The Southern Journal of Speech Communication 49 :135-42 
(Winter 1984); Lawrence C. Soley and Leonard N . Reid, "Advertising Article Productivity of the 
U .S . Academic Community, " Journalism Quarterly 60:464-69, 542 (Autumn 1983); L. Barker and 
others, "An Investigation of Articles Produced in the Communication Discipline by Institution : 
1970 through 1978," ACA Bulletin 30 :18-22 (Oct. 1979); W . M. Cox and V. Catt, "Productivity 
Rankings of Graduate Programs in Psychology Based on Publication in Journals of the American 
Psychological Association," American Psychologist 32:793-813 (1977); C. West, "Productivity Rat-
ings of Institutions Based on Publication in Journals of the American Educational Research Associ-
ation: 1970-1976," Educational Researcher7:11- 14 (1978); Richard R. Cole and Thomas A. Bowers, 
"Research Article Productivity of U.S. Journalism Faculties," Journalism Quarterly 50:246-54 
(1973); L. S. Lewis, "On Subjective and Objective Rankings of Sociology Departments," American 
Sociologist 3:129-31 (May 1968) . 

2. Representative of this viewpoint is the following quote from an internal University of Illinois docu-
ment concerning criteria for promotion and tenure at that institution: "A teacher with little or no 
record of scholarship or creative endeavor will rapidly grow stale .. . . The best teacher should be 
one who is aware of the leading edge of a field, and the most effective way to be aware of the 
leading edge is to be a part of it." University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . Office of the Vice-
Chancellor for Academic Affairs . 1978-79 Academic Affairs Communication, no. 9 (mimeographed, 
1978), p .S. 

3. Cole and Bowers, "Research Article Productivity of U .S . Journalism Faculties," p.246 . 
4. Paula De Simone Watson, ''Publication Activity Among Academic Librarians,'' College & Research 

Libraries 38:375-84 (Sept . 1977) . 
5. John N. Olsgaard and Jane Kinch Olsgaard, "Authorship in Five Library Periodicals," College & 

Research Libraries 41:49-53 (Jan. 1980). 
6. Ronald Rayman and Frank W . Goudy, "Research and Publication Requirements in University 

Libraries," College & Research Libraries 41:43-48 (Jan . 1980). 
7. Thomas G. English, "Librarian Status in the Eighty-Nine U.S. Academic Institutions of the Asso-

ciation of Research Libraries," College & Research Libraries 44:203-4 (May 1983). 
8. Olsgaard and Olsgaard, "Authorship in Five Library Periodicals," p.51. 
9. English, "Librarian Status in the Eighty-nine U.S. Academic Institutions," p .199-211 . 

10. Ibid., p.211 . 
11. Ibid ., p.207. 
12. Ibid., p.211. 
13. To quote English, ''According to the administrator at the University of Oregon, a significant num-

ber of librarians were placed in increasing jeopardy because of the difficulty of meeting faculty 
tenure requirements. Consequently, in 1980, . . . librarians .. . were presented with the choice of 
remaining officers of instruction, the same personnel category as the teaching faculty, or becom-
ing officers of administration, a second faculty category; according to officials at the University of 
Oregon, 'The purpose of the shift was to remove from professional librarians some of the burden 
of research and publication required by those teaching faculty seeking promotion and tenure' .. .. 
According_to the University librarian, roughly 50 percent of the library staff at Oregon elected to 



342 College & Research Libraries July 1985 

switch to the officer of administration category. At the same time, it was concluded that all new 
librarian appointments would be placed in the latter classification .. .. [It] was projected that, by 
1990, the conversion to officers of administration would be complete." English, "Librarian Status 
in the Eighty-Nine U.S. Academic Institutions," p.206 . 

14. Ibid., p.201, 204. 
15. For a more complete discussion of the development of faculty status at the University of Illinois, 

see Robert G. Sewell, "Faculty Status and Librarians: The Rationale and the Case of Illinois," 
College & Research Libraries 44:212-22 (May 1983) . 

16. English gives no attention to the weighting of the various factors in evaluation (e .g ., job perfor-
mance, professional service, research and publication). In an as yet unpublished survey of ARL 
reference departments, this author queried respondents as to the weighting of the various factors 
in both promotion/tenure decisions and annual salary determinations . Twenty-eight institutions 
with faculty status replied to these questions. Only four reported that publications were weighted 
from 30 to 50 percent in promotion /tenure decisions; only two (Illinois and Michigan State) re-
ported significant weighting (at least 33 percent) in decisions concerning annual salaries. (This 
study was primarily concerned with the organization and functions of reference departments in 
the academic members of the RASD Discussion Groups on Reference Services in Large and 
Medium-Sized Research Libraries and was pursued under the auspices of both discussion 
groups.) 

17. J. Periam Danton, "Notes on the Evaluation of Library Schools," Journal of Education for Librarian-
ship 24:106- 16 (Fall1983). 

18. R. M. Hayes, ' 'Citation Statistics as a Measure of Faculty Research Productivity,'' Journal of Edu ca-
tion for Librarianship 23:151-72 (Winter 1983). 

19. Russell E. Bidlack, " A Statistical Survey of 67 Library Schools, 1978-79, " Journal of Education for 
Librarianship 19:321 (Spring 1979).