weller.p65


352  College & Research Libraries July 1999

Publication Patterns of U.S. 
Academic Librarians from 1993 
to 1997 

Ann C. Weller, Julie M. Hurd, and Stephen E. Wiberley 
Jr. 

This study examined the contribution to the peer-reviewed literature of 
library and information science by practicing academic librarians in the 
United States. Data on authors were obtained from articles published from 
1993 to 1997 in thirty-two journals. Of 3,624 peer-reviewed articles in these 
journals, 1,579 (43.6%) were authored by at least one practicing academic 
librarian. These librarians represented 386 institutions of higher educa­
tion. This study provides benchmark data for publication productivity of 
academic librarians and identifies a core list of peer-reviewed journals for 
them. Approximately six percent of these librarians wrote three or more 
articles in the five-year period. In nineteen journals one-third or more of 
the articles were authored by academic librarians. Libraries from Research 
I universities that were members of the Association for Research Libraries 
were the most productive. The contribution of practicing academic librar­
ians to the literature of their field is significant. 

he literature on publication pat­
terns in library and information 
science (LIS) usually focuses ei­
ther faculty in LIS schools or 

practicing academic librarians. Both groups 
have made significant contributions to 
scholarship within their discipline. Both 
groups come from an environment that val­
ues research and publication, but each tends 
to bring a different perspective. Practitio­
ners can make important contributions to 
the scholarly publications in a practice-

based discipline. The degree to which prac­
ticing librarians contribute to the knowledge 
base of LIS is the focus of this investigation. 
To examine this question, the present study 
analyzed academic librarians’ contributions 
to the peer-reviewed literature, documented 
their publication patterns, and compared 
these patterns with findings of earlier stud­
ies of publication patterns by academic li­
brarians and LIS faculty. 

Two recent studies have reviewed pub­
lication patterns of LIS faculty. Karen E. 

Ann C. Weller is Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Library of the Health Sciences, in the Univer­
sity Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago; e-mail: acw@uic.edu. Julie M. Hurd is Associate 
Professor and Science Librarian in the University Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago; e-mail: 
jhurd@uic.edu. Stephen E. Wiberley Jr. is Professor and Bibliographer for the Social Sciences in the Uni­
versity Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago; e-mail: wiberley@uic.edu. The authors sincerely 
appreciate the advice of their colleagues who regularly attend the “research brown bag” in the university 
library and contributed to the discussions on the design and analysis of this study. They also thank Bar­
bara J. Via for sharing the original list of journals she used in her study of editors. Her article listed only 
the names of the journals whose editors had responded to her survey. 

352 

mailto:wiberley@uic.edu
mailto:jhurd@uic.edu
mailto:acw@uic.edu


Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians 353 

Pettigrew and Paul T. Nicholls studied 
LIS faculty in the United States during an 
eleven-year period (1982–1992).1 Their 
author-based study provided data on 
mean productivity per faculty member. 
They used the Directory of the Association 
for Library and Information Science Educa­
tion, 1992–93 to obtain names of all full-
time faculty at the assistant, associate, and 
full professor levels. Each of the 607 
names of faculty members was searched 
on five databases, retrieving a total of 
7,937 publications. They found that fac­
ulty productivity appears to be influenced 
by the presence of doctoral programs, 
with publication output higher in schools 
with Ph.D. programs than in schools lim­
ited to master ’s programs. LIS faculty in 
Ph.D. institutions published a mean of 
4.58 articles in refereed journals in the 
eleven-year period, whereas LIS faculty 
in institutions with master ’s degrees pub­
lished a mean of 2.85 articles in refereed 
journals. The average number of pub­
lished articles for this time period was 
10.55 and 5.97, respectively, when 
nonrefereed as well as refereed articles 
were included. However, these differ­
ences became less pronounced when data 
from only Research I institutions were 
compared. Pettigrew and Nicholls found 
that LIS faculty from Research I institu­
tions with Ph.D. programs published an 
average of 5.0 articles in refereed journals 
versus 4.6 articles in those Research I in­
stitutions with only master ’s programs. 

Marcia J. Bates used a slightly different 
approach in a study of publications of LIS 
faculty.2 She compared publication patterns 
of senior LIS faculty from four LIS schools 
(Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and UCLA) that 
“consistently rated high” in several measures 
of assessment.3 She found that senior LIS fac­
ulty in these four schools published a mean 
of between 6.3 and 8.0 journal articles, book 
chapters, and articles in conference proceed­
ings from 1984 through 1991. These data did 
not separate peer-reviewed articles. Bates was 
hesitant to compare her data with other stud­
ies that grouped all publication types together, 
a practice she claimed “may obscure real dif­
ferences between schools.”4 

Several studies have investigated the 
authoring patterns of practicing academic 
librarians. Two similar studies published 
in 1985 examined the institutional affilia­
tion of authors. Sylvia C. Krausse and 
Janice F. Sieburth conducted a study of LIS 
publication patterns based on articles in 
twelve LIS journals.5 Between 1973 and 
1982, practicing academic librarians 
authored a steadily increasing percentage 
of published articles in the field, from 28.2 
percent in 1973 to 42.3 percent in 1982 .6 

Krausse and Sieburth also found that the 
most prolific authors came from institu­
tions with library holdings of more than 
one million volumes.7 

The same year, Paula Watson published 
a study that compared authoring patterns 
of librarians in eleven major journals be­
tween 1979 and 1983.8 She found that 44.2 
percent of authors came from academic li­
braries, and 20.9 percent came from LIS 
faculty and students.9 Watson did not dif­
ferentiate data by year so it was not pos­
sible to determine whether the ratio of 
publications between LIS faculty and prac­
ticing academic librarians remained con­
stant during the time period for the jour­
nals she studied. There was an overlap of 
eight journal titles in the Krausse and 
Sieburth, and Watson studies. Krausse and 
Sieburth’s twelve titles came from LIS titles 
included in Social Science Index, whereas 
Watson selected LIS titles that were among 
the “best-known and most well-estab­
lished journals in the field.”10 

In 1990, John M. Budd and Charles A. 
Seavey published the results of their 
study on the authorship patterns of aca­
demic librarians in thirty-six library sci­
ence journals over a five-year period 
(1983–1987).11 Most individuals (90.7%) 
authored only one contribution, as either 
a single author or a coauthor. The articles 
came from 384 institutions, just over one-
third (34.9%) of which were represented 
only once during the five year period. 
Budd and Seavey also found that of the 
twenty institutions whose librarians were 
the most productive, eighteen were cur­
rent members of the Association of Re­
search Libraries (ARL). They pointed out 

http:1983�1987).11


 

354 College & Research Libraries July 1999 

that the large libraries had “the benefit of 
numbers; their staff sizes are consider­
able. They also have broader and deeper 
resources—bigger collections … [and] … 
a research impetus on the campus.”12 

As authors of nearly one-half of the 
articles published in journals studied, 
academic librarians make important con­
tributions to the LIS literature. There have 
been no comparable recent studies. Sev­
eral questions emerge: Do academic li­
brarians continue to provide a significant 
proportion of articles in the peer-re­
viewed literature? What are productivity 
benchmarks for practicing academic li­
brarians? What is the frequency of sole 
authorship and coauthorship for aca­
demic librarians? Do practicing academic 
librarians’ who recently published come 
from institutions of higher education that 
have large collections, are Research I in­
stitutions, or are members of ARL? 

Methodology
Selection of Peer-Reviewed LIS Journals 
This study focused on the peer-reviewed 
LIS journal article. Generally, journals are 
the publication of choice for practicing 
academic librarians. Identifying an appro­
priate list of journals was the initial chal­
lenge. Budd and Seavey developed their 
own list of LIS journal titles to investi­
gate.13 Mary T. Kim studied citation analy­
sis using a core list of LIS titles.14 A study 
by Barbara Via provided another list of 
LIS titles.15 She surveyed editors of sixty-
eight LIS journals to determine their edi­
torial peer review process. 

Budd and Seavey began their list with 
a combination of the twelve titles used by 
Krausse and Sieburth and the eleven titles 
identified by Watson.16–17 They then 
added other titles of “special interest” to 
produce a list of thirty-six LIS journal 
titles.18 Kim expanded a list of thirty-one 
titles that David F. Kohl and Charles H. 
Davis developed in 1982.19–20 She added 
titles that were (1) listed as both citing and 
cited LIS source journals in the Journal 
Citation Report, (2) published by the ALA, 
or (3) referenced by journals in the origi­
nal set of thirty-one titles. Her final list 

included fifty-two journal titles. Via built 
her list from the lists developed by Daniel 
O’Connor and Phyllis Van Orden and by 
Budd and Seavey.21–23 O’Connor and Van 
Orden’s original list used thirty LIS titles 
that “accept contributions from members 
of the field and were indexed in Library 
Literature,” and eliminated journals that 
solely published solicited articles.24 

Material published with symposia, 
conferences, and theme issues are 
chosen for a variety of reasons. 

The variety of ways that Budd and 
Seavey, Kim, and Via developed their lists 
indicates both the difficulty of identify­
ing an appropriate list of journals and the 
somewhat subjective dimension of the 
process. Among these three lists were 103 
different LIS titles. To compensate for a 
possible bias in any one list, this study 
used as a starting point those journals that 
appeared on at least two of these three 
lists. Forty-two titles met this criterion. 

Because the investigators were inter­
ested in publication patterns of academic 
librarians in U.S. libraries, journals pub­
lished outside North America were elimi­
nated from consideration. Because this 
study was interested in the scholarly lit­
erature of the field, the investigators sought 
to identify the peer-reviewed journals from 
the remaining list of forty-two titles. The 
‘instructions to authors’ sections of jour­
nals, which usually included information 
on the journal’s review process, were ex­
amined for each title. If the instructions did 
not state explicitly that the journal’s articles 
were peer-reviewed, the investigators con­
tacted the editor to determine whether they 
were. The final list comprised thirty-two 
currently published, peer-reviewed LIS 
journal titles produced in the United States 
and Canada (see table 1). 

Identification of Peer-Reviewed Articles 
Not all the material published in a peer-
reviewed journal undergoes a formal re­
view process. Typically, only articles are 
peer-reviewed. Journals contain a vari­
ety of other types of material. Thomas E. 

http:articles.24
http:titles.18
http:titles.15
http:titles.14


Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians 355 

Nisonger found that over a twenty-year 
period, only 54.2 percent of the authored 
items in the journal Library Acquisitions: 
Practice and Theory were bona fide ar­
ticles.25 In her study, Watson excluded 
“books, chapters in books, reports, and 
articles in more specialized journals.”26 

Krausse and Sieburth excluded “book re­
views, news reports, columns, editorials, 
etc.” from their study.27 Budd and Seavey 
also excluded “editorials, book reviews, 
columns, and responses” to ensure that 
only full-length articles were included.28 

Using criteria similar to those described 
above, the present study excluded all edi­
torials, introductions, committee reports, 
letters to the editor, news items, columns 
or features, obituaries, and book reviews. 
Even with these exclusions, one cannot as­
sume that the remaining articles in a jour­
nal are peer-reviewed. To ensure that only 
peer-reviewed articles were included in the 
data set, symposium and conference pro­
ceedings also were excluded. For that same 
reason, all “theme” issues that had a guest 
editor who invited contributions also were 

TABLE 1

Core List of Refereed Journals in Librarianship


(U.S. and Canadian Publications)
 
American Archivist*

Bulletin of the Medical Library Association*

Behavioral and Social Sciences Librarian*

College & Research Libraries*

Canadian Journal of InformationlCanadian Journal of Library and Information Science

Cataloging & Classification Quarterly*

Collection Management*

Government Information Quarterly

Government Publication Review lJournal of Government Information*

Information Processing and Management

Information Technology & Libraries*

Journal of Academic Librarianship*

Journal of Education for Librarianship

Journal of Information Science

Journal of the American Society for Information Science

Libraries & Culture

Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory*

Library and Information Science Research

Library Hi-Tech*

Library Quarterly

Library Resources & Technical Services*

Notes: Music Library Association*

Online and CD-ROM Review

Public Libraries

Reference Services Review*

Research Strategies*

Resource Sharing and Information Networks

RQlReference & User Services Quarterly*

School Library and Media Quarterly

Science & Technology Libraries*

Serials Librarian*

Technical Services Quarterly*
 
*Journals with 33+ percent U.S. academic librarian authors 

http:included.28
http:study.27
http:ticles.25


356 College & Research Libraries July 1999 

excluded. Material published with sympo­
sia, conferences, and theme issues are cho­
sen for a variety of reasons. Authors are 
selected because of their subject matter 
expertise or because they participated in a 
presentation, symposium, forum, or con­
ference. For whatever reason, these articles 
are published as part of a group of articles. 
The experiences of the investigators were 
that these types of articles often are not 
peer-reviewed. Excluding such articles 
may have eliminated some peer-reviewed 
contributions; however, these criteria pro­
vided one more level of assurance that only 
peer-reviewed publications were included 
in the present study. 

Data Collection 
To be certain that the data did not repre­
sent an anomaly in publication patterns 
that might be present within any given 
year, the study covered a five-year period 
(1993–1997). Budd and Seavey also exam­
ined data for a five-year period, ten years 
earlier than the present study, from 1983– 
1987. For each issue, the investigators re­
corded the date of publication, the num­
ber of peer-reviewed articles, the number 
of authors of these articles, the number of 
these articles authored by at least one aca­
demic librarian, and the number of authors 
of these articles who were academic librar­
ians. From each peer-reviewed article that 
was authored by at least one academic li­
brarian, the study noted the academic li­
brarian author’s name, his or her institu­
tional affiliation, and the departmental and 
institutional affiliation of his or her collabo­
rators. The investigators relied on the in­
stitutional affiliation information from each 
article to determine whether an author had 
an academic affiliation and to identify the 
institution. If the same author listed a dif­
ferent affiliation in separate articles, the 
names of each institution were recorded. 
The data set included only articles with 
authors from U.S. institutions. 

The investigators entered all data into 
a spreadsheet program. Some authors 
were inconsistent, at times using their full 
first and middle names or other times us­
ing only either one or two initials. The 

investigators attempted to reconcile vari­
ant forms of author and institutional 
names; no attempt was made to reconcile 
name changes. 

Results 
The thirty-two journals published 703 is­
sues during the time frame of this study. 
The investigators did not locate three is­
sues (0.4%) from two titles. Based on the 
percentage of articles authored by aca­
demic librarians in the other issues of these 
two titles, this study’s data set probably 
lacks three to four articles (approximately 
0.2%) by academic librarian authors. 

The thirty-two journals contained 3,624 
peer-reviewed articles published between 
1993 and 1997. Of these articles 1,579 
(43.6%) were authored by at least one aca­
demic librarian. In total numbers, there 
were 5,477 instances of authorship and 
2,032 of these were academic librarians. 
Of these 2,032 names, 1,515 were unique 
academic librarian names (see figure 1). 

Articles authored by academic librarians 
were not distributed equally among all the 
titles. Among the thirty-two LIS titles, the 
percentage of articles authored by at least 
one academic librarian from a U.S. institu­
tion ranged from 0.0 percent (Canadian 
Journal of Library and Information Science) 
through 100.0 percent (Technical Services 
Quarterly). The nineteen asterisked journals 
in table 1 are those in which a minimum of 
one-third of the articles were authored by 
at least one U.S. academic librarian. 

In the data set, the highest number of 
peer-reviewed articles for one author was 
ten (see table 2). Academic librarians who 
published three or more articles during 
this time period comprised 6.07 percent 
of all those who published. Almost 80 
percent of the academic librarians who 
published in these thirty-two journals 
were either a single author or a coauthor 
on only one publication during the five-
year time period studied. 

On average, there were 1.46 authors per 
article. For individual journal titles, the 
mean authors per article ranged from 1.02 
(Libraries and Culture) to 2.07 (Online and 
CD-ROM Review). Of articles by academic 



Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians 357 

FIGURE 1

Basis of Data Analysis for


Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians
 

same campus or 
across institutional 
boundaries. Fifty-
four (20.8%) of the 
collaborations were 
“intra-institutional,” 
with scholars out­
side the library and 
from the same cam­
pus, compared to 
206 collaborations 

• 32 refereed journals published in u.s. or Canada, 1993-1997 
• 703 journal issues 
• 3624 articles 

• 1579 articles with at least one u.s. academic librarian author 
• 1515 u.s. academic librarian authors from 386 institutions 

librarians, 869 (55%) were single-authored 
works (see table 3). The remaining 710 ar­
ticles (45%) had two or more authors. Pa­
pers with three or more authors comprise 
less than ten percent of the total. 

The data set was sorted by authors’ in­
stitutional affiliation to produce a ranked 
list of the total author count per institu­
tion (see table 4). Most of the institutions 
in table 4 are large research universities 
where scholarly research and publication 
are important elements of the institutional 
culture. In fact, of the top twenty institu­
tions, all but one with the most number 
of articles published by librarians was a 
Research I institution or held ARL mem­
bership. Ninety-five percent are ARL li­
braries, and 80 percent are Research I in­
stitutions. 

The 710 multiple-authored articles included 
260 (36.6%) that demonstrated an “extramu­
ral” collaboration, whether across units on the 

(79.2%) that were 
“interinstitutional,” with scholars, whether 
academic librarians or not, from other institu­
tions. Of those intra-institutional collabora­
tions, forty-two were with faculty from other 
units. Outside collaboration involved other 
academic librarians for eighty-one articles. 
Another fifty-three articles included collabo­
ration with nonlibrarian scholars from other 
schools; thirty-two of these were LIS faculty. 
Twenty-three articles were coauthored with li­
brarians from other types of libraries, and four 
were collaborations with students. Forty-five 
others included co-authors from a variety of 
institutions, including library vendors, govern­
ment agencies, library associations, and con­
sultants. Because the collaborations sometimes 
involved individuals from more than one ex­
tramural site, the number totals more than 260. 

Discussion 
The discussion covers the productivity of 
academic librarians compared to the pro-

TABLE 2

Productivity of U.S. Academic Librarians from 1993 to 1997


(N = 1,515 authors)
 
Total # of Articles # of Authors Percentage Cumulative % 

10 1 0.07% 0.07%
8 2 0.13% 0.20%
7 5 0.33% 0.53%
6 2 0.13% 0.66%
5 6 0.40% 1.06%
4 26 1.72% 2.77%
3 50 3.30% 6.07%
2 236 15.58% 21.65%
1 1,187 78.35% 100.00% 

1,515 100.01% 



358 College & Research Libraries July 1999 

TABLE 3

Coauthorship Patterns of D.S. Academic Librarians


(1,579 Articles Published 1993-1997)
 
Authors Articles Percentage Cumulative % 

1
2
3
4
5
6
7 

869
574

94
21
15

5
1 

55.03%
36.35%

5.95%
1.33%
0.95%
0.32%
0.06% 

55.03%
91.39%
97.34%
98.67%
99.62%
99.94%

100.00% 
Totals 1,579 99.99% 

ductivity of LIS faculty, the degree of col­
laboration within and among disciplines 
and institutions, and the productivity of 
librarians vis-à-vis their institutional af­
filiation. 

Productivity of Academic Librarians and
LIS Faculty 
Each study that has examined the publica­
tion patterns of either practicing academic 

librarians or LIS faculty has used a differ­
ent journal set, a distinct methodology, and 
a different time period. Therefore, any 
comparisons can only look for trends or 
general patterns and cannot be absolute. 

The present study identified 1,515 aca­
demic librarians who produced 1,579 ar­
ticles in thirty-two LIS journals over a five-
year period, 1993–1997. Fifty-five percent 
of these articles were single-authored and, 

TABLE 4

Most Productive Libraries, 1993-1997

(386 Libraries, Ranked by # Authors)
 

Institution   Authors   Articles 
Pennsylvania State University 
Cornell University
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Minnesota
University of Illinois at Chicago
Iowa State University 
Ohio State University 
Rutgers University
Texas A&M University 
University of Florida-Gainesville
University of Michigan
University of Nebraska
Northern Illinois University
University of New Mexico
Auburn University
State University of New York-Albany 
University of Arizona 
University of Colorado-Boulder
Kent State University 
Harvard University 

35
32
31
31
30
29
27
27
26
22
18
18
17
17
17
17
17
16
16
16 

46
32
40
28
38
35
41
27
25
19
24
12
26
21
19
19
15
14
14
14 



 

Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians 359 

on average, any one academic librarian 
author published 0.96 peer-reviewed ar­
ticles in the five-year period. Therefore, 
academic librarians who published pro­
duced 0.19 peer-reviewed articles per year 
in the thirty-two studied journals. 

All the overlapping institutions and 
all but one of the top twenty institu­
tions from the present study are 
either ARL libraries or Research I 
institutions. 

The present study found that 43.6 per­
cent of all published peer-reviewed articles 
were written by at least one academic librar­
ian, compared to 34.4 percent in the Krausse 
and Sieburth study and 44.2 percent in the 
Watson study.29–30 As pointed out earlier, 
different lists of LIS titles were used in each 
study; however, seven titles overlap be­
tween the Krausse and Sieburth study and 
the present study. One finds that 46.5 per­
cent of the articles in Krausse and Sieburth’s 
seven overlapping titles were authored by 
academic librarians, whereas 62.8 percent 
from the present study were. Eight titles 
overlap between the Watson study and the 
present study. However, Watson assigned 
fractional credit to authors and institutions 
for multi-authored papers, so a similar com­
parison was not possible. As was noted ear­
lier, the Watson and the Krausse and 
Sieburth studies included material that 
might not have been peer-reviewed. Assum­
ing that the proportion of academic librar­
ians writing refereed articles is the same as 
that of academic librarians writing 
nonrefereed articles, the comparison of data 
from the present study with data from the 
Krausse and Sieburth study suggests an 
increase in the percentage of material pub­
lished by academic librarians. 

Pettigrew and Nicholls found that all 
LIS faculty from Ph.D.-producing library 
schools published 4.58 articles in peer-
reviewed journals over an eleven-year 
period, or 0.42 articles per year for these 
LIS faculty.31 Faculty from library schools 
with master ’s degrees produced an aver­
age of 2.85 articles in eleven years, or .26 
articles per year. A study by Pamela S. 

Bradigan and Carol A. Mularski of a ran­
dom sample of health sciences academic 
librarians found that this group of librar­
ians published in numbers similar to LIS 
faculty.32 The survey had a 71.7 percent 
response rate and just over 50 percent of 
the respondents had published in a ten-
year period. The respondents averaged 
.27 articles per year. Pettigrew and 
Nicholls located articles through database 
searching and searches on the names of 
the whole population of LIS faculty, 
whereas the present study obtained data 
from thirty-two journals and did not at­
tempt to determine the percentage of aca­
demic librarians who publish. 

In 1983, John Centra reported that two 
samples of 2,973 and 1,623 faculty aver­
aged 1.7 and 2.5 publications, respec­
tively, over a five-year period.33 Publica­
tions were not limited to journal articles. 
The second group included authors from 
institutions that placed more emphasis on 
research than the former group did. The 
number of publications averaged .34 and 
.50 publications per year, respectively. A 
multidisciplinary national survey of fac­
ulty in 1989 reported by Ernest L. Boyer 
found that, overall, 59 percent of faculty 
published five or fewer journal articles 
over the course of their careers.34 

Even though these sets of data on the 
average number of publications per year 
are not directly comparable, what is clear 
is that the number of articles published 
per year by both academic librarians who 
publish and LIS faculty is less than one 
article per year. This output appears to 
be comparable to that of faculty in disci­
plines outside LIS. 

Interdisciplinary and Collaborative
Publication Patterns 
More than one-third (36.5%) of the coau­
thored and multiple-authored articles 
show collaboration, either within or be­
tween institutions. As librarians become 
more involved with teaching information 
access on their campuses and working 
with faculty in other fields who are us­
ing information technology in their teach­
ing and research, collaborative publica­

http:careers.34
http:period.33
http:faculty.32
http:faculty.31


 

360 College & Research Libraries July 1999 

tion seems likely to increase. Several ear­
lier studies examined collaborative rela­
tionship among LIS authors. 

In 1988, Peter Hernon and Candy 
Schwartz, editors of Library & Information 
Science Research, reviewed the contents of 
its first twenty volumes.35 Approximately 
one-third of the articles were coauthored, 
and 15.6 percent of all authors came from 
departments outside the library and 
schools of LIS, including management, 
business, communications, psychology, 
and education as well as students, con­
sultants, and others from the private sec­
tor. However, Hernon and Schwartz did 
not provide data on how many of the 
15.6% were collaborative projects with LIS 
faculty or academic librarians. A similar 
study by James L. Terry revealed that be­
tween 1989 and 1994, only 9.1 percent of 
all authors in College & Research Libraries 
came from nonlibrary institutions or or­
ganizations.36 Terry compared his study 
with Paul Metz’s earlier study of author­
ship patterns in College & Research Librar­
ies which found a larger percentage of 
articles originating from nonlibrary 
sources–12.68 percent between 1939 and 
1979, and 18.62 percent between 1980 and 
1988.37 Terry and Metz only tabulated in­
stitutional affiliation for the first author. 
Data from the present study show that 
72.96 percent of all the authors in College 
& Research Libraries come from academic 
libraries. The Terry and Metz data present 
gross numbers of institutional affiliations 
of individuals publishing in library sci­
ence titles, but neither of these studies 
looked for collaboration within articles. 

The present study presents benchmark 
data on the degree of both interinstitutional 
and intra-institutional collaboration of aca­
demic librarians. These data show that 
those outside the field of librarianship pub­
lish in the LIS literature and do collabo­
rate with academic librarians. 

Institutional Affiliation and Librarian
Productivity 
Table 4 lists those most-productive librar­
ies with the highest number of published 
articles. Both the Budd and Seavey and 

the Watson studies identified a similar list 
of most-productive libraries.38–39 Eleven of 
the top twenty (55%) institutions on the 
Budd and Seavey list and nine of the top 
twenty (45%) institutions on the Watson 
list are also in the top twenty institutions 
of the present study. All the overlapping 
institutions and all but one of the top 
twenty institutions from the present 
study are either ARL libraries or Research 
I institutions. Similarly, a study of author­
ship patterns from twenty years of the 
journal Library Acquisitions: Practice and 
Theory found that 56.5 percent of the au­
thors were affiliated with ARL institu­
tions.40 Mickey Zemon and Alice Harrison 
Bahr confirmed the smaller proportion of 
contributions to the literature by librar­
ians from college libraries.41 They pointed 
out that academic authors from colleges 
were most likely to come from prestigious 
undergraduate institutions with a selec­
tive admissions policy. 

The relationship between the charac­
teristics of an institution and the publish­
ing productivity of its librarians deserves 
further investigation. This study has 
shown that the size of the library and the 
prestige of the parent institution appear 
to be important factors. An overall insti­
tutional climate that supports research 
probably fosters it among librarians as 
well. Other variables also may be present 
because some large research libraries pub­
lished less than smaller libraries. One 
could speculate that faculty status for li­
brarians might have an impact on publi­
cation. Faculty status has many varia­
tions, with some institutions requiring 
substantial, peer-reviewed publications 
for tenure and others requiring different 
types of publication or professional in­
volvement. Library size, institutional cli­
mate, and faculty status are all very com­
plex factors. It was beyond the scope of 
the present study to explore the relation­
ships of these influences to publication 
productivity. 

Conclusion 
Several trends have been noted. Academic 
librarians are contributing a very signifi­

http:libraries.41
http:tions.40
http:sources�12.68
http:ganizations.36
http:volumes.35


Publication Patterns of U.S. Academic Librarians 361 

cant proportion of the LIS literature. The 
proportion of contributions by academic 
librarians to the scholarly literature may 
be increasing. Although the data are lim­
ited, it appears that academic librarians 
who publish do so as frequently as LIS fac­
ulty in general. Academic librarians at large 
research institutions with ARL and Re­
search I standing publish more than librar­
ians at smaller institutions. Single author­
ship is the norm, although coauthorship is 
very important. Collaborative endeavors 
between librarians and nonlibrarians oc­
cur within and across institutions. In all, 
literature in LIS has many types of authors. 

Benchmark data on authorship and in­
stitutional productivity could be particu­
larly useful for those institutions that ei­
ther have promotion and tenure reviews 
for librarians or some similar evaluation 
that assesses scholarship. The data could 
provide a context for evaluating the records 
of individuals under review. In addition, 
academic librarians who aspire to build a 
research and publication record could use 
the present results to set productivity goals. 
These findings also could help professional 
library associations develop credentialing 
standards, similar to those used by the 
Medical Library Association’s Academy of 
Health Information Professionals. 

The nineteen journals that contained at 
least one-third of the articles authored by 
academic librarians could be considered a 
core list of peer-reviewed journals for aca­
demic librarianship. The list includes gen­
eral titles such as College & Research Librar­
ies as well as more specialized publications 
such as American Archivist. It illustrates the 
range of venues in which academic librar­
ians publish reports of their scholarship 
and research. One would expect that aca­
demic librarians also would turn to these 
titles to provide evidence for decision mak­
ing when seeking answers to theoretical 
or practical questions about librarianship. 

Questions not addressed in this study 
suggest directions for future research. The 

present study does not investigate librar­
ians’ contributions to the non-peer-re­
viewed literature or the nonserial litera­
ture, as either monographs or book chap­
ters, nor does it assess their publication 
of directories and annotated bibliogra­
phies, standard genres of the LIS field. 
The present study’s examination of the 
peer-reviewed LIS journal literature is not 
a content analysis of this literature,  nor 
does it address the motivation for those 
academic librarians to engage in research 
and publication. Additional work in any 
of these areas would provide a fuller un­
derstanding of the publication patterns of 
academic librarians and complement the 
findings presented here. 

In ending this article, it is worthwhile 
to place publication by academic librar­
ians within the contexts of the needs of 
the profession and the place of LIS in the 
academy. The rate of change of informa­
tion technology is so rapid that there is a 
great need for scholarship that helps li­
brarians understand what they must do 
to best serve their users. At the same time, 
to remain a learned profession, LIS must 
retain its place in the universities. As 
Alvin B. Kernan has argued in Death of 
Literature, no field of knowledge can con­
tinue to exist without such standing.42 

The core group of scholars in LIS is 
the full-time faculty of LIS schools. These 
faculty number 600, far fewer than fac­
ulty in disciplines such as chemistry and 
philosophy and professional areas such 
as law and medicine. Given the relatively 
small number of its core group of schol­
ars, LIS needs the contributions of prac­
titioners to meet the challenges of the in­
formation age and to bolster the stand­
ing of the discipline in the academy. This 
article has documented substantial pub­
lishing by academic librarians, particu­
larly those from a number of ARL and 
Research I universities. It is important 
that they sustain their productivity and 
that others join them. 

Notes 

1. Karen E. Pettigrew and Paul T. Nicholls, “Publication Patterns of LIS Faculty from 1982–92: 

http:standing.42


362 College & Research Libraries July 1999 

Effects of Doctoral Programs,” Library and Information Science Research 16(1994):139–56. 
2. Marcia J. Bates, “The Role of Publication Type in the Evaluation of LIS Programs,” Library 

Information Science Research 20(1998): 187–98. 
3. Ibid., 188. 
4. Ibid., 193. 
5. Sylvia C. Krausse and Janice F. Sieburth, “Patterns of Authorship in Library Journals by 

Academic Librarians,” Serials Librarian 9 (spring 1985):127–38. 
6. Ibid., 130. 
7. Ibid., 132. 
8. Paula Watson, “Production of Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library School 

Faculty,” College & Research Libraries 46 (July 1985): 334–42. 
9. Ibid., 336. 
10. Ibid., 335. 
11. John M. Budd and Charles A. Seavey, “Characteristics of Journal Authorship by Academic 

Librarians,” College & Research Libraries 51 (Sept. 1990): 463–70. 
12. Ibid., 466. 
13. Ibid. 
14. Mary T. Kim, “Ranking of Journals in Library and Information Science: A Comparison of 

Perceptual and Citation-based Measures,” College & Research Libraries 52 (Jan. 1991): 24–37. 
15. Barbara J. Via, “Publishing in the Journal Literature of Library and Information Science: 

A Survey of Manuscript Review Processes and Acceptance,” College & Research Libraries 57 
(July 1996): 365–76. 

16. Krausse and Sieburth, “Patterns of Authorship in Library Journals by Academic Librarians.” 
17. Watson, “Production of Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library School Faculty.” 
18. Budd and Seavey, “Characteristics of Journal Authorship by Academic Librarians,” 464. 
19. Kim, “Ranking of Journals in Library and Information Science.” 
20. David F. Kohl and Charles H. Davis, “Rating of Journals by ARL Directors and Deans of 

Library and Information Science Schools,” College & Research Libraries 46 (Jan.1985): 40–47. 
21. Via, “Publishing in the Journal Literature of Library and Information Science.” 
22. Daniel O’Connor and Phyllis Van Orden, “Getting into Print,” College & Research Libraries 

39 (Sept. 1978): 389–96. 
23. Budd and Seavey, “Characteristics of Journal Authorship by Academic Librarians.” 
24. O’Connor and Van Orden, “Getting into Print,” 390. 
25. Thomas E. Nisonger, “Authorship in Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory,” Library Acqui­

sitions: Practice & Theory 20 (1996): 395–419. 
26. Watson, “Production of Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library School 

Faculty,” 335. 
27. Krausse and Sieburth, “Patterns of Authorship in Library Journals by Academic Librarians,” 128. 
28. Budd and Seavey, “Characteristics of Journal Authorship by Academic Librarians,” 464. 
29. Krausse and Sieburth, “Patterns of Authorship in Library Journals by Academic Librar­

ians,” 129. 
30. Watson, “Production of Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library School 

Faculty,” 336. 
31. Pettigrew and Nicholls, “Publication Patterns of LIS Faculty from 1982–92,” 143. 
32. Pamela S. Bradigan and Carol A. Mularski, “Authorship Outlets of Academic Health Sci­

ences Librarians,” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 80 (Apr. 1992): 188–91. 
33. John Centra, “Research Productivity and Teaching Effectiveness,” Research in Higher Edu­

cation 18 (1983): 381–83. 
34. Ernest L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (San Francisco: Jossey-

Bass, 1990), table A-19. 
35. Peter Hernon and Candy Schwartz, “Library & Information Science Research–Marking the 

Journal’s 20th Anniversary,” Library & Information Science Research 20 (1998): 309–20. 
36. James L. Terry, “Authorship in College & Research Libraries Revisited: Gender, Institutional 

Affiliation, Collaboration,” College & Research Libraries 57 (July 1996): 380. 
37. Paul Metz “A Statistical Profile of College & Research Libraries,” College & Research Libraries 

50 (Jan. 1989): 42–47. 
38. Budd and Seavey, “Characteristics of Journal Authorship by Academic Librarians.” 
39. Watson, “Production of Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library School 

Faculty.” 
40. Nisonger, “Authorship in Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory.” 
41. Mickey Zemon and Alice Harrison Bahr, “An Analysis of Articles by College Librarians,” 

College & Research Libraries 59 (1998): 431. 
42. Alvin B. Kernan, Death of Literature (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Pr., 1990).