College and Research Libraries


Characteristics of 
Journal Authorship 

by Academic Librarians 
John M. Budd and Charles A. Seavey 

A widely held belief that academic librarians are strongly encouraged to publish in order to 
retain employment may exist. The present study examines authorship in thirty-six library and 
information science journals over a five-year period and finds that a small proportion of four-
year institutions is responsible for formal contributions to the literature. Furthermore, of those 
individuals contributing to the literature, the vast majority make only one contribution in the 
five-year period. 

ozens of articles have been writ-
ten on faculty status. Still, it is 
an issue that, in one permuta-
tion or another, continues to be 

a part of the lives of academic librarians. 
Institutions and individuals have formu-
lated arguments designed to praise certain 
structures and/ or damn others. Emily 
Werrell and Laura Sullivan recently pub-
lished a review of literature on the subject 
that has appeared since 1974, and Kee De-
Boer and Wendy Culotta surveyed the lit-
erature on the subject written in the 1980s; 
their work need not be repeated in detail 
here. 1' 2 One of the most intriguing fea-
tures of the issue is the multifaceted na-
ture of the beast. Faculty (or its confrere, ac-
ademic) status encompasses such aspects 
of academic librarianship as governance, 
bargaining, salary, performance review, 
and time management. A key component 
of faculty status is frequently that of pub-
lishing requirements and activity. This 
component is the basis of the present 
study. 

One question that arises relates to the 
extensiveness of the requirement to pub-
lish in academic libraries. Is publication 
essential to tenure or continuing appoint-

ment? While there may be a widely held 
belief that working in any academic library 
means that one has to publish, there is evi-
dence to the contrary. The results of this 
investigation tend to reenforce that evi-
dence. Ronald Rayman and Frank Goudy 
sought an answer to this question in 1980. 
They surveyed ARL libraries, and of the 68 
respondents, only ten (15 percent) stated 
that publication was required. 3 Another 
41, or 60 percent, acknowledged that pub-
lication was encouraged, though not re-
quired. By combining the required and en-
couraged categories, Rayman and Goudy's 
data suggest that publication is necessary 
in 75 percent of the ARL libraries. One fac-
tor, noted by Rayman and Goudy, that 
may well affect the number of publications 
emanating from academic libraries is the 
fact that 33 of the responding libraries ( 49 
percent) offer no release time to librarians 
for research and publishing activities. 4 

Payne and Wagner replicated the study of 
Rayman and Goudy, using ACRL univer-
sity libraries as the population. They 
found that only three of 43 responding li-
braries require _Eublication for tenure an-
d/or promotion. 5 Twenty libraries (54 per-
cent of respondents) offer no release time. 

John M. Budd and Charles A. Seavey are faculty at the Graduate Library School of the University of Arizona, 
Tucson, AZ 85719. 

463 



464 College & Research Libraries 

In 1985 W. Bede Mitchell and L. Stanislava 
Swieszkowski surveyed full and associate 
members of the Center for Research Li-
braries. Of the 138 respondents, 81 stated 
that they grant some form of tenure and, 
of those 81, 38 (46.9 percent) require evi-
dence of research and publication for ten-
ure. 6 Only half of the libraries requiring 
publication make release time available to 
librarians. 

11The journals selected for this study 
are national in scope and are likely to 
be looked upon favorably in promo-
tion and tenure reviews." 

In spite of the fact that release time for 
research and publication is not abundant 
and that librarians report that they have 
little time to devote to the activity, many 
contributions are made to library literature 
each year by academic librarians. 7 The 
purpose of the present study is to examine 
the publishing activity of this group. 
Other efforts at this kind of analysis have 
been made in the recent past; this paper is 
intended to be an extension of and expan-
sion upon those studies. 8 Focus here will 
be exclusively on authors in the library lit-
erature who are academic librarians. In 
addition, we will analyze the institutional 
affiliations of those authors to see what 
patterns emerge. 

METHODOLOGY 

Previous studies aimed at analyzing pat-
terns and characteristics of authorship by 
academic librarians have focused on lim-
ited numbers of journals. Sylvia Krausse 
and Janice Sieburth selected twelve jour-
nals; Paula Watson chose eleven. 9' 10 While 
the journals selected by those researchers 
include titles of special interest to aca-
demic librarians, such as College & Research 
Libraries and Journal of Academic Librarian-
ship, other journals in the field address is-
sues pertinent to the work of academic li-
braries. For this reason, thirty-six journals 
are included in the present study; these 
are listed in appendix A. The journals se-
lected are national in scope, contain some 

September 1990 

portion of their content that is judged rele-
vant to the academic enterprise, and are 
likely to be looked upon favorably in pro-
motion and tenure reviews. In fact, six-
teen of the journals included here are also 
on the list of thirty-one titles in the ranking 
study of David Kohl and Charles Davis, 
which seeks to determine in which jour-
nals library educators and academic li-
brary directors think librarians should 
publish. 11 Not all of the thirty-six journals 
are refereed, but such titles as Library 
Trends are important to the field and are 
included. 

The time period selected for study was 
the five-year period 1983-87. Each issue of 
the journals listed was inspected. Only 
full-length articles appearing in the target 
journals are included in the study; notes, 
editorials, book reviews, columns, andre-
sponses are excluded. For each article, the 
author's name is recorded, as is the au-
thor's institutional affiliation. Total credit 
for authorship of each article equals one 
(1); for multi-authored articles credit is as-
signed fractionally to each author, accord-
ing to the practice of W atson. 12 If there are 
two authors, each receives .5 credit, for 
three each receives .33, and so on. Institu-
tional credit is likewise assigned. Institu-
tional affiliation is taken from the article it-
self or from information on contributors to 
the journal issue. Credit is given on the ba-
sis of the author's affiliation at the time the 
article was published. 

FINDINGS 

A total of 1,656 articles written by aca-
demic librarians from 1983 through 1987 
provide the basis for examination. It is rec-
ognized that academic librarians may not 
compose a majority of contributors to the li-
brary literature. In 1982, Krausse and 
Sieburth found that academic librarians 
had authorial responsibility for 42.3 per-
cent of the articles in the twelve journals 
they analyzed. 13 Watson found that, for the 
period 1979 through 1983, academic librari-
ans wrote 44.2 percent of the articles in 
eleven journals.14 She also found that the 
next largest group of authors was library 
school faculty and students, so academic li-
brarians formed a majority group among 
practitioners. This holds only for the eleven 



Characteristics of Journal Authorship 465 

journals she studied; inclusion of journals 
in other specialized areas, such as Public Li-
braries, would alter the percentages. 

The 1,656 articles were written by 1,373 
different individuals. As can be expected, 
the vast majority of individuals were re-
sponsible, in full or in part, for only one 
contribution each. In fact, 1,027librarians 
had their names attached to only one arti-
cle. Only 128 individuals were identified 
as sole or coauthors of more than two arti-
cles each. The most prolific authors-
those with total credit of four or more (in-
cluding full and fractional credit)-are 
listed in table 1. 

As is noted above, a relatively small 
number of individuals are responsible for 
multiple contributions. A question that 
arises with regard to this group of data is 
whether or not it conforms to Alfred 
Lotka' s law, which states that ''the num-
ber (of authors) making n contributions is 
about 1/n2 of those making one; and the 
proportion of all contributors, that make a 
single contribution, is about 60 percent.'' 15 

Lotka' s computation included derivation 
of the percentage of the total number of 
contributors making n contributions. The 
formula to determine the percentage (f) is 

f = 600/1r2n 2 

The signification Fo(X) can represent the 
cumulative value of f. In order to make 
comparisons it is necessary to calculate ob-
served percentages and the cumulative 
value of the percentages expressed as 
S~(X). 

Lotka's original work was based on 
analysis of author data from Chemical Ab-
stracts. From his observations he formu-
lated the above statement. This phenome-
non, which has come to be referred to as 
Lotka' slaw, is not intended as an explana-
tion of why some authors are more prolific 
than others. Because of varying modes of 
behavior, patterns of productivity will dif-
fer among disciplines. For instance, the 
average faculty members in physics will 
be responsible for more journal articles 
than the average faculty member in En-
glish. Within a given discipline there will 
be variance also, due in part to differences 
of motivation and demand. These two 
variables may be related; those individ-

uals who are motivated to write and pub-
lish likely gravitate to institutions where 
such activity is expected and valued. 

It remains to be seen whether the verbal 
expression of Lotka' s law exhibits statisti-
cal regularity. Russel Coile demonstrates 
that the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test, 
a nonparametric goodness-of-fit test, is 
the appropriate measure of the conformity 
of observed theoretical data. 16 This test is 
used to determine how well the actual pat-
terns of authorship match the predictions 
of Lotka. The K-S statistic at the .01level 
of significance, which is equal to 1.63/N, 
must be greater than the maximum devia-
tion of S~(X) and Fo(X) (expressed as D = 
max I Fo(X)- S~(X) I ) for such conform-
ity to exist. Table 2 presents the author-
ship data in terms of Lotka' s law. 

As can be seen from table 2, the author-
ship data used for this study do not con-
form to Lotka's law. The deviation from 
the expected values is quite severe; while 

TABLEt 
MOST PRODUCTIVE INDIVIDUALS 

Rank Name Total Credit 

1 . Studwell, William 9.33 
2 Stankus, Tony 9.0 
3 Connolly, Bruce 6.5 
4 Gorman, Michael 6.0 
4 Stevens, Norman 6.0 
6 Bailey, Bill 5.0 
6 Burger, Robert H. 5.0 
6 Cruse, Larry 5.0 
6 DeGennaro, Richard 5.0 
6 Dou&herty, Richard M. 5.0 
6 Martin, Susan K. 5.0 
6 Morton, Bruce 5.0 
6 Tuttle, Marcia 5.0 

14 Mendelsohn, Henry N. 4.5 
14 Pankake, Marcia 4.5 
14 Zink, Steven D. 4.5 
17 Atkinson, Hugh 4.0 
17 Crotts, Joe 4.0 
17 Goehner, Donna M. 4.0 
17 Hewitt, Joe A. 4.0 
17 Hilker, Emerson 4.0 
17 Isaacson, David 4.0 
17 McBride, Ruth B. 4.0 
17 McCrank, Lawrence J. 4.0 
17 Me~er, Evel~ S. 4.0 
17 Rut ed~e, Jo n 4.0 
17 Schmi t, Karen A. 4.0 
17 Sewell, Robert G. 4.0 
17 Smith, Frederick E. 4.0 
17 Swan, John 4.0 
17 Watson, Paula D. 4.0 
17 Williams, James W. 4.0 



466 College & Research Libraries September 1990 

TABLE2 

APPLICATION OF LOTKA'S LAW 

No. 
Cont. Observed S«X) 

1 0.7480 0.7480 
2 0.1588 0.9068 
3 0.0510 0.9578 
4 0.0248 0.9826 
5 0.0109 0.9935 
6 0.0036 0.9971 
7 0.0015 0.9986 
8 0.0000 0.9986 
9 0.0000 0.9986 

10 0.0007 0.9993 

D =Max IFo(X)-S!;(X) I = 0.1469. 
At .Ollevel of significance, K-5 statistic = 1.63/ 1373 = 0.0440 
0>0.0440; this does not fit Lotka' s Law . 

Lotka observed and formulated a decline 
in author productivity, the decline among 
academic librarians is steeper than Lotka 
anticipated. The steepness of the decline 
is evident in figure 1. The shapes of the 
curves are very similar, but the cluster of 
individuals at one contribution is substan-
tially larger than the theory anticipates. 

"While publication is required or en-
couraged at a number of institutions, 
the encouragement in terms of tangi-
ble assistance, such as release time, is 
not sufficient to produce multiple 
contributions by librarians.'' 

Speculation regarding this set of data can 
lead to some conclusions: while publica-
tion is required or encouraged at a number 
of institutions, the encouragement (in 
terms of tangible assistance, such as re-
lease time) is not sufficient to produce 
multiple contributions by librarians; or, 
the number of institutions neither requir-
ing nor encouraging publication results in 
little motivation to contribute to the litera-
ture. This is, however, speculation; more 
information regarding specific publication 
requirements, including definition of 
what constitutes publication, may shed 
more light on this aspect of the issue. 

The 1,373 individuals in the population 
are affiliated with 384 different institu-
tions. As is true with authors, some insti-

Expected Fo(X) I Fo(X)-S!;(X) I 

0.6079 0.6079 0.1401 
0.1520 0.7599 0.1469 
0.0675 0.8274 0.1304 
0.0380 0.8654 0.1172 
0.0243 0.8897 0.1038 
0.0169 0.9066 0.0905 
0.0124 0.9160 0.0826 
0.0095 0.9285 0.0701 
0.0075 0.9360 0.0626 
0.0061 0.9421 0.0572 

tutions are responsible for multiple contri-
butions. One hundred thirty-four 
institutions appear only once each. The 
twenty most productive libraries are pre-
sented in table 3. Per capita contributions 
are based on the total professional library 
staff for 1985-86. It is possible, although 
unlikely, that the number of librarians 
would change enough over the five-year 
period to greatly affect these figures. Of 
the twenty institutions, eighteen are cur-
rently members of the Association of Re-
search Libraries (one, the University of Il-
linois-Chicago, recently became a 
member) . The other two are included 
among ACRL university libraries. That 
these larger libraries are the most produc-
tive is not surprising. These libraries have 
the benefit of numbers; their staff sizes are 
considerable. They also have broader and 
deeper resources-bigger collections, are-
search impetus on the campus at large, 
and large faculties that may be used as 
sources of information and expertise. 

A very brief questionnaire was mailed to 
the directors of the twenty most produc-
tive libraries and to a sample of other li-
braries represented by at least one contri-
bution. Since the purpose of the sample is 
essentially to identify the occurrence of a 
publishing requirement, the following 
formula for the determination of sample 
size is used: 17 · 

n = (Za + Z(3)
2 if- Ll 

fi 

This formula is designed to limit the prob-



Characteristics of Journal Authorship 467 

Lotka Comparison 

I ·•· Obser ·IJ· Expect I 
80 ,------------------------------------------

70 f\ 
60 ~[J~:--------~-------------------------------

50 1\ 
\\ 

Percent 40 +---\~+\-: -------------------------------------

30 +---+.--\ ---

20 ~--;--------------------------------------
\_ 

10 +-----[J~~~------------~-------------------
'\[J 

0 
I '~~7~=t=-~~~=~ 
2 4 10 

Number of Contributions 

FIGUREl 
Decline in Author Productivity 

abilitY of a Type I error (that is, the chance 
of rejecting a true hypothesis) to .05. One 
difficulty with the application of this for-
mula revolves around the estimation of 
the values of if and fl. This may be obvi-
ated by defining o in terms of u, so that u = 
o and u2/o2 = 1. This operation results inn 
= (2.58 + 1.29)2 = 15 (after rounding up-
wards). Since u2 cannot be estimated, Z 
scores should be replaced with t scores. 
One simple way to accomplish this is to 
multiply n by (error df + 3)/(error df + 1), 
with error df being n- 1. Employing this 
yields a sample size of seventeen. The 
sample libraries are listed in table 4. 

The questionnaire asked three ques-

tions relevant to the present study: do li-
brarians at the institution have faculty or 
academic status? If there is a form of fac- · 
ulty or academic status, is publication of 
articles in journals of library and informa-
tion science required for purposes of ten-
ure or continuing status and if there is a 
form of faculty or academic status, is pub-
lication required for promotion? Table 5 
presents results of the survey. 

Because of what would have been small 
cell sizes, the data are not analyzed be-
yond the percentages shown. The follow-
ing comments are otfered on the results · 
presented in table 5. First, we had not ex-
pected the sample group to so closely 



468 College & Research Libraries September 1990 

TABLE3 
MOST PRODUCTIVE INSTITUTIONS 

Rank Institution Total Credit 

1 lllinois 88.00 
2 SUNY-Albany 40.66 
3 Penn State 29.8 
4 TexasA&M 28.17 
5 Northwestern 27.50 
6 Ohio State 27.16 
7 23.33 
8 

Michigan 
Northern lllinois 22.66 

9 North Carolina 
10 Iowa State 
11 Indiana 
12 Pennsylvania 
13 Minnesota 
14 New Mexico 
15 lllinois-Chicago 
15 Purdue 
17 SUNY -Buffalo 
18 Columbia 
19 LSU 
20 Georgia State 

Institution 

Brooklyn College 
CameSie-Mellon Univ. 
Georgta State 
Georgia Tech 
Indiana State Univ. 
New York Univ. 
Rancho Santiago College 

(formerly Santa Ana College) 
Sangamon State Univ. 
Smith College 
Univ. of AriZona 
Univ. of Missouri 
Univ. of Nevada-Reno 
Univ. of Southern Maine 
Univ. of Tennessee 
Univ. of Tennessee-Chattanooga 
Univ. of Wisconsin-Stout 
Univ. of Wyoming 

22.50 
21.50 
19.83 
18.50 
17.83 
17.32 
17.00 
17.00 
15.50 
15.33 
15.00 
14.74 

TABLE4 

SAMPLE INSTITUTIONS 

TABLES 

Total Credit 

2.33 
12.32 
13.74 
7.66 
8.00 

13.73 
2.00 

2.00 
2.33 
6.91 
3.00 
8.00 
1.00 
5.00 
1.00 
2.00 
9.16 

Per Capita 

.693 

.667 

.266 

.433 

.267 

.251 

.161 

.462 

.197 

.448 

.182 

.167 

.177 

.259 

.233 

.395 

.170 

.102 

.224 

.409 

"' = .380 

Per Capita 

.090 

.440 

.382 

.156 

.267 

.130 

.400 

.286 

.106 

.072 

.052 

.320 

.045 

.091 

.067 

.167 

.204 

"' = .190 

COMPARISON OF REQUIREMENTS, TOP TWENTY, AND SAMPLE GROUP 

Category 

Faculty/ Academic Status 
Publication for Tenure* 
Publication for Promotion* 

88.8 
82.3 
88.2 

*Publication is either required or strongly encouraged for both promotion and tenure. 

82.4 
60 
64.3 



Characteristics of Journal Authorship 469 

match the top twenty in terms of facul-
ty/academic status. It is possible that the 
sample is somewhat skewed. In any case, 
further investigation into the demograph-
ics of faculty/academic status may be 
called for. Secondly, table 5 does show a 
rather large difference between the two 
groups in terms of publication being re-
quired/ encouraged for tenure and/ or pro-
motion. 

''There seems to be a disparity be-
tween the rhetoric of the require-
ments and the performance exhibited 
by librarians at these institutions.'' 

The publishing impetus is clearly 
present in the top twenty producers, con-
siderably less so in the sample group. On 
the other hand, 60 percent of the sample 
group claims that publication is required/ 
encouraged. There seems to be a disparity 
between the rhetoric of the requirements 
and the performance exhibited by librari-
ans at these institutions. 

CONCLUSION 

The publishing requirement in aca-
demic libraries quite clearly is not as wide-
spread as may be commonly believed. The 
384 institutions identified in this study as 

producing at least one contribution consti-
tute only 18.3 percent of the 2,074 four-
year institutions of higher learning in this 
country .18 This suggests that academic li-
brarians have a wide range of employ-
ment possibilities that do not require pub-
lication for continued employment. 

On the other hand, "publication" may 
have different interpretations at different 
institutions. The journals investigated 
here are at the national level and most are 
refereed. Also, only articles are counted as 
publications here. It may be that at some 
institutions anything in print-book re-
views, reports of meetings, news notes, 
etc.-is seen as publication suitable for 
meeting promotion and tenure require-
ments. If this is true, it probably repre-
sents a departure from the requirements 
of the teaching faculty at these institu-
tions. It is not the purpose of the present 
paper to advocate or condemn faculty sta-
tus for librarians, but the results of this 
study may stimulate further discussion of 
the definition of faculty status. There is no 
doubt that well-conceived, well-executed 
contributions to the library literature are 
useful and welcome. It is also difficult to 
dispute the fact that there are many de-
mands on librarians' time. What may be 
needed in the future is rhetoric that more 
closely resembles reality and policy based 
on reasonable expectations of achieve-
ment. 

REFERENCES 

1. Emily Werrell and Laura Sullivan, "Faculty Status for Academic Libranans: A Review of the Liter-
ature," College & Research Libraries 48:95-103 (Mar. 1987). 

2. Kee DeBoer and Wendy Culotta, "The Academic Librarian and Faculty Status in the 1980s: A Sur-
vey of the Literature," College & Research Libraries 48:215-23 (May 1987). 

3. Ronald Rayman and Frank William Goudy, "Research and Publication Requirements in Univer-
sity Libraries," College & Research Libraries 41:43-48 Gan. 1980). 

4. Ibid., p.45. 
5. Ibid. 
6. W. Bede Mitchell and L. Stanislava Swieszkowski, "Publication Requirements and Tenure Ap-

proval Rates: An Issue for Academic Librarians,'' College & Research Libraries 46:249-55 (May 1985). 
7. Robert Boice, Jordan M. Scepanski, and Wayne Wilson, "Librarians and Faculty Members: Cop-

ing with Pressures to Publish," College & Research Libraries 48:494-503 (Nov. 1987). 
8. Sylvia C. Krausse and Janice F. Sieburth, "Patterns of Authorship in Library Journals by Aca-

demic Librarians," Serials Librarian 9:127-38 (Spring 1985) and Paula D. Watson, "Production of 
Scholarly Articles by Academic Librarians and Library School Faculty," College & Research Libraries 
46:334-42 Guly 1985). 

9. Krausse and Sieburth, "Patterns of Authorship," p.128. 



470 College & Research Libraries September 1990 

10. Watson, "Production of Scholarly Articles," p.335. 
11. David P. Kohl and Charles H. Davis, "Ratings of Journals by ARL Library Directors and Deans of 

Library and Information Science Schools," College & Research Libraries 46:40-47 Oan. 1985). 
12. Watson, "Production of Scholarly Articles," p.335. 
13. Krausse and Sieburth, "Patterns of Authorship," p.130. 
14. Watson, "Production of Scholarly Articles," p.336. 
15. Alfred J. Lotka, "The Frequency Distribution of Scientific Productivity, 11 Journal of the Washington 

Academy of Science, 16:317-23 (1926). 
16. Russel C. Coile, "Lotka' s Frequency Distribution of Scientific Productivity, 11 Journal of the Ameri-

can Society for Information Science 28:366-70 (Nov. 1977). 
17. Robert G. D. Steel and James H. Torrie, Principles and Procedures of Statistics: A Biometrical Approach, 

2d ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), p.118. 
18. Chronicle Four-Year College Databook, 1987-88 (Moravia, N.Y.: Chronical Guidance Publications, 

Inc., 1987). 

APPENDIX A. JOURNALS EXAMINED 

Behavioral and Social Sciences Librarian 
Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science 
Cataloging and Classification Quarterly 
Collection Building 
Collection Management 
College & Research Libraries 
Database 
Government Information Quarterly 
Government Publications Review 
Information Processin& and Management 
Journal of Academic Ltbrarianship 
Journal of Library Administration 
Journal of Library History (now Libraries and Culture) 
Journal of the American Society for Information Science 
Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory 
Library and Archival Security 
Library and Information Science Research 
Library Hi-Tech 
Library Journal 
Library Quarterly 
Library Resources & Technical Services 
Library Trends 
Microform Review 
Notes 
Online 
Online Review 
RQ 
RSR: Reference Services Review 
The Reference Librarian 
Research Strategies 
Resource Sharing and Information Networks 
Science and Technology Libraries 
The Serials Librarian 
Special Libraries Association, Geography and Map Bulletin 
Technical Services Quarterly 
Western Association of Map Librarians Information Bulletin