Comparison of US and UK rankings of LIS journals
| Date | 15 May 2017 |
| Pages | 354-367 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-08-2016-0136 |
| Published date | 15 May 2017 |
| Author | Lynsey Taylor,Peter Willett |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
Comparison of US and UK
rankings of LIS journals
Lynsey Taylor and Peter Willett
Information School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate UK academics’views of the importance and prestige of
journals relevant to library and information science (LIS) teaching and research.
Design/methodology/approach –A questionnaire, based on one used previously in the USA, was sent to
UK academics involved in LIS teaching and research. The questionnaire asked respondents to rate the
importance of 87 LIS journals, to suggest others that were of importance to them but that were not amongst
the 87, and to identify the five most prestigious journals for promotion purposes. In addition, those journals
were identified that had figured in institutional submissions to the LIS Unit of Assessment in Research
Excellence Framework (REF).
Findings –While there was a fair measure of overall agreement between US and UK rankings of the
87 journals, with both highlighting the standing of the Journal of the Association for Information Science and
Technology and of the Journal of Documentation, some substantial differences were also noted. Evidence is
presented for a strong locational component to academics’assessments of journal prestige, and analysis of the
REF2014 submissions demonstrates the highly inter-disciplinary nature of LIS research in the UK.
Research limitations/implications –The sample size is small, comprising 30 completed responses.
Originality/value –This is the first study to report UK academics’rankings of LIS journals, and to compare
those with comparable data for US academics.
Keywords Research Excellence Framework, Journal ranking, LIS research, Inter-disciplinarity,
Journal prestige, LIS teaching
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
There is much interest in evaluating and ranking the quality of academic journals, since
their importance can influence authors’choices of where to publish their research, this in
turn affecting decisions relating to salary and promotion (Adams and Johnson, 2008;
Chen and Chen, 2011; Nixon, 2014; Tourish and Willmott, 2015). In an ideal world, of course,
the ideas and findings within a research article should achieve recognition on their own
merits, irrespective of the quality of the journal where they are published; in the real world,
however, more credit is associated with publishing in some journals than in others, this
despite a continuing debate in the literature as to the utility and appropriateness of journal
rankings (Brembs et al., 2013; Macdonald and Kam, 2007; Marsh and Hunt, 2006; Osterloh
and Frey, 2014; Sangster, 2015; Willmott, 2011). Journal rankings also support collection
management decisions, enable editors or publishers to monitor the success of their journals,
and allow outsiders to acquaint themselves with a field’s most important journals
(Manzari, 2013; Nisonger and Davis, 2005; Rousseau, 2002).
The ranking of journals has been discussed in many different disciplines, such as
accountancy, computer science, marketing, tourism and, of particular importance here,
library and information science (LIS). To date, the great majority of ranking studies for LIS
journals have been conducted in the USA, and it was this that led us to carry out the study
reported here, which investigates the perceptions of LIS journal prestige as determined by a
questionnaire survey of UK LIS staff in which they were asked to rank 87 LIS journals that
had been used in a previous, analogous study conducted in the USA by Manzari (2013).
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 69 No. 3, 2017
pp. 354-367
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-08-2016-0136
Received 19 August 2016
Revised 9 November 2016
Accepted 2 February 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
The authors thank Dr Laura Manzari for helpful comments on the design of the survey, and the
referees for comments on the first version of this paper.
354
AJIM
69,3
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