Publication analysis
About the publication
Title: LIBREAS: Library Ideas
ISSN: 1860-79501
Website: http://libreas.eu/
Note: the site is written mostly in German; if not fluent, use a translator to view content. Google Chrome is the easiest browser to use to translate content.
Purpose, objective, or mission: LIBREAS: Library Ideas, is an open access online journal that deals with contemporary issues in LIS.2
The site began as a student project intended in part to bolster the presence of the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. The staff eventually graduated and entered a professional career and desired “an interface between the young savages and the old hands,” a public place to exchange ideas and information between old and young, academic, and professional. It is a journal that the writers want to read themselves.3
Target audience: LIS new professionals, and the public audience, with particular attention to Germany and Europe.4
Publisher: Published at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, by LIBREAS-Verein.5
Peer reviewed? No formal peer-review process; content is reviewed by the publication’s editors.6
Type: An LIS professional publication, although some articles are scholarly.7
Medium: Online. You may also follow LIBREAS on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.8
Content: Editorials; articles and essays under topics like Theory, Practice, and Projects, about LIS-related news & events, and LIS-content book reviews. Some issues also include podcasts and photo galleries.9
Frequency of publication: Irregularly.10
About the publication’s submission guidelines
Location of submission guidelines: http://libreas.wordpress.com/category/libreas-call-for-papers/ and https://libreas.eu/authorguides/
Types of contributions accepted: Articles and essays related to any aspect of LIS.11
Submission and review process: Send a short sketch of your idea or abstract via email to the editors: redaktion@libreas.eu.12
Editorial tone: Information presented with a fresh, often wry perspective. LIBREAS is open, fresh, and also controversial, in order to leave room for development, to recognize niches in order to unfold trends out of them.13
Style guide used: None specified: but citations should be uniform and formatting should be minimal, as anything beyond structural formatting is lost in the conversion to an online format. Essays should be written in MS Word, LibreOffice or OpenOffice Writer, with a German and English abstract.14
Conclusion: Evaluation of publication’s potential for LIS authors
This is a wonderful site that aims to bridge generations and LIS academics and professionals with a touch of humor and humility. The articles are interesting and well-written and apply to LIS practitioners across the globe, not just from Germany. From a 2012 issue’s editorial, LIBREAS editors see themselves as part of a culture of communication in the library and information science and library practice.15
Audience analysis
About the publication’s readers
Publication circulation: Not available. The journal is an open access, online publication.16
Audience location and language or cultural considerations: LIBREAS is published at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany so many contributors and editors are from Germany. Written in German (easily translatable using a Google Chrome browser or add-on on other browsers) and partly in English, the journal references U.S. and world culture frequently, so writers from other countries should not feel intimidated.17
Reader characteristics: Editors and writers consist of scientists and library scholars, LIS professionals and students, academic and otherwise. Anyone with an interest in the information profession.18
LIBREAS aims to continue a discourse and keep LIS relevant in academic and professional circles, but also in the community at large. (Community being initially specific to Berlin, but encompassing the entire online world reading this journal.)19 They also encourage open access journals in the LIS field as a way of promoting more discourse. From LIBREAS 21: It “is important to us that a large number of colleagues bring to the library and information science debate that they also demand accountability and transparency in decisions on libraries and library infrastructure that, if necessary, call for more level of debate. And not just in the LIBREAS, but also in all other publications and forms.”20
Knowledge of LIS subject matter: Strong, but authors should not assume that readers will have a working knowledge of complicated LIS terminology. As it is an open access journal, the information is easily available to anyone.21
Conclusion: Analysis of reader characteristics and their potential impact on authors
LIBREAS was created from an idea of forging old and new LIS ideas to create a dialogue amongst LIS professionals and academics. It is passionate, but not overwhelmingly so; and articles are interesting, usually with a philosophical or larger world-view slant that will appeal to LIS and non-LIS readers alike.
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