*As of July 2014, Journal of Digital Information is not accepting submissions.*
Publication analysis
About the publication
Title: Journal of Digital Information (JoDI)
ISSN: 1368-75061
Website: http://journals.tdl.org/jodi
Purpose, objective, or mission: JoDI focuses on “Publishing papers on the management, presentation, and uses of information in digital environments.”2 JoDI “Covers digital libraries, hypertext and hypermedia systems, and digital repositories and the issues of digital information.”3
Target audience: Information professionals, researchers, and scholars interested in digital information and environments.4
Publisher: Texas A & M University Libraries.5
Peer reviewed? Yes6
Type: LIS scholarly7
Medium: Online8
Content: “…the Journal of Digital Information is an electronic-only, peer-reviewed journal covering the broad topics related to digital libraries, hypertext and hypermedia systems and digital repositories, and the issues of digital information.”9
Frequency of publication: Irregular, often several volumes per year.10
About the publication’s submission guidelines
Location of submission guidelines: http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/index.php/jodi/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
Types of contributions accepted: This publication accepts articles these themes: information discovery, visual interfaces and digital libraries. Per the website, “Papers submitted to JoDI must be original. As a peer-reviewed journal JoDI is unable to consider papers that have been accepted by or published in another peer reviewed source, or any other publication where copyright in the work has been assigned to another party (this does not include any copy on your personal or your institutional websites). For the same reason, JoDI is also unable to consider papers while they may be being considered for publication elsewhere.”11
Submission and review process: Submission is online and requires authors to create an account with the site. From the site: “Since JoDI is a web-based journal, the preferred presentation format is HTML. We strongly recommend submission in this form but we will accept manuscripts in other Web-viewable formats, such as PDF. Where a non-html paper is submitted the author’s final, refereed and accepted copy will be presented unedited, supplemented with an edited html ‘front page’ version.”12 Once an article is submitted an author is able to monitor the review process by logging into their account.
Editorial tone: Academic13
Style guide used: None specified; however, the submission guidelines document does provide specific examples of references and formatting.14
Conclusion: Evaluation of publication’s potential for LIS authors
The Journal of Digital information is a very good journal for librarians interested in writing on the technical aspects of digital information (metadata, indexing, hypermedia, digital curation, etc).
Audience analysis
About the publication’s readers
Publication circulation: Circulation for this online, open-access journal is not available.
Audience location and language or cultural considerations: The readers’ geographic locations are unknown, though there are probably more readers in Texas as that is where the journal is based.15 The Journal of Digital Information is a highly specialized electronic journal, so even though Texas may have more readers per capita, the publication’s readership most likely spread throughout the United States and, to some extent, other English-speaking countries.16 The Journal of Digital Information is published in English. Since JoDI is an academic journal, it is likely that most readers are students, professors, and professionals.17 Despite academia being a sort of micro-culture, it is still important for writers to refrain from cultural references that may be too local.
Reader characteristics: Readers of the Journal of Digital Information are most likely information professionals specializing in digital storage and retrieval. Workplaces may range from libraries, software companies, various technical services, and IT departments. Readers of the Journal of Digital Information are highly specific in their reading interest; hence, it is not safe to assume that the average reader will have a high degree of knowledge or interest in libraries or information organizations — except as they may pertain to digital information dissemination. Writers wishing to publish should keep in mind that readers are highly specialized and most likely are well versed in the field of digital information.18
Knowledge of LIS subject matter: Readers will have extensive knowledge related to digital information (such as tagging, indexing, web2.0, and database-design) but may not have such a well-versed comprehension of other aspects of librarianship.19
Conclusion: Analysis of reader characteristics and their potential impact on authors
Potential authors for the Journal of Digital Information should know that their readers are well-read and comfortable with technical jargon. Readers come to JoDI for research-oriented essays and reports, and expect to see research conveyed with tables and charts. Keeping this in mind, readers can be creative with their essays as long as it still pertains to the topic (a good example is from 2006’s vol.7 no. 2 issue: “Finding Murphy Brown: How Accessible are Historic Television Broadcasts?” by Jeff Ubois20). JoDI is a free electronic publication, so it may be of interest to potential authors that their work will be online and available to anyone who creates an account with the Texas Digital Library.
Last updated: November 3, 2014
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