About the publication
Title: Journal of eScience Librarianship (JeSLIB)
ISSN: 2161-39741
Website: https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/
Purpose, objective, or mission: “The Journal of eScience Librarianship (JeSLIB) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal advancing the theory and practice of librarianship focusing on services related to data-driven research in science, technology, engineering, math, social sciences, medicine, and public health.”2
Target audience: JeSLIB is geared towards librarians and other LIS professionals interested in eScience.3
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Medical School4
Medium: Online5
Peer reviewed: Yes6
Content: “JeSLIB explores the many roles of librarians in supporting eScience and welcomes articles by contributors from all areas of the globe related to education, outreach, collaborations, policy, tools, and best practices. Submissions covering both theoretical and practical applications are welcomed.
General topics of interest may include but are not limited to:
- Research data management
- Librarians embedded on research teams
- Data services, including policy development
- Data curation
- Data sharing and re-use
- Data management plans
- Data preservation
- Metadata and discoverability
- Institutional and discipline-specific repositories
- Impact of governmental or institutional policies
- Open data, open science and open access
- Data literacy and data education
- Data citation
- Tracking impact of research data, metrics
- Big data
- Visualization”7
Type: Academic / Scholarly8
Frequency of publication: Once or twice a year9
About the publication’s submission guidelines
Location of submission guidelines: https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/styleguide.html
Types of contributions accepted:
- “Full-Length Paper
- eScience in Action
- Letter to the Editor
- Review
- Video Article
- Commentary”10
Submission and review process: As is standard, the journal only accepts original, unpublished manuscripts which aren’t currently under review elsewhere.11 After reviewing the submission guidelines, authors must follow the directions to submit their manuscripts at this link.
The journal uses a double-blind peer review process, which typically takes six to eight weeks to complete.12
Editorial tone: The tone is described as “academic / scholarly”13 and “clear and concise.”14
Style guide used: The journal asks authors to use the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.15
Conclusion: Evaluation of publication’s potential for LIS authors
JeSLIB is an excellent publication for LIS authors interested in tackling scientific issues through the lens of an LIS perspective. Additionally, due to its open access policy, JeSLIB authors have the potential to share their research with readers worldwide. Thirdly, the journal is indexed in the prestigious PubMed database.16 All in all, JeSLIB is a very prestigious publication for qualified LIS authors.
Audience analysis
About the publication’s readers
Publication circulation: The journal is freely available to readers online (no subscription required), and its articles have been downloaded over 100,000 times.17
Audience location: Although the journal is published in English, readers hail from a wide variety of countries all over the world.18
Reader characteristics: The majority of readers will be LIS professionals and/or professionals “in science, technology, engineering, math, social sciences, medicine, and public health.”19
Knowledge of LIS subject matter: On account of JeSLIB‘s often specialized subject matter (e.g., metadata, data visualization, etc.),20 it’s safe to assume that most readers will have extensive knowledge of LIS subject matter.
Conclusion: Analysis of reader characteristics and their potential impact on authors
Ideally, authors will have experience in at least one of the aforementioned scientific fields. Readers will expect authors to thoroughly explain their findings in the interest of the scientific integrity. Many readers will also expect authors to have professional experience in a scientific field, such as an academic degree and/or job experience. Finally, readers will expect all articles to be discussed in relation to LIS subject matter, in keeping with the journal’s purpose.
Last updated: April 18, 2018
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