Submissions

Author Guidelines

TOPICS

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Library and information trends, including the maker movement, sharing economy, gamification, resilience, connected learning, haptic technology, linked data, and elder services
• Big data, data mining, data science, text mining, data analytics
• Social media, computer-mediated communication, web 2.0
• Human-computer interaction, information architecture, user experience, usability
• Information needs, seeking behavior, and use
• Libraries (public, academic, special, school, etc.) and information centers
• Misinformation, information literacy
• Disaster preparation and recovery, including crisis informatics
• Preservation and conservation, including the impact of global climate change
• Scholarly communication, including libraries as publishers and information creators
• International dialogue on LIS topics, including organizations such as IFLA and the International Librarians Network
• The impact of library and information services on political discourse and activity, socio-economic trends, and quality of life
• Marketing and advocacy, including case studies of approaches and campaigns
• Library design and innovative use
• The for-profit library sector and economic globalization
• Comparative librarianship, including postcolonial studies
• Information services and minority groups, including immigrant communities, indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ people
• Literacy, including information and artifactual literacy
• Demonstrating the value of library and information services
• Access to information and intellectual freedom, information ethics, and privacy 
• The future of library and information services
• Leaders or influential figures in the library and information sector
• And library and information topics in any country or region, particularly emerging countries and regions

TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS

Submissions may take the form of research papers, interviews, reportage and correspondence, opinion pieces, talks and lectures, roundtables, multimedia storytelling, and product and media reviews (including books, audio-visual works, and electronic resources). Other types of submissions are welcome and will be given due consideration by our editorial team. Accepted research papers are evaluated by at least two peer reviewers.

FORMAT

To aid in the review of your manuscript, create a first page that consists only of the following elements:

• Title
• Author's name(s)
• Professional title/position
• Institutional affiliation
• E-mail addresses
• Direct comments to: e-mail address, postal address

On the next page of the manuscript, put the title again and begin the text of the paper. The author's name(s) should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript unless there are citations to other publications. By doing this, the editor can send the manuscript for blind peer review by removing the first page.

REQUIRED ELEMENTS

Each manuscript should contain the following elements:

• A cover sheet (see instructions above)
• A title. The title should accurately reflect the content of the manuscript.
• An abstract. The abstract is a brief summary of a paper's fundamental findings and conclusions. A well-written abstract will attract the interest of readers by succinctly presenting the facts and ideas that are contained in the paper. 
• A brief biographical statement for each author is identified with the heading About the Author.
• Clearly labeled contents that include an introduction, discussion, and conclusion.
• Internal citations as appropriate (See instructions below)
• Notes (if any) (see instructions below)
• References (see instructions below)
• Acknowledgments (if desired)

Material of any length will be considered. In certain cases, articles may be edited into research summaries or divided into parts over more than one issue. This will be done only with the author's permission.

Material submitted to World Libraries should not have been previously published in this form, nor should it be under consideration for publication elsewhere, unless by specific agreement with the editor of World Libraries. If the material has previously been published in some other form (as a conference paper, for example), that information should be specified after the title on the first page.

STYLE GUIDELINES

World Libraries follows the American Psychological Association (APA) Style. Authors may wish to consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition, Concise Guide to APA Style, Seventh Edition, and Mastering APA Style Student Workbook, Seventh Edition for a convenient digest of the directions presented in the APA Style. 

NOTES

Notes in a manuscript may be used either to add details to the text or to refer users to citations.

Notes should be consecutively numbered and collected at the end of the paper, after the conclusion, and before the References section. You may either format the citations in the text of the article as superscript numbers (e.g., 1) or in brackets (e.g., [1]). Do not set them up as footnotes on each page or embedded in the text.

If cited works are described in notes, it is not necessary to list them again in a separate reference list. If, however, the author wishes to cite other works, a separate list of additional resources may be given.