Why Professional Librarian Journals Should Evolve into Blogs

In the last few months I've attempted to lead the transition of the journal Biomedical Digital Libraries (BDL) from publication on BioMed Central to publication via the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform. The critical difference now is that prospective authors owe no author fees. In its four years of existence BDL has published several articles that received buzz among people interested in digital libraries. It felt good to be part of reviving the flagging fortunes of BDL.

But something funny happened on the way to OJS: I became firmly convinced that the traditional journal model is antiquated for sharing research and knowledge among librarians.  A better course is to develop and nurture excellent blogs, with multimedia capabilities and guaranteed preservation of the postings. This could be an entirely new blog that starts from scratch, or an established journal that evolves into a blog. 

Once this belief sunk in, I didn't have the same passion for reviving BDL that I used to. As one of my goals for the upcoming Medical Library Association meeting in May, I hope to identify a new leader for BDL who will give it the attention and energy that it deserves.  My own energy will shift towards getting this blog project off the ground--it could take years, but I think it's worth it.

My arguments:

1. As respected library commentator Walt Crawford notes, blogs are among the most vibrant library literature today.  I agree with Crawford, and believe there is no reason why all of the rigor traditionally associated with journals could not be maintained on a blog contributed to by multiple authors.

2. Peer review should be a post-publication process, rather than a pre-publication process that sometimes drags out for many months.  If physicists can post pre-prints that get discussions flowing quickly, why can't librarians?

The argument for pre-publication peer review is that it filters out poor research. This is a legitimate concern when the research in question is about a new and potentially deadly medical intervention. Library research is not like this; peer review can occur via community conversation.

Counter-arguments:

1. Most people will prefer to publish in established journals rather than an unestablished blog.  Of course this is true, which is why the evolution to a blog paradigm would take a long time.

2. All of the supporting structures--from PubMed citations to tenure requirements--favor the traditional journal. Blogs are still too new to be taken seriously as a venue for enduring research.

Rebuttal: This is certainly true now, but--ultimately--what is a scholarly journal but a means of communication among people of similar interests and backgrounds? Why can't blogs achieve the same goals?

3. Blogs are ephemeral; they come and go at the speed of light. In some cases, good journals have existed for hundreds of years.

Response: The proof of the viability of a scholarly blog will be in how long it lasts. But even if the blog failed, that would be a function of a lack of commitment among the people involved.  There is no intrinsic reason why all of the functions served by a quality journal cannot be served just as well by a carefully designed and managed blog. 

Comments

[Jane]

Interesting speculation in light of your blog survey results. I would think that in general blog authors would agree, but blog readers might not, at least not yet. So the question becomes, are the blog authors the same people as the journal article writers? Is the professional as a whole ready for this shift?

I'd certainly support the change. One of my big frustrations is the gap between research or project and publication or presentation. What we read in our journals and hear at our meetings is usually at least a year old. Can we continue to afford that much time lag?

[Marcus]

Great points Jane. We're looking at a years-long transition to blogs being accorded the same status as journals, I think. But blogs are already hastening professional conversation--or at least the sharing of news--which is a good thing already.

[James Jacobs]

Hi Marcus. I'm on the publications committee of ALA's Govt Documents Roundtable (GODORT), the group that leads the publication of our roundtable journal, Documents to the People (DttP). This is an interesting thought piece, and something that's I've been mulling about as well. Let me say first that I wholeheartedly agree that a blog could make a group's publication more lively, collaborative and timely.

While I agree with your conclusion overall, I think you sold the issue a bit short by skipping a couple of compelling arguments and perhaps missing the point on your pre/post publication peer review argument.

First, pre/post review. you seem to think that publishing in a blog format means that the process of peer review shifts from pre- to post-publication. Actually the blog format could allow for *both* and could speed up the process to publication. The blog could be used for article submission, with for example, votes from the community (ala reddit.com) for which submissions are worthy of review/publication. It could also be used to manage the process of editing and peer review

And some things you didn't mention:

• blogs cut down the costs of publication/distribution (and can, if one chooses, be a revenue stream with google ads, sections for highlighted vendors etc.)


• blogs are more easily found and searchable in popular search engines


• blogs speed up community input, which makes articles all the more interesting, lively, and contextual.


• blogs are closer to the ideal of "scholarly communication" than paper journals with necessarily long publication cycles.


• blog could be used *in addition to* a traditional journal (paper or digital) to highlight TOCs and important articles, add content to articles that couldn't be published in paper, post responses to articles and timely items of interest to the community.


• --LC allows for ISSN's for blogs

As you can see, I'm not thinking of a blog as an either/or proposition but rather a both/and or a hybridization of traditional publishing model. I'd be interested to hear if you know of other society publications that have shifted to a blog format or have used a blog as the traditional journal's splash page.

Thanks again!

james

[James Jacobs]

bummer. my formatting showed in the preview but not in the final version of the comments. sorry about that. j

[Marcus]

Thanks so much James. I agree with all your arguments--perhaps I stated the issue too baldly as "journals vs. blogs."

We're fairly innovative at Biomedical Digital Libraries--all production processes are online, and peer review is "open" (i.e., the reviewers and authors know whom the other is.) But nevertheless, a paper doesn't go up until it's gone through multiple rounds of review. Looking back at everything we've published, I can see no harm in getting those papers out earlier--philosophically, at least. Practically speaking, people don't want to injure their reputations by offering up less than polished work. Who can blame them?

I'm calling for a professional shift that values speed of new ideas over polished presentation (while recognizing that the polish has a place too). This will be a long time coming, but I think it's worth it.