Publishing in ‘Health Information and Libraries Journal’
Why? How? What?
Dr Graham Walton
Health Information and Libraries Journal is a peer-reviewed specialist journal which is international in scope. It aims to provide an interdisciplinary forum for researchers, students and information specialists in libraries, telecommunications, the computer industry and the health professions to exchange ideas and information within the broad field of health care information and librarianship.
Why write an article for publication in a library journal?
It should be the aim of every profession to build up a body of knowledge in their subject by attracting high-quality contributions in areas of shared interest. Publication of articles also helps to disseminate good practice to colleagues in the same field.
There are also personal benefits – the process of researching a subject and detailing your findings in a rigorous, scholarly fashion assists with your personal development. Where several staff collaborate on a piece of work it can also be a valuable staff development exercise. It also has to be said that having a history of publishing, however modest, can only be good for your career. Finally, one would hope that the process of research and writing for publication is actually good fun, despite the hard work which accompanies it!
Why write an article for publication in Health Information Libraries Journal?
If you’re going to the effort of conducting research and writing for publication, you might as well aim for in a journal which reflects the effort you have put in. HILJ is a peer-reviewed journal and the articles it publishes therefore have a degree of credibility which other journals may not offer. The peer-review process is respected within academic communities and is effectively the best way of ensuring that a piece of research or writing has a lasting and measurable value to the community or profession it serves.
HILJ is a high profile journal, with a good reputation among both the library community and the health sciences community in the UK and the world. Having an international readership with contributors drawn from many countries is a good indication of the standing of a journal. It has also been heartening to note that electronic access figures indicate a high use (there were 10,863 hits in 2002, rising to 28,235 in 2003)
How do you write an article for HILJ?
Firstly, you need to identify a subject of interest and relevance. It should primarily be interesting and relevant to you – your enthusiasm and knowledge can be transplanted into others if your article is written well. For guidance on choice of subject or approach to the subject, consider consulting the editor of the journal or a colleague at early stage.
Your article can be a literature review, an original study, a brief communication or news item, or a focus on a particular service development with which you have been involved.
You should consider ‘team authorship’ of your article – this is much easier than trying to accomplish everything by yourself. The team approach helps to spread the load, and multiple perspectives help to ensure that you haven’t overlooked something major in your work. Establish a clear structure for your article as early as possible, and undertake an effective literature search. The literature search is crucial to the development of your article and, ultimately, to its credibility. A poor literature search which omits key contributions to discussion and thought on a subject is likely to lead to an incomplete article.
It is important to follow guidelines for contributors as laid down by the journal – presenting your article in an acceptable way is the first hurdle you will face in trying to get published, and it seems pointless to fall at this hurdle when it could be avoided. Give attention to detail – spelling, punctuation, accuracy and so on.
In terms of style, it helps to have a great opening paragraph which grabs the reader. Don’t procrastinate – make your points and have faith in your research and your findings. At this draft stage, it’s a good idea to use critical friend(s) whose judgment you trust. They can help to sharpen up your work before it gets to the editorial stage.
What is the process for an article go through for publication in HILJ?
Firstly, an proposed article is submitted to Blackwells for consideration. If it is a brief communication- or news-type article, the editorial team decide on whether to publish. If it is an original article, it is sent to two peer reviewers who review the methodology, structure and content. Their eventual written response is sent to author(s) with an indication that the article has been accepted, accepted subject to revisions or rejected. Once any revisions are received from the author, the article is scheduled for publication.
What subject should I write about for HILJ?
Looking at the number of ‘hits’ recorded on the electronic version of HILJ might give some idea of the level of interest in particular subjects. For instance, we see that the highest number of hits for particular articles were recorded as follows;
Rank Title Number of hits
1Impact of library on patient services 750 hits2Current contents Connect and Pubmed compared733 hits3Developing evidence based librarianship622 hits30Feminism, health information and librarianship222 hits60Searching for evidence to prepare patient information146 hits98Introducing touch screens to ethnic minority groups82 hits
What is the future for HILJ?
We hope to move to an increased degree of electronic delivery for HILJ, and achieve growth in both readership and the number of contributions we receive. We would like our contributions to achieve a more international flavour, and also to reflect a more multi-disciplinary readership. Our longer-term aim is to achieve an impact factor, proof that our scholarly articles are of value to the academic and research community we service.
If you would like more information on HILJ, please contact me at graham.walton@unn.ac.uk or visit the HILJ pages on the Blackwells website at; http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1471-1834&site=1
Dr Graham Walton
Editor HILJ
Graham.Walton@unn.ac.uk