Focus and Scope

College & Research Libraries includes articles in all fields of interest and concern to academic and research libraries. Well-written manuscripts on all aspects of academic and research librarianship will be considered. The focus of the journal is on reports of original research. Manuscripts may also include descriptive narratives of successful and unsuccessful ventures, thoughtful discussions of issues in librarianship, and other suitable subjects.

The editor and the Editorial Board invite submissions relevant to the goals stated in the ACRL Plan for Excellence, as well as the research areas identified in ACRL White Papers and Reports.

Peer Review Process

College & Research Libraries is a refereed journal using double-anonymous reviewing. The reviewers are not known to the authors and the authors should not be known to the reviewers. Therefore, we ask that the authors anonymize their paper prior to submission including removing or making generic the author identification and the institution that is the subject of the paper.

The editor reads each manuscript and may reject papers that are clearly outside of the scope of the journal or do not meet the author guidelines.  Submissions meeting the author guidelines are then sent to two peer reviewers who have indicated expertise in the area of the study. These peer reviewers will review and make recommendations to the editor as well as giving feedback to the author.  The editor will review the reviewer comments and make a decision about the paper.  In cases where the feedback is varied or less substantial, the editor may either closely review the submission and reconcile the feedback or seek a third reviewer.

Reviewers address themselves to the content and style of the manuscript. Main areas of consideration are:

• Does the manuscript make a new contribution to the literature?
• Is the method used appropriate to the subject?
• Does the evidence presented support the hypothesis?
• Does the author communicate clearly with an educated, yet not necessarily specialized, audience?
• Does the literature review place the research or opinions in perspective?

This review process takes ten to twelve weeks. After the decision has been made, the editor writes to the author accepting the manuscript, accepting it contingent on revisions, or rejecting it. Authors may not submit the manuscript to other publications while a C&RL review is in progress.  For more information on process and timeline, please read "Opening the Black Box" at http://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/16536/17982.

Publication

Once accepted, formal online publication occurs within the next twelve to eighteen months. The editor may offer recommendations for changes when the article is accepted. Further editing may occur to tailor the article to C&RL's style.

The agreement between ACRL and the author is license to publish. The author retains copyright and thus is free to post the article on an institutional or personal repository subsequent to acceptance for publication in C&RL. 

All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License except as indicated. 

Publication Frequency

College & Research Libraries is a bi-monthly publication with issues in:

• January
• March
• May
• July
• September
• November

Periodically, there are special issues compiled with a topical or programmatic focus.

Open Access Policy

C&RL is an open access journal. All contents are freely available immediately to the public without charge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of all contents. Authors retain their copyright and articles are published under a CC-BY-NC license.