Authorship in Academic Librarianship Journals, 2015–2019: Evaluating Author Occupations, National and Institutional Affiliations, and Coauthorship

Abstract

This study evaluated authorship in academic librarianship journals by assessing factors such as occupation, institutional affiliation, national affiliation, and coauthor relationships. The findings showed increased coauthorship, reinforcing the findings of previous studies. However, academic library practitioners as authors declined. Authorship was dominated by English-speaking Western nations with very high Human Development Indexes (HDI), and U.S. authorship was disproportionately represented by research-intensive (R1) doctoral institutions. Implications for diversity of representation and relevance to applied practice are discussed, along with suggestions for journal editorial boards to evaluate their content solicitation and promotion, peer review processes, and author support services.