This is not a simple question. Peer-reviewed means that the articles are
sent to outside reviewers who work in the same field as the author of the
article for their judgement. It says nothing about the quality of the
review.

Almost all first rate scholarly journals are peer-reviewed, and quite
rigorously. Some first rate scholarly journals are not peer reviewed. For
many years PNAS was not peer reviewed, and would print anything
contributed by a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Nonetheless
it was one of the very highest quality journals in the world.

Some peer reviewed journals are prepared to skip or truncate peer review
when an article from a trusted source is contributed. In perhaps the most
famous example, "Nature" printed Watson and Crick's paper on the structure
of DNA without formal peer review.

Many lower-quality peer reviewed journals are peer-reviewed in the sense
that reviews are obtained, but the editor will none the less apparently
print almost anything on the topic. I will not cite examples, but the
literature of many subjects, including librarianship, will furnish a great
many. Furthermore, in many cases the supplements or proceedings that
accompany or form part of some journals are peer-reviewed to a lesser
standard than the main portion.

So it isn't cut-and-dried. Peer review is only one of the criteria. One
must also examine the quality of the articles. Expert opinion is one way,
and citation analysis, which when used properly can be seen as a summary
of expert opinion, is another.

 David Goodman, Princeton University Biology Library
dgoodman@princeton.edu            609-258-3235

On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Nancy Crow wrote:

> We are having an ongoing discussion on what is peer-reviewed and what is
> scholarly publications.  Is there any definitive definitions of types of
> serials.
>
> Ulrich's (page x of the 2000 38th ed.) seems to indicate that refereed and
> peer reviewed are one and the same.  Also, it says that "Omission of title
> from the index" in vol. 5 of Ulrich's "does not mean that the journal is
> not peer-reviewed."  Some titles, such as Adolescence, are listed as
> scholar/academic publication in the title listing in Ulrich's, but are not
> listed in the Refereed Section of Ulrich's vol. 5.
>
> Searching of  EBSCOHost databases can be limited to peer-reviewed journals,
> but these sometime vary from Ulrich's.  This is confusing to a fairly new
> serials librarian.  Please help.
>
> Nancy Crow, Assistant Librarian
> Serials/Interlibrary Loan
> Quincy University
> 1800 College Ave.
> Quincy, IL  62301-2699
> crowna@quincy.edu
>