2 messages, 68 lines:

(1)---------------------------
Date:         Fri, 21 Mar 1997 17:52:03 EST
From:         Albert Henderson <70244.1532@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject:      Definition of Scholarly Journal

A scholarly journal is any periodical which, when fed to scholars, produces
scholarly articles, monographs, reviews, or footnotes.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
70244.1532@compuserve.com

------------------- Forwarded message -----------------------------------
On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Steve Murden wrote:
> This may seem really simplistic, but I need your help.
>
> Can anybody give me a good, all-purpose definition of the term
> "scholarly journal?"
>
> A teaching faculty member presented one of my public service staff
> with a definition that essentially said it is a publication that is
> put together by people who are qualified to teach in that
> discipline.  I find this a little too simplistic and too oriented
> towards academics.  The staff member and I agreed that we know one
> when we see one, but giving a concrete definition is a problem.
>
> Anybody have any helpful suggestions?  TIA.

(2)---------------------------
Date:         Fri, 21 Mar 1997 10:57:32 -0800
From:         Mitch Turitz <turitz@SFSU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Definition of "scholarly journal"

Steve:
  Generally, I would describe a "scholarly journal" as a periodical that
is REFEREED or PEER REVIEWED.  That is, the articles are reviewed prior to
publication to see if they are factual and up to the standards for the
publication in question.  Generally, the reviewers would be other experts
in the same subject area (e.g. an article on cataloging would be reviewed
by a cataloger and not by a reference librarian).  Some such peer reviews
are "blind referred" so that the reviewer does not know who wrote the
article (and would not be influenced by someone's reputation) and the
author of the article does not know who did the reviewing.  Generally,
these kinds of publications would also have some kind of rejection rate,
and not publish everything which is submitted to them.
  Two examples off the top of my head are SERIALS LIBRARIAN, and, SERIALS
REVIEW.  Usually there will be instructions somewhere in the publication
about how to submit articles and that should give you a clue as to if they
are refereed or not.

  If these kinds of standards were applied to web sites, we would have a
way of ranking or "approving" web sites as "scholarly", in my opinion.
-- Mitch

  _^_                                                 _^_
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-( ___ )
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 |   |     Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian           |   |
 |   |     San Francisco State University Library    |   |
 |   |     Internet: turitz@sfsu.edu                 |   |
 |   |     http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~turitz           |   |
 |   |                                               |   |
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      "I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather ...
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