LSJ Editor’s Blog

Hi everyone,

I wanted to re-emerge and apologize for my disappearing act since my last post!  Funny how time flies and another semester is already done. Anyhow, I have a few announcements and thoughts for the summer to share.

Firstly, I want to offer a big CONGRATULATIONS! to our graduating staff, authors and readers who have completed their programs this spring!  You have all worked very hard and are about to embark on an exciting new journey in your professional careers.  We at LSJ wish you luck and hop you will consider continuing involvement in supporting LSJ and student publication.  Also, be aware that you have some opportunities to contribution to the LSJ publication as a library or information professional, albeit in a slightly different way.  See our “who can submit” section on the information page for authors for more information: http://www.librarystudentjournal.org/index.php/lsj/information/authors

Secondly, this summer I am working hard to get some of our lingering projects completed.  Thank you everyone for your patience as we work together on this.  We value the hard work our authors invest in their work and are committed to getting their work out.  I apologize to those of you who have had projects stall and always encourage you to email me with questions or concerns if you have them.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has shown interest in being a part of our Editorial Review Board.  I am responding to applicants and hope to have a few new board members with us soon.  I will be posting some new positions soon as I finish organizing the staff who are graduating and assessing what the needs for next semester are.  These will all go up on the blog soon.  I will also be seeking to replace my own position for the fall as I have increasing responsibilities and need to hand over the reins to someone who can guide LSJ with enthusiasm and integrity and champion open access and student publication.  This job ad will up soon as well with more information for applicants.

Happy Summer to you all- more soon!

Cheers,

Miriam

I am excited to be authoring my first post on the Editor’s Blog!  I want to roll out the new year with a big “thank you” to our retired staff and a “welcome!” to our new folks.  I am excited to work with the editorial team as well as with our many talented authors. 

I am getting settled into my new role as LSJ editor and thank everyone for their patience as I ask many questions, try to wrap up old projects and set my sights on developing LSJ.  We are all working hard to move pending projects through and roll out the next issue of LSJ- watch for this to happen in the near future!  I hope to attend to this blog as much as I can and keep everyone up-to-date about the LSJ world- so stay tuned for more action.

Here is to an exciting 2009,
Miriam

I am thrilled to announce that LSJ has hired a new editor.

Miriam’s previous involvement with LSJ as a board member and a reviewer, as well as her enthusiasm for student scholarship, make her the ideal candidate for the gig. She is a doctoral student and Information in Society fellow at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  She holds a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in Anthropology and a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Iowa.  Miriam’s research interests include public libraries, book studies, readers and reading, libraries as cultural domains, identity of the library profession, virtual worlds, and electronic book reading devices.  Miriam is excited to support peer-reviewed student research, especially in the Open Access context:

“I view the Editor in Chief position as a venue to promote LIS research, deepen the dialogue between researchers and professionals, and encourage students to invest in the research process by sharing information with their peers.  Research plays an important role in advancing all disciplines and I adamantly believe that encouraging student research is the best way to gain momentum in a field and create a community of actively engaged professionals.  Student research breathes fresh air into long-standing debates and offers new perspectives with which to view the moving targets of the role of libraries and librarians and information in society. Library Student Journal foregrounds students as dynamic resources and boldly situates professional and academic discourse in the Open Access arena.  This model of scholarship and professional engagement is something I am proud to be a part of and I hope to carry forward the enthusiasm and excellence of my predecessors.”

I am very excited to watch LSJ grow with Miriam’s guidance.

- amy

With the new school year upon us, LSJ is now looking for new staff and editorial board members.

Job descriptions are below. All applications should be sent to librarystudentjournal@gmail.com with the job title in the subject line (please!) by October 10, 2008. Any questions can be sent to me at amy@librarystudentjournal.org.

UPDATE
All positions are voluntary. (I really wish I could pay you, but we’re all doing this for the love of LIS!)
All work is done via email or the Open Journal Systems project.
As this is a student publication, all staff must be currently enrolled in an LIS degree.

Editor-in-Chief
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for maintaining a consistently high editorial and ethical standard.  The position requires daily communication with readers, authors, reviewers, staff members, and the Editorial Board. The Editor-in-Chief evaluates all newly received submissions, assigns manuscripts suitable for peer-review to a Section Editor, personally edits all Editorials and Essays, and makes the final decision to publish or not. The Editor-in-Chief is involved in every aspect of the editing and publishing process, including working closely with the Webmaster on technical issues. The Editor-in-Chief is the principal writer for the Editors’ Blog and coordinates contributions from the Editorial Board. 
The successful candidate will demonstrate excellent writing skills and will be an able and tactful editor of others’ work.  This position will require that you stay up to date on current topics of interest to the LIS field and be willing to take part in a variety of activities to promote the journal, including providing interviews to other publications.  And the it requires that you have a good grasp of the issues and standards of scholarly journalism and Open Access publishing.   Estimated weekly time commitment: 12 hours.
Email librarystudentjournal@gmail.com with “editor in chief application” in the subject. Please attach a resume, a letter of intent, and a sample of your writing (not more than 1000 words). If you are chosen to the shortlist we may ask for references and/or to edit a sample paper.

Section Editor
Section Editors guide manuscripts submitted to the Articles section of the journal through the peer-review process. Section Editors choose suitable reviewers for each paper then use the completed reviews to make a recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief.  Section Editors work closely with authors of accepted manuscripts to revise their work to an acceptable standard, based on reviewer comments and their own revision requests.   Estimated weekly time commitment: 5 hours
Email librarystudentjournal@gmail.com with “section editor application” as the subject line.  Please attach a writing sample (not more than 1000 words) and a resume/CV.
LSJ seeks 4 Section Editors.

Copyeditor
Copyeditors work with authors of accepted manuscripts to improve the style, grammar, and organization of their papers.  A successful copyeditor has an excellent eye for detail, an ability to see the big picture, and a tact for communicating revision requests to authors in a respectful manner. 
Email librarystudentjournal@gmail.com with “section editor application” as the subject line.  Please attach a resume/CV and a writing sample (not more than 1000 words).
LSJ seeks 5 Copyeditors.

Proofreader
Proofreaders review copyedited manuscripts for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and proper LSJ format.  A successful proofreader will have an excellent eye for detail. 
Email librarystudentjournal@gmail.com with “proofreader application” as the subject line.
LSJ seeks 5 Proofreaders.

Web Editor
Web Editors will create HTML documents for the online publication of journal articles, using established templates and documentation, based on Microsoft Word documents that have been peer-reviewed and edited. These documents will be translated into printable PDF versions.  After this process, the student will enter metadata into the online publication system (a Dublin Core-based scheme), edit the author-supplied abstract or create a new one as appropriate, and will select subject terms from a controlled vocabulary to enable searching and browsing.
Email librarystudentjournal@gmail.com with “web editor application” as the subject line.  In the body of the email please give any particular areas of expertise or experience you think will help you in this position.
LSJ seeks 4 Web Editors.

In case you hadn’t noticed, things at LSJ have been slow-moving.
Some are staffing issues, some are my issues, and some are technology issues.
But ultimately, the buck stops with me (get it - BUCKland) (boooo) so it’s my fault.

I apologize to the wonderful authors whose work I am eager to get out to the public, and to all the staff (those of you still around) who are now working overtime to publish the work of your colleagues.

The Emerging Leaders issue is almost complete and all I can say is LIS students are doing some amazing things - everything from community outreach to writing books. I’m proud that LSJ will be able to tell you about them.

Okay, back to work.

We have received a whack of great nominations for emerging leaders - YAY!
The profiles will appear in early May.

Happy end of semester everyone! (Be strong.)

Let this be a lesson to you all - update your Wordpress!

We hadn’t updated ours in forever and that hack that I mentioned a few weeks back managed to be so pervasive, we’ve had to start over from scratch. Everything is gone. Grrrr.

Many many many thanks to Blake at LIShost (our amazing hosting company) for not virtually strangling me for causing him so much extra work.

Newcontent and new look will be up shortly, as soon as I finish my final assignments!

Thanks for your patience,
amy