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 Guidelines for Publishing in Florida Libraries

Journal Aim and Scope

The mission of the Florida Libraries journal is to provide thought-provoking and inspiring articles to librarians throughout Florida to further our professional practice, share successes and challenges, and to provide Florida librarians with a regional venue to publish professionally.

We welcome articles that describe, analyze, and enhance our understanding of our work as librarians. Articles about public, academic, and special collections librarianship are welcomed. We hope to be a meeting place where new ideas, challenges, and solutions can be examined and debated. We welcome all types of articles, including original research, case studies, literature reviews, reflective essays, conference reports, student scholarship, and book reviews. We welcome solo authors and collaboratively written papers.

Content

Florida Libraries publishes articles on topics of interest to Florida librarians and related to Florida libraries. Articles for the Fall issue are related to a designated theme and are refereed. Articles may be informal and do not need to be scholarly in nature, but should be informative and address professional issues of interest to the library community in the state. The style should be inviting and readable, and the content should be backed by responsible research and/or interviews. All of the author's name(s), title/position(s) and library/organization(s) should be the last page of your article.

*FLA reserves the right to make any edits needed based on grammar, content and/or length.

Deadline for Submission

Articles for the Fall 2023 Issue: TBD, 2023

Publishing Fees

This is an open access journal, and there are no fees to publish.

Licensing

The Florida Libraries journal allows the author to retain copyright in their articles. Articles are instead made available under a Creative Commons license (usually Attribution-Only or CC-BY) to allow others to freely access, copy, and use research, provided the author is correctly attributed.

Repository Policy

The Florida Libraries journal allows authors to deposit versions of their work in an institutional or other repository of their choice.

Style

Our editorial team does not require many specifics, but we do strive for correctness and consistency. Articles should follow guidelines in The Chicago Manual of Style and be written in an active voice. Here are our main style uses:

• serial commas (i.e. cat, dog, and mouse)
• spell out numbers below 10 (i.e. nine, eight, and seven)
• format dates as December 1, 2018 (not December 1st, 2018)
• place periods and commas inside quotation marks 
• spell out acronyms the first time they are used [e.g., Florida Library Association (FLA)]
• a.m., p.m. - lowercase with periods
• e-mail - hyphenate 
• home page - two words 
• Internet - capitalize 
• intranet - lowercase 
• listserv - one word, lowercase
• online - one word, lowercase, do not hypenate
• percentages - use the numeral,followed by the word percent (e.g., 50 percent)
• URL - capitalize Use endnotes rather than in-text citations • Web site, Web page - each is two words, Web is capitalized
• Word Wide Web - three words, capitalize. Use the Web on second reference

Citations and References

Endnote reference numbers should be placed at the end of the sentence. References in articles submitted to Florida Libraries should conform to the formats in The Chicago Manual of Style.

Length

1,000-2,500 words

Formatting

If your article is longer than 500 words, consider adding subheads to break up the text and make your article easier to read. Use <h2> and/or <h3> headers.

Interviews

Use bold for the questions and regular formatting for the answers.

Inline Formatting

We allow italics and bolding, but please use these sparingly.

Hyperlinks

When linking to an outside source within your article, choose the option to open the link in a new tab with the target="_blank" attribute.

Document File format

We accept articles in a .docx file format.

Images

All images must be at least 72 dpi to retain their quality, if resizing is needed.

• Credits: Please include image credits and license details when you submit your draft and images.
• Format: Please submit images as a jpeg, upload to the submission form. Images should not be placed inside the draft because our editors cannot extract them.
• Size: We strongly encourage you to sample your images to this size before submitting them to ensure they appear as you expect and text is legible. If you need to include a larger image, create a thumbnail and link it to a larger version of the image. 
• Alt text: Include alt text for images that describes what is pictured to help us serve readers with visual impairments.
• Label images: Label images so editors can easily tell which image should be used within an article.
• Add captions (if applicable): Be sure to reference within your article text where your image should go and what the caption should read. (e.g., [mybook.jpeg] Caption: This is a screenshot of my book.)

*FLA reserves the right to not include a picture based on content, quality or lack of application to the article.

Peer Reviews

In academic publishing, the goal of peer review is to assess the quality of articles submitted for publication in a scholarly journal. Before an article is deemed appropriate to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must undergo the following process:

  • The author of the article must submit it to the journal editor who forwards the article to experts in the field. Because the reviewers specialize in the same scholarly area as the author, they are considered the author’s peers (hence “peer review”).
  • These impartial reviewers are charged with carefully evaluating the quality of the submitted manuscript.
  • The peer reviewers check the manuscript for accuracy and assess the validity of the research methodology and procedures.
  • If appropriate, they suggest revisions. If they find the article lacking in scholarly validity and rigor, they reject it.

Because a peer-reviewed journal will not publish articles that fail to meet the standards established for a given discipline, peer-reviewed articles that are accepted for publication exemplify the best research practices in a field. (https://guides.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/c.php?g=288333&p=1922599)