One of the things that came out of the recent code4lib conference was the idea that there ought to be a code4lib journal, a place where the library world’s developers and programmers (and those of us who are interested in what they do) can share their ideas with one another. There’s already been some good discussion on the code4lib mailing list about what the journal ought to look like. Here’s my attempt to summarize the discussion and outline the direction I see us taking.
First of all, what are we trying to accomplish? The goal is to get the good ideas out there. That means we need to first choose the good ideas, then publish them in a format that lots of people will pay attention to. There is a considerable audience out there for the work that code4lib-type people are doing, but not everyone can keep up with a blog aggregator, a mailing list, an IRC channel, and a conference, and not everyone who should be listening takes all of those media seriously. A journal is a good way of reaching out to that latent audience, because journals still have an inherent aura of legitimacy, and they can bring together all the latest cool ideas in an easy-to-digest package. A journal will help us to disseminate our ideas, educate people about what can be done with IT in libraries, and expand the code4lib community.
The code4lib journal will focus on publishing practical advice: handy scripts, clever hacks, calls for action, and projects that have succeeded or failed. The model here is the lightning talk format that worked so well at the conference; Art Rhyno has suggested some possible topics, and we will not be afraid to publish actual code. Short, practical articles will be complemented by longer, more extensive or higher-level articles, like reports on large research projects or the kind of stuff that Lorcan Dempsey writes. Articles will be solicited by the editors, perhaps on the basis of conference presentations, interesting blog posts, or discussions on code4lib communication channels or elsewhere; unsolicited submissions will also be more than welcome.
The journal will take a hybrid approach, where the formally published articles are complemented by less traditional content — edited IRC logs, podcasts and screen captures, and the various other fantastic, innovative suggestions that have come up during the mailing list discussion. (Again, Art Rhyno has come up with some very interesting “Traditional Publishing Model Departure Points,” as have others; I’ll try to gather these in a separate post.) I’m excited about trying out some of these ideas alongside the traditional approach. But I think we do need that core of formal, regularly published, editorially vetted publication to garner the wider interest and support that we’re looking for.
There will be a regular publication schedule — I’m suggesting once every two months — but articles will be available early if they are finalized before the publication date. The articles won’t be peer reviewed (because peer review takes too long, is of dubious value, and would be difficult to do properly given the smallness of the library technology community); instead, they’ll go through a multi-part editorial process in which the journal’s editors solicit or receive material, do a preliminary review, and post draft versions for review, comment, and discussion by the community at large.
We’ve started to draw up a set of guidelines stating what the journal’s purpose is, what its format will be, and so on. If you have some ideas, please feel free to head on over and add a comment or make some changes. Or, you know, you could volunteer to be an editor or write an article or something. Let me know if you’d like to help out.