Frequency 20 per year Year founded 1876 Country United States | Company Media Source | |
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Library Journal is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey (familiar as the inventor of the Dewey decimal system). It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice. It also reviews library-related materials and equipment.
Contents
Its "Library Journal Book Review" does pre-publication reviews of several hundred popular and academic books each month.
Library Journal has the highest circulation of any librarianship journal, according to Ulrich's — approximately 100,000.
Library Journal's original publisher was Frederick Leypoldt, whose company became R. R. Bowker. Reed International (now Reed Business Information) purchased Bowker in 1985; they published Library Journal until 2010, when it was sold to Media Source, owner of the Junior Library Guild and The Horn Book Magazine.
Early history
Founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey, Library Journal originally declared itself to be the "official organ of the library associations of America and of the United Kingdom." Indeed, the journal's original title was American Library Journal, though "American" was removed from the title after the first year. Its early issues focused on the growth and development of libraries, with feature articles by such prominent authors as R. R. Bowker, Charles Cutter, and Melvil Dewey, and focusing on cataloging, indexing, and lending schemes. In its early issues, Bowker discussed cataloging principles; Cutter, creator of the Cutter Expansive Classification system, developed his ideas; and managing editor Dewey made recommendations for early library circulation systems. Initially, Library Journal did not review books unless they related to librarians' professional interests, but then, like now, the journal ran articles on collection development and ads from publishers recommending their forthcoming books for libraries to purchase.
Early issues of Library Journal were a forum for librarians throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States to share news, discussions of their libraries' ideas and practices, and reports of professional activities such as meetings and conferences. In an 1878 prospectus, the journal stressed its importance by noting that small libraries, in particular, could gain the "costly experience and practical advice" of the largest libraries. Regular reading of Library Journal, the prospectus declared, would make "the librarian worth more to the library, and the library worth more to the people." In the Notes and Queries section, librarians shared reports of how their library managed common problems, and they maintained a constant exchange of questions and answers about authorship and reader's advisory. Two prominent sections, the Bibliography (compiled by Cutter) and Pseudonyms and Antonyms (compiled by James L. Whitney), served as reference resources for librarians. The latter contained an ongoing list of titles of untitled works and real names of authors who were anonymous or used pseudonyms, with an index compiling all of them in the December issue.
Current features
The print edition of Library Journal contains the following sections:
Annual awards
January
February
March
June
November
Website
LibraryJournal.com, the Library Journal website, provides both subscribers and non-subscribers full access to all print content as well as recent archives. Visitors can sign up for email newsletters such as BookSmack, Library Hotline, LJ Academic Newswire, LJ Review Alert, and LJXpress. Web articles in the Libraries & Librarians category are listed by topic, with each topic assigned its own RSS feed so that users can receive articles relevant to their interests. Past and present reviews are archived and organized by type (book, DVD, gaming, magazine, video, etc.); they are also available via RSS feeds. Another feature is INFOdocket (edited by Gary Price and Shirl Kennedy). Additionally, Library Journal maintains an up-to-date list of library jobs in the website's JobZone.