Abbreviated title (ISO 4) Libr. Q. Language English Publication history 1931-present | Discipline Library science Edited by Paul Jaeger | |
Publisher University of Chicago Press (United States) | ||
The Library Quarterly is a quarterly double-blind peer-reviewed academic journal covering library science, including historical, sociological, statistical, bibliographical, managerial, psychological, and educational aspects of the field. It is published by the University of Chicago and was established to fill a need for investigation and discussion set forth by the American Library Association in 1926. The editor-in-chief is Paul Jaeger (University of Maryland, College Park).
History
The Library Quarterly was established in January 1931, the year that Lee Pierce Butler joined the University of Chicago Graduate Library School, which was where library science as the academic study of the relationship between books and users was originally conceived. Thus, its publication history parallels the existence of library science as a field of academic research. The emergence of a journal devoted expressly to research in library science was met with conflict in the discipline according to the journal's first editor, William M. Randall. The controversy revolved around whether research and scientific method was needed in the field.
Howard W. Winger was managing editor from 1961 through 1972, in 1975, from 1980 through 1985 and from 1988 through 1989. More than 50 of his essays (particularly those on 16th-century printers' devices) appeared in The Library Quarterly.
Until 2013, the covers of the journal featured emblems from booksellers or printers. Featured in every issue was a study of the particular emblem that focuses on the typographer, dealer, seller, and designer. As of 1975, 176 prints had been displayed on the journal's cover. The University of Florida libraries provide digital access to printers' devices, including those that appeared on the cover of The Library Quarterly.
In 2004 The Library Quarterly went online, adding additional articles, content, and unique supplements. Online features also include most accessed and most cited articles.