College & Research Libraries Guide for Authors & Reviewers

College & Research Libraries is a refereed journal using double-anonymous reviewing. The reviewers are not known to the authors and the authors should not be known to the reviewers. Therefore, we ask that the authors anonymize their paper prior to submission including removing or making generic the author identification and the institution that is the subject of the paper.

The editor reads each manuscript and may reject papers that are clearly outside of the scope of the journal or do not meet the author guidelines.  Submissions meeting the author guidelines are then sent to two peer reviewers who have indicated expertise in the area of the study. These peer reviewers will review and make recommendations to the editor as well as giving feedback to the author.  The editor will review the reviewer comments and make a decision about the paper.  In cases where the feedback is varied or less substantial, the editor may either closely review the submission and reconcile the feedback or seek a third reviewer.

Reviewers address themselves to the content and style of the manuscript. Main areas of consideration are:

• Does the manuscript make a new contribution to the literature?
• Is the method used appropriate to the subject?
• Does the evidence presented support the hypothesis?
• Does the author communicate clearly with an educated, yet not necessarily specialized, audience?
• Does the literature review place the research or opinions in perspective?

This review process takes ten to twelve weeks. After the decision has been made, the editor writes to the author accepting the manuscript, accepting it contingent on revisions, or rejecting it. Authors may not submit the manuscript to other publications while a C&RL review is in progress.  For more information on process and timeline, please read "Opening the Black Box" at http://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/16536/17982.