Submissions

Author Guidelines

Publication types

The journal publishes papers related to Library and Information Sciences. The publications can be e.g. (publication types used by the ministry of education and culture in annual publication data gathering in parentheses):

• articles (A1/A2)
• review articles (B1)
• interviews (B1)
• discussions (B1)
• reports (B1)
• book reviews (B1)
• papers introducing the activities of the Association of Information Sciences (B1)
• thesis abstracts (B1)
• news and other contemporary issues from conferences and in relation to new literature (B1)

Publication languages

The journal publishes papers in Finnish, Swedish, and English. Articles and review articles need to have an English abstract (max. 150 words). English can be either American or British English, but the chosen version needs to be used consistently. The journal does not provide language or spelling checking services.

The structure of the publication

An abstract is placed at the beginning of the article. Submissions for peer review should be anonymised. In this case, the author's name, references to his/her own previous publications and acknowledgements that include affiliation should be removed.

Recommended length (excl. abstracts) is 5 000 words, but longer articles can be submitted. If needed, truncation may be requested.

Finished manuscripts can be submitted via the journal's OJS portal. Submit a formatted version for evaluation:

• font size 12
• line spacing 1,5
• heading clearly marked: 
  • heading 1: fontsize 16 bold
  • heading 2: fontsize 14 bold
  • heading 3: fontsize 12 bold
• formatted text, use italics, indents etc.
• insert tables
• images and figures as separate files (JPEG or PNG), max. width 2 000 px
• max width of tables and images is 14 cm

In addition, submit a cover letter that includes the following information:

• authors’ contact information (e-mail address, affiliation) and ORCID iD
• 4–8 keywords, preferably from the YSO ontology (if you can’t find a correct keyword from YSO, you can suggest concepts to YSO and take part in making sure that the field’s subjects are covered and up to date in YSO)

Citations and references

Include the surname(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication to in-text citations, e.g. (Crane 1972, 25).

Reference list is written in an alphabetical order according to the authors (or communities or other authors). Follow the APA citation style.

Online references should include the URL where the reference is available. If multiple URLs are available, a permanent address should be used, such as DOI, handle, or URN. A regular URL will suffice when a permanent address is not available. Include the date of retrieval to regular URLs.

Examples of URLs:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.23978/inf.65190 (DOI)
• http://hdl.handle.net/10138/174499 (handle)
• http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201707173304 (URN)
• https://journal.fi/inf/about (regular URL)

If you have used reference management software such as Zotero, RefWorks, or Mendeley in your writing, it helps the editing process if you also submit the reference file (BibTeX, RIS, XML).

Peer review

Articles go through an anonymous peer review process. Other papers will be accepted by the editor-in-chief and the editorial board; third party specialists may also be consulted if needed.

In peer review the following factors are being evaluated: comprehensiveness of materials and composition of the theoretical framework, the reliability and accuracy of the conducted research, and the originality and novelty of the results compared to previous research.

There are at least two peer reviewers to each manuscript. The expertise of reviewers on the topic and methods of the paper at hand is emphasized. Reviewers are not affiliated to the journal, and often have a PhD from LIS. If the nature of the paper calls for it, one of the reviewers may come from another field of science or be someone from the journal’s editorial board.

The review report will be sent to the author within seven weeks from receiving the manuscript.

The journal has been granted the label for peer-reviewed scholarly publications by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV). The journal has committed to follow the peer review instructions (in Finnish) of the Finnish Association for Scholarly Publishing and the principles of the Responsible conduct of research (PDF) guidance by the Finnish Advisory Board On Research Integrity (TENK).

The journal saves all relevant documents (in print or digital format) regarding the peer review process of accepted articles. Concerning peer-reviewed but ultimately rejected articles, this information comprises the names of the author(s) and reviewers and the title of the article. Regarding peer-reviewed and published articles, the manuscript, review reports and publication decisions will be saved at the minimum.

Saved documents are not public, and they are not reported to TSV on a regular basis. However, the journal is committed to supply information about the peer review process regarding specific articles if needed to TSV or TENK.

After peer review

Only final and proofread texts should be submitted to copyediting. Before publication, authors must commit to follow a mutual agreement regarding copyright.

After a positive decision to publish, the copyeditor copyedits the article and sends it to the author(s) for proofreading. Before publication authors receive digital proofs, which should be returned with corrections to the sub-editor as soon as possible.

Instructions to the reviewer

Reviews should be submitted to the editor-in-chief within a month from receiving the manuscript. Review reports should include a general evaluation of the article and suggestions for revising or improvement, or a rejection of the article.

The editor-in-chief checks the proposed changes and their realization and, if needed, will send the article for a new round of reviews.

Papers of the editorial board members

Editorial board members can submit papers to be published, but the editor-in-chief cannot be the author of a peer-reviewed article (A1/A2). Papers authored by members of the editorial board will go through the normal evaluation but said members will be excluded from the discussions related to the paper.