Open access scholarly publishing in library and information science

Abstract

Investigates the trend of open access journals publishing in the field of library and information science in terms of language, top-level-domain, country and time. Using authoritative print as well as online directories, the study identifies 124 e-journals in the field of LIS that are accessible freely, either partially or fully, on the Web. Of these, 12 titles have ceased their publication and remaining 112 titles are presently accessible freely on the Web. Analysis of the 112 e-journals shows that English is the most widely used language of LIS scholarly publishing. Most of these OA journals are originating either from academic or organizational domain and developed countries like USA and UK are publishing most of the OA journals. Concludes that there is a need for taking initiatives to publish qualitative open access journals from the less-developed countries.