https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3842-9905
One of the most fundamental uses of a map is to help us find our way, to allow us to see where we’ve been and be mindful about how we’ll get to where we’re going next. It seems fitting then that becoming coeditors for the Journal of Map & Geography Libraries has provided us with this same opportunity for reflection as we navigate the journal’s present and future. We are both early to mid-career scholars with a longstanding relationship with the journal, being readers, authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and guest editors over the years. We have a broad range of experiences and research interests in map and geospatial librarianship, including collection development and management for physical and digital map collections and geospatial data; use of historical map collections in digital scholarship; pedagogical approaches for primary source, information, and geospatial data literacy; and library service models and student employment opportunities. We are excited to explore these and many other topics during our time as coeditors.
In the very first editorial for the journal, Andrew and Larsgaard (Citation2004, 1) defined it as a peer-reviewed forum “concerned with geography and map information and collections and their past, present, and future uses.” Although the journal – and the work of map and geospatial library professionals – has evolved in the 20 years since that was written, this simple definition and the tradition it signifies serve as a foundation for our editorship as well. We’ll build on it by saying that we believe the Journal of Map & Geography Libraries is the publication with the greatest potential to record, inspire, and advance the work of map and geospatial library professionals for years to come.
It is a venue where we can highlight common goals and best practices, and demonstrate the importance of our collections to ensure they continue to remain relevant and impactful into the future (Bidney and Piekielek Citation2018). We also believe the journal can be a place to explore connections and to engage with conversations happening across the broader spectrum of librarianship – with areas like special collections and archives, cataloging and metadata, teaching and learning, research and data services, and digital scholarship – to facilitate knowledge transfer and accelerate opportunities for collaboration. In our admittedly niche area of the library profession, we have a lot to learn from each other, from other areas of librarianship, and from other disciplines who use map and geospatial information, but we also have knowledge and skills to share out to all of these communities to enrich their work as well.
That idea of community is an important one that we believe is vital to the ongoing success of the journal. At its core, the Journal of Map & Geography Libraries is less about its content and more about the community that it represents – a community of readers, authors (both published and prospective), reviewers, editorial board members, and all those who will engage with the journal in some way in the future. As coeditors, our most important job is to support each of those communities, and we look forward to doing that and hearing from you about how we can do it even better. That work will be made easier through the contributions of a fantastic editorial board with diverse experiences, expertise, professional affiliations, and geographic representation. We are very excited to introduce you to them:
Jessica Benner (she/they) - Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Kevin Dyke (he/him) - Oklahoma State University, USA
Gabriella Evergreen (she/her) - Pratt Institute, USA
Julia Guy (she/her) - University of Calgary, Canada
Neah Ingram-Monteiro (she/her) - Western Washington University, USA
Tim Kiser (he/they) - Michigan State University Libraries, USA
Sierra Laddusaw (she/her) - University of Michigan, USA
John Lauermann (he/him) - Pratt Institute, USA
Rebecca Seifried (she/they) - University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Jack Swab (he/him) - University of Kentucky, USA
Ifigenia Vardakosta, Ph.D., (she/her) - Harokopio University of Athens, Greece
Phil White (he/him) - University of Colorado Boulder, USA
Dr. Brendan Whyte - National Library of Australia, Canberra Australia
Jo-Ann Wong (she/her) - New York Public Library, USA
Among their various responsibilities, editorial board members will help us to identify topics for future special issues. When we became coeditors, we knew that special, or theme, issues were an important part of the journal’s identity, but I don’t think either of us appreciated the extent to which this was the case. By our count, 25 of the 48 issues published before we began our editorship with Volume 19 were special issues, including several double or even triple issues organized around a particular theme. We intend to continue to publish at least one special issue per volume that will surface and advance conversations around important themes in our field, and we welcome your ideas for topics that would make impactful special issues moving forward. And as always, we welcome general submissions at any time of the year!
While we’re on the topic of submissions, let us briefly provide some logistical details and updated descriptions for the journal’s submission types. We hope these descriptions will make clearer the range of submissions appropriate for the journal and help you see how your own work aligns with them as you prepare your next paper! There are three different types of manuscripts that will go through a double-anonymous peer review process prior to publication in the journal:
Report: Scholarly articles that report on professional practice or case studies. Reports should include an introduction and conclusion but can otherwise be divided into sections that are appropriate to the manuscript’s topic and purpose. Reports should engage with the relevant literature and must be fully referenced.
Research Article: Scholarly articles that present original research. Research Articles must be fully referenced and will typically include the following sections: introduction, literature review, materials and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Other sections can be included as appropriate to the manuscript’s topic and purpose.
Review Article: Scholarly articles that review, synthesize, and critically engage with the existing literature on a given topic. Review Articles contribute to summarizing the current state of the field and identifying gaps in existing studies for potential future research. Review Articles must be fully referenced and contain an introduction and conclusion but can otherwise be divided into sections that are appropriate to the manuscript’s topic and purpose.
There is another submission type, Comment, that will be reviewed by the journal’s editorial team and will not go through the full double-anonymous peer review process. Rather than replace the high-quality, peer-reviewed articles that set the standard for the journal, comments are meant as shorter pieces to enhance the scholarly conversation:
Comment: An opinion piece or subjective contribution by one or more experts on a topic or publication. Comments should be evidence-based and fully referenced. For opinion-led pieces, authors should present their evidence and explain how it led them to form their opinion.
Finally, we could not conclude our introductory editorial without expressing our gratitude to the coeditors who immediately preceded us: Marcy Bidney and Nathan Piekielek. We have benefited from Marcy and Nathan’s work immensely over the years (as surely many of you have too), in our previous roles with the journal and as map and geospatial library professionals who have been inspired by the perspectives and calls to action they shared throughout its pages. Marcy and Nathan generously shared their editorial insights and advice with us, first as guest editors for a special issue in the journal (Volume 18(1-2), which we co-edited with Dorris Scott) and then as we embarked into this new role of coeditors. In doing so, Marcy and Nathan have played a big part in helping us to find our way, and we’re excited to work with all of you to see where our community and this journal are going next.
Assistant Professor, Geospatial Information Librarian
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
[email protected]
Theresa Quill (she/her)
Associate Librarian, Map and Spatial Data Librarian
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana,USA
[email protected]
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)