Publishing an article in an academic journal for the very first time can be an intimidating prospect. There are a variety of factors to consider including selection of an appropriate journal, the submission and review process, author agreements and permissions forms, and dealing with the emotional impact of potential rejection.
Kaetrena Davis Kendrick is a reference librarian at the University of South Carolina-Aiken and has recently published an article on African American men in librarianship in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Librarian. In this edition of The Newbie Dispatches, Kaetrena discusses her experience writing for an academic journal. She answers a wide range of questions from making the decision to publish original research to receiving a notice from the publisher that her work has been accepted for inclusion.
Kaetrena received her MSLS in 2004 from Clark Atlanta University. She is a member of ALA and ACRL, the recipient of numerous awards and honors. Her article “The Academic Librarian as Instructor: A Study of Teacher Anxiety” was recognized as one of the top 20 library instruction articles by the American Library Association’s Library Instruction Roundtable. She is also the recipient including an ACRL National Conference Librarian Scholarship and was a participant in the 2008 Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians. Kaetrena is an incoming member of the ALA Publications Committee, and the Vice-President/President Elect of the Atlanta Area Bibliographic Instruction Group. For a complete listing of her work experience, her scholarly and service activities, and her awards and honors, you can check out her CV (PDF) right here.
This podcast is part one of a two part interview with Kaetrena. The second podcast of this two part series, set to release here the week of May 25th, 2010, will discuss her specific research on African-American male librarians, published in 2009:
Davis-Kendrick, Kaetrena. (2009) ‘The African American Male Librarian; Motivational Factors in Choosing a Career in Library and Information Science’, Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, 28:1,23-52.
Kaetrena will be presenting the results of her research as a poster session at the upcoming National Diversity in Libraries Conference. It will be titled “Deep History, Steep Climb: African American Male Librarians and LIS Recruitment and Retention.” She will also discuss her results at this year’s National Conference of African American Librarians under the title “Moving In, Moving Up: Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of African American Male Librarians.”
Music: Strange Italian Song by Juanitos / CC BY 2.0 (Remixed by ACRL RIG)
Be sure to check back regularly for future casts on conference updates, research in progress, and professional development workshops.
We hope you find it useful. ~Megan and Kiyomi
Don’t forget: suggestions for podcast topics are accepted and most welcome. Feel free to use the comment page to send us your request.
I’ve really been enjoying the Podcasts! I’ve learned something new from every one. Keep up the great work!
Wonderful! This makes us happy. Thank you for following the casts, Shannon; and thank you for the feedback. We appreciate it.
Megan
awesome topic. i have published in lit journals but need to beef up pubs in library journals. also, i would love to see one on self publishing, publishing on deman d, and zine/chapbook collections. for example, i was in the poet’s house over the weekend and their collection is impressive to say the least, but they have a whole wall of independently produced and published zines and chapbooks. i do a lot of this stuff with Hinchas (www.hinchasdepoesia.com) and the small (tiny, really) press attached to it.
i would also love to see one on resources for writers in mfa programs for getting published themselves. For example there is this great list serv, CRW opps through Yahoo that someone turned me on to that is pretty comprehensive (i.e. open submission periods, contest, poetry/fiction/and non-fiction welcome) actually that’s what i wrote on for my thesis at queens, i looked at the core lit list suggested by Resources for College Libraries (2007) and analyzed whether the individual cuny libraries of the 4 most rigorous mfa programs had “competent/respectable” holdings of u.s. latino poetry titles.
Thanks
Yago
Thank you for the feedback, Yago. I am pleased to hear that you enjoyed this podcast. Self-publishing and publishing on demand can make for an interesting podcast, but it goes beyond the scope of our group as it is typically not acceptable work for the purposes of promotion and tenure in an academic setting.
Doing one for writers in MFA programs is in a similar situation: great idea, beyond our scope. There is, however, one easy resource I can suggest that is fun to follow, sometimes. It’s called The Writing Mafia and is a facebook group that has podcasts and recorded interviews on topics just like this. It is not library-centric and is not even dedicated exclusively to academic writing. You’ll find quite a bit of discussion there regarding all types of fiction, non-fiction, and even poetry.
Writing Mafia. Check it out.
Thanks again for the comment. We really appreciate you taking the time to give us your feedback.
Megan P.