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Journal Content
Florida Libraries Journal is a triannual digital publication that focuses on Florida librarians and libraries, and covers a wide variety of perspectives, including technological, social, user, and practical. Its scope covers projects and practices from information professionals in the field.
The intended audience for Florida Libraries Journal is librarians, library workers, archivists, and other cultural heritage professionals and educators. The goal of the journal is to provide a timely forum for refereed articles, news, and field notes.
Further contributions include invited articles, editorials, and position papers.
FLA reserves the right to make any edits needed based on grammar, content, and/or length.
Deadline for Submissions
Deadlines will be announced via FLA newsletters and the website
Who Can Submit
Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in Florida Libraries Journal provided they own the copyright thereto, or are authorized by the copyright owner(s) to submit the article. As a regional publication focused on highlighting the work of Florida’s library workers, at this time we do not accept any submissions from authors outside of Florida unless the submitted article focuses on a topic specific to the state of librarianship in Florida.
General Submission Rules
By submitting material to Florida Libraries, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that they will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at Florida Libraries Journal. If you have concerns about the submission terms, please contact the editor-in-chief.
Florida Libraries Journal is an open-access publication. The Creative Commons Attribution License applies to all articles published. Under this license the authors retain the copyright of their article, but allow others to reuse and copy the article provided the original authors and source are cited.
On submission, authors agree that:
- Your contribution is your original work, has not been published before (in any language or medium), and is not being considered for publication elsewhere;
- All authors concur with and are aware of the submission;
- You have obtained permission for and acknowledged the source of any excerpts from other copyrighted works;
- To the best of your knowledge your paper contains no statements which are libelous, unlawful or in any way actionable. All coauthors who have made significant contributions to the work share responsibility and accountability for the resulting submission.
Please include the names, job titles, and institutional affiliations of all authors associated with an article as the last page of the article. Authors will have the opportunity to select whether they wish to submit their article for Peer Review or not.
Once an article is submitted, the Editorial Board will begin the review process. This process entails:
- Members of the Editorial Board will review the article. If the article meets guidelines for publication, suggestions for minor edits may be made. If the article does not meet publication guidelines of Florida Libraries Journal, the submission may be declined for publication, at which time the author will be notified.
- If approved for publication, the Editor will be in touch with the author regarding any revisions that need to be made, as well as a deadline for those revisions. If extensive revisions are needed, the author may be asked to push back publication until the following issue.
- A final review of the article will be provided for the author before publication.
- The Editorial Board will review the final layout of the journal.
The journal is journal is published digitally three times a year.
Editorial Board and Peer Review
Each article is carefully reviewed by members of the Editorial Board, which consists of qualified library professionals who review each article for the following criteria:
The article has a clear central thesis or argument.
Information is presented in an organized manner.
Writing is clear, smooth, and lucid.
The article is written mostly in an active voice.
Adequate background information/context is provided for clarity.
Library-specific jargon and acronyms are clearly defined.
Correct spelling and grammar are used.
Claims made are substantiated with citations.
Adherence to Chicago guidelines.
Florida Libraries is proud to publish peer-reviewed articles. In academic publishing, the goal of peer review is to assess the quality of articles submitted for publication in a scholarly journal. Before an article is deemed appropriate to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, it must undergo the following process:
The author of the article must submit it to the journal editor who forwards the article to experts in the field. Because the reviewers specialize in the same scholarly area as the author, they are considered the author’s peers (hence “peer review”).
These impartial reviewers are charged with carefully evaluating the quality of the submitted manuscript.
The peer reviewers check the manuscript for accuracy and assess the validity of the research methodology and procedures.
If appropriate, they suggest revisions. If they find the article lacking in scholarly validity and rigor, it may be declined.
Because a peer-reviewed journal will not publish articles that fail to meet the standards established for a given discipline, peer-reviewed articles that are accepted for publication exemplify the best research practices in a field. .
Artificial Intelligence
Authors must be aware that using AI-based tools and technologies such as large language models (LLMs), generative AI, and chatbots (e.g. ChatGPT) is not in line with our authorship criteria.
If AI tools are used in content generation, including AI-generated images, they must be acknowledged and documented appropriately in the authored work.
Style
Our editorial team strives for correctness and consistency. Articles should follow guidelines in The Chicago Manual of Style and be written in an active voice. Here are our main style requirements:
- Use serial commas (i.e. cat, dog, and mouse)
- Spell out numbers:
- from 0-9 anywhere in the paper
- that start a sentence
- that are common fractions (one half, two-thirds)
- that are part of a common phrase (Noble Eightfold Path)
- Use Arabic numerals for figures 10 and above, and in tables
- In numbers greater than 1,000, use commas to separate groups of three digits.
- Do not add apostrophes when writing a plural of a number (the 2000s, the 70s).
- Format dates as December 1, 2018 (not December 1st, 2018)
- Spell out acronyms the first time they are used [e.g., Florida Library Association (FLA)]
- a.m., p.m. - lowercase with periods
- Technology words (APA, 7th ed.):
- ebook
- ereader
- database
- data set
- smartphone
- internet
- intranet
- Wi-Fi
- website
- web page
- the web
- homepage
- username
- login (but “log in” when used as a verb)
- emoji (plural: either emoji or emojis)
- AI
- Capitalize proper nouns
- In general do not capitalize diseases, disorders, therapies, treatments, theories, concepts, hypotheses, principles, models, and statistical procedures (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, anorexia nervosa)
- Italicize titles of books, reports, webpages, periodicals, and other standalone works.
- Do not italicize names of series (e.g., the Hunger Games series)
- Periods and commas go inside quote marks.
- First person POV is permitted when referring to yourself and your co-authors (“I studied,” “We examined,” etc.). Avoid the editorial “we.” If using “we,” be sure it refers to you and your fellow researchers.
Review past issues in the FLJ Archives to get a sense of the tone and style of the journal. Voice can range from formal academic to professional/collegial to business casual.
Citations and References
When using a footnote, insert a number formatted within brackets following any punctuation mark at the end of the sentence.
Example: In an order that sets a strong precedent for keeping books on public school library shelves, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida has upheld the freedom to read in Penguin Random House v. Gibson.[1]
Place all footnotes at the bottom of the page on which they appear. Footnotes may contain the author’s last name and the year of the publication. E.g., 1. Beeck, 2025
Please include a References page at the end of your document.
Length
Most articles contain about 1,000 to 2,500 words, but this is flexible. Supplemental information such as book lists, charts and tables, and photos or other artwork are welcome. Please submit these images as PNG or JPEG files.
Interviews
Use bold for the questions and regular formatting for the answers.
Document File format
We accept articles in a .docx file format. Please submit the article in English in a standard font (Arial, Times New Roman, etc.).
The Editor will make all formatting decisions, including font usage, graphics, and layout.
Images
• Credits: Please include image credits and license details when you submit your draft and images.
• Format: Please submit images as a jpeg uploaded to the submission form. Images should not be placed inside the draft because our editors cannot extract them.
• Size: We strongly encourage you to sample your images before submitting them to ensure they appear as you expect and text is legible. In general, the larger the file, the better it will turn out.
• Alt text and captions: Include alt text for images that describes what is pictured to help us serve readers with visual impairments.
• Label images: Label images so editors can easily tell which image should be used within an article.
*FLA reserves the right to not include a picture based on content, quality or lack of application to the article.
