Publications and Research
Document Type
Book Chapter or Section
Publication Date
8-17-2023
Abstract
This chapter discusses the perspectives and experiences of an academic librarian related to the challenging phenomenon of predatory publishing. Academic librarians have extensive scholarly communications knowledge and mitigate predatory publishing when they educate authors on journal and publisher selection as well as how to recognize and avoid predatory publishers. Unintentional predatory publishing is an outcome of deficits in scholarly information literacy—inadequate knowledge and critical thinking related to scholarship. This chapter traces scholarly information literacy from undergraduates to graduate students to its main focus, faculty; it also touches on other factors that underlie unintentional predatory publishing, for example, considerations of an author’s ‘need to read.’ Pedagogical solutions to predatory publishing are represented by a variety of models. Librarian partnerships with campus centers for research or for teaching and learning are particularly effective, as are workshop series that integrate librarian expertise with other specializations. One-on-one consultations are also significant and especially helpful since predatory publishing is a complex and sensitive topic. Lastly, this chapter considers how librarians have played an important role in outstanding international initiatives that deter predatory publishing such as Think. Check. Submit, a self-teaching tool, and The Directory of Open Access (DOAJ), leaders in teaching open access journals publishing best practices.
Included in
Information Literacy Commons, Scholarly Communication Commons, Scholarly Publishing Commons
Comments
This chapter was originally published in Predatory Practices in Scholarly Publishing and Knowledge Sharing Causes and Implications for Scholarship, edited by Pejman Habibie and Ismaeil Fazel, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003170723.