Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • Please note: To allow our editors and peer reviewers time to rest, any manuscripts submitted after December 10, 2024 will be handled as of January 6, 2025. Thank you for your understanding!
  • The results, data, figures, or other material in this manuscript have not been formally published previously and are not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  • If submitting a manuscript in peer-reviewed category (i.e., Knowledge Syntheses, Original Investigations, Case Reports, Special Papers), the manuscript includes page numbers and continuous line numbers and adheres to the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review.
  • If applicable, a statement on approval or exemption by an institutional review board or equivalent is included in the Methods section.
  • References are formatted according to the Medical Library Association Style Manual.
  • If submitting an Original Investigation, Case Report, or Special Paper, the manuscript contains a Data Availability Statement in accordance with the JMLA Data Sharing Policy.
  • If submitting a Knowledge Synthesis, Original Investigation, Case Report, Special Paper, or Virtual Projects, the manuscript contains an Author Contributions Statement using CRediT taxonomy. If submitting to a peer-reviewed article category, author names should be redacted from this statement.

Author Guidelines

Please note: To allow our editors and peer reviewers time to rest, any manuscripts submitted after December 10, 2024 will be handled as of January 6, 2025. Thank you for your understanding!

Submission Categories and Format Guidelines

If authors are not certain about the most appropriate category for their manuscripts, they are urged to contact the editor for assistance.

Knowledge Synthesis

Knowledge Syntheses are peer-reviewed review articles, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews. Reviews employing a systematic literature search have a structured abstract (Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions) of up to 250 words, adhere to the PRISMA-S reporting guidelines, and have a manuscript body divided into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. Reviews not employing a systematic literature search have an unstructured abstract of up to 250 words and a manuscript body structured as needed. The main text should comprise no more than 5,000 words. Up to 6 figures and/or tables are included in the main text; additional figures and/or tables can be included as supplemental appendixes.

Original Investigation

Original Investigations are peer-reviewed articles describing research that employs any type of quantitative or qualitative method of analysis. Examples include intervention studies, surveys, content analyses, qualitative case studies, bibliographic or bibliometric analyses, and search filter development and testing. Original Investigations have a structured abstract (Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions) of up to 250 words. The body of the manuscript is divided into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections, which together should comprise no more than 5,000 words; shorter manuscripts are also welcomed. Up to 6 figures and/or tables are included in the main text; additional figures and/or tables can be included as supplemental appendixes. Original Investigations manuscripts are covered by the JMLA Data Sharing Policy.

Case Report

Case Reports are peer-reviewed articles describing the development, implementation, and evaluation of a new service, program, or initiative, typically in a single institution or through a single collaborative effort. They differ from case studies (published as Original Investigations articles) in that they do not employ rigorous qualitative case study methodology. Case Reports have a structured abstract (Background, Case Presentation, Conclusions) of up to 250 words. The body of the manuscript is divided into Background, Case Presentation, and Discussion sections, which together should comprise no more than 3,000 words. Up to 3 figures and/or tables are included in the main text; additional figures and/or tables can be included as supplemental appendixes. Case Report manuscripts are covered by the JMLA Data Sharing Policy.

Commentary

Commentaries present viewpoints on timely topics of interest to health sciences librarians and information specialists. This category allows freedom of expression and encourages constructive discussion. Commentaries have an unstructured abstract of up to 250 words. The main text should comprise no more than 3,000 words. Up to 3 figures and/or tables are included in the main text; additional figures and/or tables can be included as supplemental appendixes. Commentaries undergo editorial review.

History Matters

History Matters are short articles on historical topics that are relevant to health sciences librarianship. History Matters articles have an unstructured abstract of up to 250 words. The main text should comprise no more than 3,000 words. Up to 3 figures and/or tables are included in the main text; additional figures and/or tables can be included as supplemental appendixes. History Matters articles undergo editorial review.

Letter to the Editor

Letters to the Editor comment on recent JMLA articles. Letters should be respectful in tone. Letters are sent to the authors of the original article to invite a response. Letters should comprise no more than 500 words and contain up to 5 references.

Special Paper

Special Papers are peer-reviewed articles of particular importance to the field of health sciences librarianship that do not fit one of the above submission categories. Special Papers may be solicited by a JMLA editor, or prospective authors of a Special Paper may submit a pre-submission inquiry to an editor. Special Papers have an unstructured abstract of up to 250 words. The body of the manuscript is structured as needed. The main text should comprise no more than 6,000 words. Up to 6 figures and/or tables are included in the main text; additional figures and/or tables can be included as supplemental appendixes. Special Paper manuscripts are covered by the JMLA Data Sharing Policy.

Lectures and Awards

Lectures and Awards are published versions of MLA lectures delivered at annual meetings, such as the Janet Doe Lecture, and awarded essays, such as the Erich Meyerhoff Prize.

Virtual Project

Virtual Projects are brief articles highlighting current, innovative, and notable virtual projects in health sciences libraries. The Virtual Projects section is published on an annual basis in the October issue of JMLA following an annual “Call for Virtual Projects.” An advisory committee of recognized technology experts selects project entries based on defined criteria. Virtual Projects articles undergo editorial review. See more detailed information.

In Memoriam

The “In Memoriam” column honors deceased MLA members and staff. The JMLA In Memoriam Editors will accept author submissions from the deceased’s coworkers, family, and colleagues. Memoriam should be between 200 and 1,000 words in length and may address a person’s birth and background; education and training; experiences, contributions, and accomplishments; influences on others in the profession; and can include some personal anecdotes from colleagues or family. See more detailed information.

Book Review

Book Reviews provide critical appraisals of new books and serials that assist readers in selecting works for their own professional use or for addition to their library collections. Reviewers are chosen based on their knowledge of and experience in areas relevant to the library and information world. Book Reviews should contain a brief overview of scope and content so that readers can determine the book’s interest to them. Reviewing each chapter of a book in detail is not necessary. For a research or historical work, please comment on its significance in relation to the focus area as well as to the field as a whole. For an applied or descriptive work, please comment on its usefulness. In both cases, compare the book with similar publications in its area and indicate its potential audiences, where relevant. When quoting the text, indicate page numbers in parentheses at the end of the quote. Book Reviews undergo editorial review. See more detailed information.

Resource Review

Resource Reviews provide critical appraisals of electronic resources, software, web services, and other technology tools that assist health sciences library staff in making collection development and technology implementation decisions. Reviewed resources can include databases and catalogs, electronic collections, research and reference tools, library management systems, educational instruments, commercial and open source software, and web-based productivity tools. Resource Reviews do not have an abstract. The main text should comprise no more than 2,000 words. Up to 2 figures and/or tables are included in the main text. Resource Reviews undergo editorial review. See more detailed information.

Association Record

The association record consists of the proceedings of the annual meeting of the previous year and the audited schedule of assets of the calendar year ending the previous December.

Writing Guidelines and Editorial Style

The writing style of manuscripts submitted to JMLA should conform to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, which is prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Other authoritative sources guiding the writing and editorial processes include the Medical Library Association (MLA) Style Manual; Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 2nd edition; the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style for punctuation, form, and other areas in which the ICMJE recommendations are silent; and the latest edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for spelling.

For more information on structured abstracts, consult the MLA Research Section’s structured abstract guidelines.

Reference Style

JMLA reference style is based on the Medical Library Association (MLA) Style Manual, which in turn is based on Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 2nd edition. Authors are urged to consult recently published articles in JMLA for examples of properly formatted references. Example references appear below.

Journal article

Florczak KL. Prevent betrayal by predatory publishers: trust but verify. Nurs Sci Q. 2018 Jan;31(1):11–4. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0894318417741100.

Electronic resource

Association of College & Research Libraries. Framework for information literacy for higher education [Internet]. The Association; 2016 [cited 11 Oct 2019]. <http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework>.

Book chapter

Davis C, Ebron T. The changing face of librarianship. In: Jones SD, Murphy B, eds. Diversity and inclusion in libraries: a call to action and strategies for success. Medical Library Association Books Series. Chicago, IL: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; 2019. p. 25–34.

Book

Stribling JC, ed. The clinical medical librarian’s handbook. Medical Library Association Books Series. Chicago, IL: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; 2020.

Presentation

Keselman A, Smith CA, David R. Kaufman DR. Criteria for evaluating deception, disinformation, and controversy in the evolving digital consumer health information universe. Presented at: MLA ’19, the 119th Medical Library Association Annual Meeting; Chicago, IL; May 5, 2019.

Data set

Akers KG, Doty J. Emory University research data management faculty survey [dataset]. Emory Dataverse [2013; cited 18 Mar 2020]. <https://dataverse.unc.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=hdl:1902.29/11578>.

Parts of a Submission

Statement regarding Institutional Review Board or equivalent

All research projects involving human participants must have been approved or exempted by an institutional review board (IRB) or equivalent ethics committee prior to the initiation of the project. The board/committee must be named in the Methods section of the manuscript. Authors may be asked to submit additional documentation from the review board or ethics committee confirming approval or exemption of the research at the discretion of the editors. Research involving human participants includes but is not limited to surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other assessment methods involving patrons, library and information professionals, or any other individuals.

Figures and tables

Figures (i.e., images, screenshots, diagrams, charts, graphs) can be in color for online issues but will be processed into black and white for print issues. Consecutively numbered figures with descriptive captions and should be placed in the text at appropriate locations. Standalone image files (e.g., jpeg, tiff) with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi should be submitted as supplementary files to be processed for publication.

Consecutively numbered tables with descriptive titles should be placed in the text at appropriate locations. Tables should be created using Word's built-in table commands.

Find more information about and samples of figures and tables.

Data Availability Statement

Original Investigation, Case Reports, and Special Paper manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement at the end of the main text describing where and how the data can be accessed in accordance with the JMLA Data Sharing Policy. An example Data Availability Statement is as follows:

Example Data Availability Statement:

“Data associated with this article are available in the Open Science Framework at <insert url>.”

Author Contributions Statement

Knowledge Synthesis, Original Investigation, Case Report, Special Paper, and Virtual Projects manuscripts must include an Author Contributions Statement at the end of the main text that uses the CRediT taxonomy to specify the role(s) played by each author.

Example Author Contributions Statement:

"Brittany Eagleton: Methodology; investigation; writing—review and editing. John Tramos: Conceptualization; methodology; investigation; software; data curation; formal analysis; visualization; writing—original draft. Lawrence Kanumba: Conceptualization; project administration; formal analysis; writing—original draft; Changying Wang: investigation; formal analysis; visualization; writing—review and editing."

If submitting to a peer-reviewed article category, author names should be redacted from this statement until the peer review process is complete.

Acknowledgments

Contributors not meeting the authorship critieria as specified by ICMJE should not be included in the Author Contributions Statement but can be acknowledged in a separate Acknowledgements section at the end of the main text. If submitting to a peer-reviewed article category, contributor names should be redacted from the statement until the peer review process is complete. 

Supplemental files

Supplemental files should include (1) survey instruments, evaluation rubrics, assessment instruments or other materials supporting the methodology to be published as appendixes and (2) stand-alone images files (e.g., jpg, tiff, png; 300 dpi minimum) for each figure. Note that manuscripts describing the results of a survey must include a copy of the survey instrument unless it has been published elsewhere. 

Submission process

All manuscripts must be submitted through the JMLA online submission system.

The submission process consists of 5 steps:

  1. Starting the submission: choose a journal section (e.g., Original Investigation, Case Report, Commentary), complete the submission preparation checklist (see below), agree to the copyright notice (see below), and provide comments to the editor, including the names and contact information for up to five suggested reviewers or individuals who should not review the work (optional).
  2. Uploading the submission: upload the manuscript file (including abstract, main text, references, acknowledgments, and embedded figures/tables)
  3. Entering the submission’s metadata: enter information for all coauthors (name, email address, ORCID ID [optional], affiliation [e.g., rank, department, institution], country, competing interests [if applicable], bio statement, manuscript title, abstract, keywords [mandatory], and contributors and supporting agencies.
  4. Uploading supplementary files: upload appendixes (including survey instrument, if applicable) and stand-alone image files (300 dpi minimum).
  5. Confirmation: confirm the successful upload of all submission files

If authors exit the system before completing their submissions, their submissions are saved automatically. Authors can return to finish the submission (or remove it should they wish) at a future time.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission’s compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  1. The results, data, figures, or other material in this manuscript have not been published previously and are not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  2. If submitting a manuscript in peer-reviewed category (i.e., Knowledge Syntheses, Original Investigations, Case Reports, Special Papers), the manuscript includes page numbers and continuous line numbers and adheres to the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review.
  3. If applicable, a statement on approval or exemption by an institutional review board or equivalent is included in the Methods section.
  4. References are formatted according to the Medical Library Association Style Manual.
  5. If submitting an Original Investigation, Case Report, or Special Paper, the manuscript contains a Data Availability Statement in accordance with the JMLA Data Sharing Policy.
  6. If submitting a Knowledge Synthesis, Original Investigation, Case Report, Special Paper, or Virtual Projects, the manuscript contains an Author Contributions Statement using CRediT taxonomy. If submitting to a peer-reviewed article category, author names should be redacted from this statement. 

Submitting a revised manuscript

If invited by the editor, authors should submit a revised manuscript under their original submission (i.e., without starting a new submission). After logging in and navigating to your author profile, click on the title of the manuscript under “Active Submissions.” Upload the revised manuscript file in the “Upload Author Version” box under “Editor Decision” on the “Review” page. Replies to reviewer comments and any updated appendixes, figures/tables, and so on can be uploaded by clicking “Add a Supplementary File” under “Submission” on the “Summary” page. There is no deadline for submitting a revised manuscript. For peer-reviewed submission categories, the revised manuscript and replies to reviewer comments may or may not be returned to the original reviewers to ensure that their concerns have been sufficiently alleviated.

Approving copyedits

After manuscript acceptance, a copyedited version of the manuscript is provided to authors for approval.

Peer-review evaluation

JMLA uses a double-anonymous peer review process in which the names of authors are not revealed to reviewers and the names of reviewers are not revealed to authors. Authors may suggest up to five reviewers who are well qualified to comment on the work and would not have a conflict of interest (e.g., not direct collegues or recent co-authors). Authors may also identify specific individuals who should not review their manuscript. Taking these recommendations into consideration, the editor will typically assign three reviewers to each manuscript. Reviewers are asked to use JMLA's peer reviewer guidelines to inform their comments and recommendation. JMLA aims to complete the review process and provide feedback to authors within six weeks of submission.

Contacts

Email questions about JMLA to JMLA Co-Editors-in-Chief.

Send books or resources for review in the JMLA to: JMLA Review Editor, Medical Library Association, 225 West Wacker Drive, Suite 650, Chicago, IL 60606-1210.

Resources for review in JMLA [information forthcoming].

Books for review in JMLA should be sent to: Melanie J. Norton, JMLA Book Review Editor, 96 Cass Avenue, Wallingford, CT 06492.

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Revised October 12, 2022

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