Stories of Open
Gathering and sharing lived experiences of open and peer review in Library and Information Science.
- “I feel like at its best, peer review should be an honest review by colleagues or peers of the value of your work.”This is the third and final installment of my conversation with Sarah, following up on “…this was a thing that reallyContinue reading ““I feel like at its best, peer review should be an honest review by colleagues or peers of the value of your work.””
- “…you have to just figure out the rules and no one is going to tell you what the rules are until you screw up…”This is the second post in a series of three that tells Sarah’s story. See the first installment, “…this was aContinue reading ““…you have to just figure out the rules and no one is going to tell you what the rules are until you screw up…””
- “…this was a thing that really meant a lot to me and so it really hurt a lot when I got these comments that were just basically that it was terrible.”This is the first in a series of three sharing Sarah Ward’s story. Sarah and I spoke in July 2020. TheContinue reading ““…this was a thing that really meant a lot to me and so it really hurt a lot when I got these comments that were just basically that it was terrible.””
Everyone has a story to share. Whether you are a Library and Information Science (LIS) student, an experienced librarian, a journal editor, someone who referees, an author, or even someone who reads peer-reviewed LIS literature, you have experiences to share.
What was it like to have your work undergo peer review for the first time? How did peer review improve your work? How did you learn to serve as a referee? How do you approach requests to referee works? What is your refereeing philosophy? Have you participated in open peer review? What was it like? What other experiences have you had with peer review?
No story is too big or too small. No experience is insignificant. Your participation consists of an interview conducted via Skype, and a brief review of your story before it is published.
When we share our lived experiences with others, we can help create dialogue and we can begin to reflect as a community about this important publishing process.
This project builds upon the work of a forthcoming book from ACRL Press, whose working title is Stories of Open: Opening peer review through narrative inquiry, as well as an article appearing in College & Research Libraries, Tell Me Your Story: Narrative inquiry in LIS research.
Why stories?

Sharing stories allows others learn and reflect on their own experiences. Ultimately we can change the peer review system for the better.
Read stories

Learn from the experiences folks have already shared.
Share your story

Share your own story of open or story about your peer review experiences.