Authorship outlets of academic health sciences librarians

Journal articles are the most common publication format for U.S. academic health sciences librarians. This is consistent with the findings of other researchers. Of the total publications in this study, 68% were in journals. Watson found that 69% of the academic librarians' publications were published in some type of journal [8]. Similarly, Yerkey and Glogowski found that 67% of the publications in their study were journal articles, although their population consisted of all types of authors of library/information science materials [9]. Both the present study and Watson found that monographs were the second most common publication outlet. Watson found that 16% of the total publications were monographs; the current study identified 14.8% of the total publications as monographs [10]. Although Watson's findings are similar to the newer results, it is important to note that Watson's study was conducted in a different manner and included book reviews, which were not counted in the present study. The health sciences librarians in the present study published more than two thirds of their articles in library/information science journals and 27% in health sciences journals. Similarly, in Yerkey and Glogowski's study, the second-largest number of library/information science articles appeared in medical and health sciences journals [11]. Fang also found that 22.57% of the journal articles on health sciences librarianship or by health sciences librarians were in medical journals [12. This seems to demonstrate the desire of health sciences librarians to communicate with the health professionals. Yerkey and Glogowski that library and information science is an interdisciplinary field, "borrowing and supplying information to and from other disciplines"[13].