this question bubbles up in my mind weekly as i peruse tables of contents of info sci/lib sci journals. these kind of “how we did it good at my library” articles describe a problem identified at one library, recount what was done to resolve the problem, and then summarize. there is often no mention of how what was done to resolve the problem may relate to a wider body of literature and often doesn’t offer how their resolution may be implemented at other libraries. when i see this kind of publication in a peer-reviewed journal, mixed in with research articles, i’m stumped.
“peer review” to me means that a small group of topic experts reads a manuscript, situates it within the literature of the topic they know, and then decides whether it is an original enough contribution to add to the field of knowledge (i know the process is more complex. i’m abbreviating for the sake of this discussion). if the manuscript doesn’t acknowledge the literature or doesn’t suggest applicability to the library at large, what hook can the reviewer hang his decision to publish/not publish on?
is the field of library science just publishing these to get a full issue of a journal out or is there a legitimate reason to treat a case study like a research article that i’m missing?
