Journal rankings · indicator year 2016
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2016
Library and Information Sciences journal rankings 2016
43 ranked journals · Subfield in Social Sciences
Library and Information Sciences has 43 ranked journals in 2016. The median OJR fell 0.10 on 2015 to 1.08, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 2.08. The top three are College & Research Libraries, portal Libraries and the Academy, and The Library Quarterly.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2016. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2013–2015, the window the 2016 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Social Sciences (22)
43 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2015. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2013–2015, the window the 2016 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2013–2015 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2007 to 2016. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1College & Research LibrariesOAAssociation of College and Research Libraries · United States | 5.41Q1 | 2.80 0.43 down from 2015 | 165 | 100% | — | ||
2portal Libraries and the AcademyJohns Hopkins University Press · United States | 4.36Q1 | 1.74 0.48 down from 2015 | 142 | 17% | — | ||
3The Library QuarterlyUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 4.14Q1 | 1.11 0.57 down from 2015 | 87 | 8% | — | ||
4The Journal of Academic LibrarianshipElsevier BV · United States | 3.67Q1 | 2.38 0.22 up from 2015 | 296 | 15% | $3,990 | ||
5New Review of Academic LibrarianshipTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 3.04Q1 | 1.14 0.13 down from 2015 | 69 | 49% | — | ||
6Journal of Librarianship and Information ScienceSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 2.62Q1 | 1.19 0.26 down from 2015 | 94 | 8% | $3,650 | ||
7Reference Services ReviewEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 2.61Q1 | 1.17 0.58 down from 2015 | 126 | 21% | — | ||
8Communications in Information LiteracyOACommunications in Information Literacy · United States | 2.54Q1 | 1.92 0.76 up from 2015 | 67 | 100% | — | ||
9LibriOADe Gruyter · Germany | 2.53Q1 | 1.70 0.48 up from 2015 | 85 | 17% | $0 listed | ||
10Journal of Library AdministrationTaylor & Francis · United States | 2.29Q1 | 0.88 0.61 down from 2015 | 165 | 12% | — | ||
11Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance LearningTaylor & Francis · United States | 2.08Q1 | 1.15 0.29 up from 2015 | 67 | 11% | — | ||
12Australian Academic & Research LibrariesRoutledge · Australia | 1.96Q2 | 0.95 0.04 down from 2015 | 148 | 98% | — | ||
13Journal of Information LiteracyOAChartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals · United Kingdom | 1.90Q2 | 0.73 0.02 up from 2015 | 76 | 100% | — | ||
14Journal of Education for Library and Information ScienceUniversity of Toronto Press | 1.76Q2 | 0.78 0.13 up from 2015 | 115 | 1% | — | ||
15College & Undergraduate LibrariesTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.64Q2 | 0.91 0.35 down from 2015 | 82 | 11% | — | ||
16Library ReviewEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 1.63Q2 | 0.82 0.15 up from 2015 | 217 | 8% | — | ||
17Library trendsJohns Hopkins University Press · United States | 1.60Q2 | 0.46 0.37 down from 2015 | 140 | 70% | — | ||
18Behavioral & Social Sciences LibrarianTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.54Q2 | 0.95 0.42 down from 2015 | 59 | 28% | — | ||
19Library ManagementEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 1.30Q2 | 0.51 0.54 down from 2015 | 230 | 5% | — | ||
20IFLA JournalSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.15Q2 | 0.42 0.67 down from 2015 | 97 | 30% | $3,650 | ||
21Public & Access Services QuarterlyTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.13Q2 | 0.44 0.17 down from 2015 | 92 | 4% | — | ||
22The International Information & Library ReviewTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.08Q2 | 0.48 0.24 down from 2015 | 57 | 6% | — | ||
23Partnership The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and ResearchOAThe Partnership · Canada | 1.05Q3 | 0.69 0.16 up from 2015 | 88 | 100% | — | ||
24Performance Measurement and MetricsEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 1.02Q3 | 0.69 0.55 down from 2015 | 51 | 8% | — | ||
25Alexandria The Journal of National and International Library and Information IssuesSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.99Q3 | 0.72 0.63 up from 2015 | 35 | 15% | $3,400 | ||
26Public Library QuarterlyTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.87Q3 | 0.49no change | 71 | 10% | — | ||
27School Libraries WorldwideInternational Association of School Librarianship · Canada | 0.76Q3 | 0.47 0.05 up from 2015 | 54 | 89% | — | ||
28The Australian Library JournalTaylor & Francis · Australia | 0.75Q3 | 0.40 0.15 up from 2015 | 332 | 100% | — | ||
29Evidence Based Library and Information PracticeOAUniversity of Alberta · Canada | 0.69Q3 | 0.43 0.19 down from 2015 | 243 | 100% | — | ||
30Canadian Journal of Information and Library ScienceOACanadian Association for Information Science · Canada | 0.67Q3 | 0.63 0.06 up from 2015 | 65 | — | — | ||
31College & Research Libraries NewsOAAssociation of College and Research Libraries · United States | 0.59Q3 | 0.37 0.14 down from 2015 | 548 | 99% | — | ||
32Journal of Business & Finance LibrarianshipTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.58Q3 | 0.35 0.04 up from 2015 | 88 | 3% | — | ||
33Journal of Access ServicesTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.57Q3 | 0.55 0.02 down from 2015 | 55 | 18% | — | ||
34Reference & User Services QuarterlyAmerican Library Association · United States | 0.51Q4 | 0.24no change | 561 | 75% | — | ||
35Library and Information ResearchOALibrary and Information Research Group · United Kingdom | 0.50Q4 | 0.41 0.25 up from 2015 | 178 | 100% | — | ||
36Library Leadership & ManagementOAUnited States | 0.38Q4 | 0.28 0.21 down from 2015 | 102 | 100% | — | ||
37The Southeastern LibrarianOAUnited States | 0.27Q4 | 0.13 0.04 down from 2015 | 104 | 84% | — | ||
38Children and LibrariesOAAmerican Library Association · United States | 0.24Q4 | 0.11 0.02 up from 2015 | 99 | 92% | — | ||
39Community & Junior College LibrariesTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.20Q4 | 0.18 0.14 down from 2015 | 35 | 14% | — | ||
40Nordic Journal of Information Literacy in Higher EducationOAUniversity of Bergen · Norway | 0.16Q4 | 0.25 0.02 up from 2015 | 47 | 100% | — | ||
41Virginia LibrariesOAVirginia Tech University Libraries · United States | 0.15Q4 | 0.06 0.03 up from 2015 | 40 | — | — | ||
42Maine policy reviewOAUnited States | 0.03Q4 | 0.01 0.09 down from 2015 | 142 | 100% | — | ||
43SLIS ConnectingOAUniversity of Southern Mississippi · United States | 0.00Q4 | 0.05 0.07 down from 2015 | 60 | 100% | — |
Subfields of Social Sciences, with Library and Information Sciences highlighted.
- Sociology and Political Science1,233
- Education677
- Political Science and International Relations308
- Communication68
- Gender Studies63
- Health52
- Public Administration51
- Safety Research51
- Law46
- Transportation46
- Linguistics and Language45
- Library and Information Sciences43
- Urban Studies42
- Demography41
- Anthropology40
- Geography, Planning and Development27
- Cultural Studies10
- Development4
- General Social Sciences3
- Human Factors and Ergonomics1
- Archeology0
- Life-span and Life-course Studies0
Journals
Citations made in 2016. Corpus-wide, 77.2% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
9 additional Library and Information Sciences journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2013–2015, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2016. Publication window: 2013–2015. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 43
- Window papers (baseline)
- 5,326 -12.4% from indicator year 2013
- Median OJR
- 1.08 -21.8% from indicator year 2013
- Rising journals (2025)
- 0
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2013–2015 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 26 | 26 | 28 | 30 | 32 | 30 | 30 | 34 | 36 | 36 | 38 | 39 | 39 | 41 | 43 | 44 | 43 | 41 | 42 | 44 | 41 | 41 | 42 | 41 | 40 | 38 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 2,623 | 2,730 | 3,048 | 3,403 | 3,671 | 3,772 | 3,878 | 4,238 | 4,743 | 5,234 | 5,613 | 5,920 | 6,171 | 6,083 | 5,893 | 5,519 | 5,326 | 5,069 | 4,955 | 4,770 | 4,650 | 4,610 | 4,529 | 4,380 | 4,109 | 4,152 | |
| Median OJR | 0.63 | 0.678 | 0.77 | 0.87 | 0.74 | 0.680 | 0.96 | 0.946 | 0.953 | 0.83 | 0.9227 | 1.28 | 1.29 | 1.39 | 1.1000 | 1.19 | 1.08 | 1.1002 | 0.954 | 0.9228 | 0.995 | 0.88 | 0.94 | 0.75 | 0.86 | 0.79 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.