Journal rankings · indicator year 2023
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2023
Library and Information Sciences journal rankings 2023
41 ranked journals · Subfield in Social Sciences
Library and Information Sciences has 41 ranked journals in 2023. The median OJR fell 0.19 on 2022 to 0.75, below the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 1.46. The top three are The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Reference Services Review, and The Library Quarterly.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2023. 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 2020–2022, the window the 2023 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)
41 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 2022. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2020–2022, the window the 2023 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2020–2022 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 2014 to 2023. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1The Journal of Academic LibrarianshipElsevier BV · United States | 2.58Q1 | 4.49 0.07 up from 2022 | 387 | 27% | $3,990 | ||
2Reference Services ReviewEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 2.08Q1 | 2.73 1.11 up from 2022 | 83 | 21% | — | ||
3The Library QuarterlyUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 2.00Q1 | 2.32 0.15 up from 2022 | 87 | 14% | — | ||
4Journal of Librarianship and Information ScienceSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.83Q1 | 2.38 0.02 down from 2022 | 232 | 55% | $3,650 | ||
5College & Research LibrariesOAAssociation of College and Research Libraries · United States | 1.82Q1 | 2.04 0.06 down from 2022 | 176 | 100% | — | ||
6IFLA JournalSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.76Q1 | 2.01 0.18 down from 2022 | 138 | 43% | $3,650 | ||
7New Review of Academic LibrarianshipTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.60Q1 | 2.92 1.41 up from 2022 | 66 | 70% | — | ||
8Public Library QuarterlyTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.53Q1 | 1.83 0.60 down from 2022 | 96 | 29% | — | ||
9Communications in Information LiteracyOACommunications in Information Literacy · United States | 1.52Q1 | 1.36 0.38 down from 2022 | 52 | 100% | — | ||
10Library ManagementEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 1.51Q1 | 2.37 0.06 up from 2022 | 136 | 18% | — | ||
11Journal of Library AdministrationTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.46Q1 | 1.57 0.69 down from 2022 | 206 | 14% | — | ||
12Journal of the Australian Library and Information AssociationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.40Q2 | 1.83 0.44 up from 2022 | 94 | 70% | — | ||
13The International Information & Library ReviewTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.15Q2 | 1.28 0.86 down from 2022 | 111 | 10% | — | ||
14Open Information ScienceOADe Gruyter · Poland | 1.09Q2 | 1.79 0.73 up from 2022 | 44 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
15portal Libraries and the AcademyJohns Hopkins University Press · United States | 1.06Q2 | 1.05 0.33 down from 2022 | 138 | 30% | — | ||
16Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance LearningTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.93Q2 | 1.34 0.09 down from 2022 | 56 | 11% | — | ||
17LibriOADe Gruyter · Germany | 0.92Q2 | 1.38 0.09 down from 2022 | 89 | 32% | $0 listed | ||
18College & Undergraduate LibrariesTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.88Q2 | 1.28 0.08 down from 2022 | 62 | 14% | — | ||
19Journal of Information LiteracyOAChartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals · United Kingdom | 0.87Q2 | 0.95 0.16 down from 2022 | 72 | 100% | — | ||
20Journal of Education for Library and Information ScienceUniversity of Toronto Press | 0.82Q2 | 1.07 0.03 up from 2022 | 123 | 8% | — | ||
21Partnership The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and ResearchOAThe Partnership · Canada | 0.75Q2 | 1.07 0.15 up from 2022 | 64 | 100% | — | ||
22International Journal of LibrarianshipOAChinese American Librarians Association · United States | 0.74Q3 | 0.33 1.73 down from 2022 | 58 | 100% | — | ||
23Journal of Critical Library and Information StudiesOAUnited States | 0.67Q3 | 0.91 0.05 up from 2022 | 47 | 100% | — | ||
24Journal of Access ServicesTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.62Q3 | 1.13 0.64 down from 2022 | 48 | 8% | — | ||
25Journal of Business & Finance LibrarianshipTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.62Q3 | 0.93 0.27 down from 2022 | 66 | 27% | — | ||
26School Libraries WorldwideInternational Association of School Librarianship · Canada | 0.57Q3 | 0.69 0.28 up from 2022 | 51 | 100% | — | ||
27Public & Access Services QuarterlyTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.57Q3 | 0.56 0.06 up from 2022 | 100 | 6% | — | ||
28Library trendsJohns Hopkins University Press · United States | 0.56Q3 | 0.52 0.37 down from 2022 | 112 | 3% | — | ||
29Alexandria The Journal of National and International Library and Information IssuesSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.48Q3 | 0.18 0.37 down from 2022 | 44 | 60% | $3,400 | ||
30Proceedings of the ALISE Annual ConferenceOAPublisher not listed | 0.41Q3 | 0.19no 2022 value | 111 | 100% | — | — | |
31Journal of Library Outreach and EngagementOAPublisher not listed | 0.34Q3 | 0.60 0.51 up from 2022 | 33 | 100% | — | ||
| 0.33Q4 | 0.45 0.39 down from 2022 | 90 | 100% | — | |||
33Evidence Based Library and Information PracticeOAUniversity of Alberta · Canada | 0.29Q4 | 0.57 0.08 down from 2022 | 185 | 100% | — | ||
34Library Leadership & ManagementOAUnited States | 0.26Q4 | 0.42 0.18 up from 2022 | 55 | 100% | — | ||
35Journal of New LibrarianshipOAUniversity of Colorado Boulder · United States | 0.18Q4 | 0.21 0.11 up from 2022 | 69 | 100% | — | ||
36Children and LibrariesOAAmerican Library Association · United States | 0.15Q4 | 0.14 0.07 down from 2022 | 157 | 100% | — | ||
37SLIS ConnectingOAUniversity of Southern Mississippi · United States | 0.11Q4 | 0.17no change | 55 | 100% | — | ||
38College & Research Libraries NewsOAAssociation of College and Research Libraries · United States | 0.11Q4 | 0.21 0.02 up from 2022 | 893 | 100% | — | ||
39The Southeastern LibrarianOAUnited States | 0.07Q4 | 0.07 0.08 down from 2022 | 143 | 100% | — | ||
40South Carolina LibrariesUnited States | 0.05Q4 | 0.04 0.05 down from 2022 | 61 | 94% | — | ||
41Maine policy reviewOAUnited States | 0.05Q4 | 0.10no change | 68 | 100% | — |
Subfields of Social Sciences, with Library and Information Sciences highlighted.
- Sociology and Political Science1,403
- Education732
- Political Science and International Relations334
- Communication73
- Gender Studies66
- Safety Research59
- Health55
- Transportation53
- Public Administration52
- Urban Studies52
- Linguistics and Language49
- Law45
- Library and Information Sciences41
- Demography40
- Anthropology38
- Geography, Planning and Development33
- Cultural Studies9
- Development4
- General Social Sciences4
- Human Factors and Ergonomics1
- Life-span and Life-course Studies1
- Archeology0
Journals
Citations made in 2023. Corpus-wide, 88.9% 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 2020–2022, 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: 2023. Publication window: 2020–2022. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 41
- Window papers (baseline)
- 4,380 -5.8% from indicator year 2020
- Median OJR
- 0.75 -24.9% from indicator year 2020
- Rising journals (2025)
- 0
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2020–2022 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.