Investigating academic library responses to predatory publishing in the United States, Canada and Spanish-speaking Latin America

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>This is a comparative investigation of how university libraries in the United States, Canada and Spanish-speaking Latin America are responding to predatory publishing.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>The Times Higher Education World University Rankings was used to identify the top ten universities from each of the US and Canada, as well as the top 20 Spanish-language universities in Latin America. Each university library's website was scrutinized to discover whether the libraries employed scholarly communication librarians, whether they offered scholarly communication workshops, or whether they shared information about scholarly communication on their websites. This information was further examined to determine if it discussed predatory publishing specifically.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Most libraries in the US/Canada sample employ scholarly communication librarians and nearly half offer workshops on predatory publishing. No library in the Latin America sample employed a scholarly communication specialist and just one offered a workshop addressing predatory publishing. The websites of the libraries in the US and Canada addressed predatory publishing both indirectly and directly, with US libraries favoring the former approach and Canadian libraries tending towards the latter. Predatory publishing was rarely addressed directly by the libraries in the Latin America sample; however, all discussed self-archiving and/or Open Access.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>Brazilian universities were excluded owing to the researchers' language limitations. Data were collected between September 15 and 30, 2019, so it represents a snapshot of information available at that time. The study was limited to an analysis of library websites using a fixed set of keywords, and it did not investigate whether other campus units were involved or whether other methods of informing researchers about predatory publishing were being used.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>The study reveals some best practices leading to recommendations to help academic libraries combat predatory publishing and improve scholarly publishing literacy among researchers.</jats:p></jats:sec>

How are academic libraries in Spanish-speaking Latin America responding to new models of scholarly communication and predatory publishing?

“…Nevertheless, while the sampling is not perfect, the total number of participants, along with the fact that all countries in the region are included and that a variety of types of accredited and research-active universities are represented, will allow us to gain a better understanding of how predatory publishing is being addressed in academic libraries in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Furthermore, these findings can serve to complement the findings of Buitrago-Ciro and Bowker (2020), who investigate the same broad research question (i.e. how are academic libraries responding to predatory publishing) using an analysis of the websites of 20 academic libraries in six different countries in Spanish-speaking Latin America.…”

“…Although there is increasing recognition of predatory practices in the scholarly community, there nonetheless remain significant gaps, including in regions of the developing world such as Spanish-speaking Latin America, as observed by Buitrago-Ciro and Bowker (2020). In addition, some of the so-called predatory practices fall into a gray area that can be challenging and time-consuming to navigate.…”

“…Beshyah (2017) cites a low awareness of predatory publishing in the Middle East and Africa and issues a wake-up call for these regions, while Balehegn (2017) draws attention to the growing problem of predatory publishing in developing countries and calls for action. As described in detail in Buitrago-Ciro and Bowker (2020), several sociocultural factors contribute to putting researchers in developing regions at risk of predatory publishing. For instance, scholars in developing countries often need to publish-in English-to fulfill graduate program requirements or obtain a contract or promotion.…”

“…Numerous academic libraries are taking steps in this regard. For example, Buitrago-Ciro and Bowker’s (2020) comparative analysis of university library websites in the United States, Canada, and Spanish-speaking Latin America reveals that the majority of the US and Canadian libraries included in the study employ scholarly communication librarians, and nearly half offer workshops on predatory publishing. In contrast, very few of the Spanish-speaking Latin American university libraries included in the study appear to employ scholarly communication specialists or offer workshops on predatory publishing awareness, and this is despite the fact that Latin America has an active open access culture (e.g.…”

Predation, Plagiarism, and Perfidy

“…Scholarly communications librarians help with the creation, evaluation, dissemination, and preservation of research. 24 Libraries promote information literacy, 25 which can reduce the chances of falling prey to predatory publishers.…”