72nd ILA Annual Conference – International Conference on “Future Libraries: Advancing Research and Excellence (FLARE 2027)” at https://maps.app.goo.gl/D7VYCvyQdyqmyZbn8
January 7, 2027 to January 9, 2027
LIS Links
First and Largest Academic Social Network of LIS Professionals in India
LIS Links Becoming More Social
Birthdays
Birthdays Today
Latest Activity
National Conference on “Intelligent and Smart Digital Library (ISDL-2026)” at IIT Kharagpur at IIT Kharagpur
December 21, 2026 at 9am to December 22, 2026 at 6pm
7th National Conference on Management of Modern Libraries (NACML– 2027) on “Contemporary Approaches to Libraries: Emerging Technologies, Services, and Skills at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, Karnataka
January 29, 2027 at 10am to January 30, 2027 at 5pm
One-Day National Seminar on Artificial Intelligence and Academic Libraries: Issues and Opportunities in the 21st Century at kongu arts and science college
October 28, 2026 from 9:30am to 4:30pm
IASLIC 31st National Seminar 2026 on Adaptive Libraries: Resilience and Innovation at Bansuri Guru Auditorium, Institute of Technical Education & Research, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
December 28, 2026 to December 30, 2026
Two-Day Online National Workshop on Library Automation Using Koha at Cooch Behar, West Bengal
October 2, 2026 at 11am to October 3, 2026 at 5pm
Two-Day Online National Workshop on "Library Automation Using Koha" at Online
October 2, 2026 at 11am to October 3, 2026 at 5pm
"Dear All Librarian,
PFA
Call for Book Chapters/Research Papers for Edited Book To be Published with ISBN under IIP International Publi"
Are we really publishing scholarly and peer reviewed Journals in LIS?
When I check my e-mail account, I observe that on an average I receive one request in a week to send a paper for a particular LIS Journal. It seems that there is mushrooming of LIS Journals. In India it is very easy to start a journal. Just register the Journal with RNI (Registrar of Newspaper/Magazine in India), constitute a dummy editorial board, get the ISSN from NISCAIR and journal is ready to be launched. In LIS there are approximately 80 journals. There is also no restriction to make the journal National or International, it depends on us.
After the implementation of API/PBAS by UGC for evaluation of performance of faculty & librarians for career advancement and recruitment, a trend has emerged in the last five years to start an in-house journal within the organization, or by individual association and NGOs to get articles published at any cost, simply to meet their scores for promotion/recruitment. By December 2009, there were 7425 journals registered in India in all areas as per ISSN register whereas this number reached 16161 in 2013.
In many Indian universities, for the selection process the journals are classified into national & international for allotting the marks whereas they should have been classified as "Indian" or "Foreign" Journals. It has been seen that many times journal having word "International" is treated as foreign publication and it got more marks. Therefore, most of these journals started with "International Journal of ........"
A new trend has also started to take the handling charges from the authors who want to publish their paper/article. It seems that authors are able to get anything published that is in type form without refereeing or revision. Here nobody will reject the paper. Such paid journals have become a booming business in India but this trend has tarnished the standard of research journals in LIS. An influential person can get his or her paper published easily, whether it has any novelty or not. People with little experience in a editing and reviewing become Chief Editor and Expert Referees. There are instances when heads of the department tend to insert their names in most of the papers, communicated from their department.
Here, the main point is that if somebody publishes his/her paper in LIS journals like IASLIC Bulletin, SRELS Journal of Information Management, Annals of Library and Information Studies etc. and another person publishes in "International Journal of XYZ" published from India, then who will get more point as per the UGC rule. Can we compare the standard of above mentioned journals with any other so called International Journal published from India?
Therefore, we should have a strict code for Academic and Research Journals and it may be prepared by ISSN giving agency i.e., NISCAIR.
It is also necessary that, while evaluating the quality of publications, emphasis should be given to those publications which are indexed and cited by international databases like SCOPUS, Web of Knowledge etc.
Feedback and comments are welcome.
Views: 412
Replies to This Forum
-
Permalink Reply by Dr Intekhab Alam Siddiqui on
-
Thank you Sir for raising an important problem, i agree with most of your points. Of course by putting a word "INTERNATIONAL" in the title of a journal it can not be of international repute and scope, but in a Knowledge Society there are no boundaries for research and scholarly information and the criteria to divide the journals into indian and foreign is also not the solution of this problem. The situation in other developing countries may be worsen than India, and people may publish there, and their publication will be treated as published in foreign journal. There should be well defined criteria developed by an authority like UGC or AIU, acceptable at national level on the basis of various parameters of quality and not on the basis of merely ISSN or "The International" or "Foreign".
Thanks
-
Permalink Reply by Digambar Bhaurao Waghmare on
-
Dear Sir,
first thanks for your very forward & stright article
I agree with your very informative & true opinion on Journals publication
really everyone must think on this topic most of our professionals publish this type of commercial Journals, published commercial books on NET/ SET exam, Edited books only for getting money means commercial purpose, mostly this type of journals or edited books author doing this unethical works for API
so these type of Journals & books authors & Editors & Editorial boards members must self analysis are they doing ethical ? really are they support to increase research Standard of our subject as well as indian education system?
I think such types of Journals editors, papers authors, Book editors doing unethical works also decrease the standard of our Subject Research as well as nations position in world research
pl. every indian mostly peoples in education system must think why Harvard University and University of Oxford, ranking No. 1 & 2 in the world
due to this type of unethical, commercial purpose mushroom authors & editors
any Indian University is not in top 300 universities in the world as per Times Higher Education Universities World Ranking 2013-2014
pl. see link http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/201...
Thanking you,
Regards
Digambar B Waghmare
-
Permalink Reply by Manjunath K S on
-
Definitely sir nowadays journal publishing is became a business i have seen on lislinks itself some body will send call for papers on that if we want to publish a paper need to subscribe one year that particular journal thats the criterion they are following like that i have seen many examples & regarding the names once in a workshop the AICTE Spokesperson said any journal is publishing with in India it becomes National Journal only there is no matter it's name is International journal of .... or National jl of.... if it publishing from Sri Lanka or Bangladesh or Nepal or any other countries other than India it is become International they added.
Thank you sir.
© 2026 Created by Dr. Badan Barman.
Powered by
