Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. Previous information

The journal accepts systematic review articles, theoretical and methodological discussions and research reports on completed projects, as well as news on ongoing projects, experiences, notes and reviews on the journal’s specific scope.

Articles are peer-reviewed on a double-blind basis. Authors can also suggest reviewers, but the final decision is made by the editor with the support of the scientific committee. The complete procedure is published in the rules published on the journal's website.

Authors undertake to present and discuss their papers in public and in person at the Ibersid conference of the current year, according to the conference rules, unless otherwise agreed with the editor.

The publication languages are English, Spanish and Portuguese. Authors must submit their paper in the native language of one of the authors, who will be responsible for writing and presenting a linguistically and scientifically correct paper, according to these instructions.

The organisation will not be able to publish papers that are poorly written, contain spelling mistakes or do not conform to these editorial guidelines. Only occasional and minor errors can be tolerated. Authors are responsible for the management and cost of translation and style correction. The editors will not send non-conforming papers to the reviewers.

2. Paper submission

Papers must be original and must present methods, results, conclusions or recommendations that go beyond the state of the art.

State of the art and introductions should be complete in terms of references to prior knowledge. They should be sufficiently informative, but also concise, with references strictly related to the topic of the paper. The journal publishes new knowledge, not reviews of other papers or long off-topic contextual introductions inside the papers. If you wish to submit a review, you may do so, but in a monographic and systematic way. If you want to explore a context in depth, do it so monographically.

Articles will have a maximum length of 60,000 characters including spaces and 20,000 for case studies, research in progress, short articles and communications. Exceptionally, these figures may be adjusted according to the interest of the work, but always with the prior agreement of the editor.

They should be submitted without identifying information on the authors to allow double-blind review.

Authors should include a separate cover page with full personal details of each author: name, position, address, telephone, fax and e-mail. All authors must also be included in the metadata of the submission. It is not possible to add authors after submission.

Articles must be submitted through the journal platform duly formatted with this template in a word processor file, using this template.  Graphics and tables must be included in their proper place (and also in separated, original files).

They will be preceded by their titles, informative abstracts and keywords, all in English and Spanish.

Do not report repetitive analytical data or lists of resources in the main text. Present them in tabular form or, if their length makes them inappropriate, include them in an appendix.

The editor may make stylistic and layout changes to bring the paper into line with the journal's requirements. The author will have access to proofs of the manuscript so that he can make suggestions for minor changes.

The author is reminded that violation of intellectual property rights and ethical codes is unacceptable behaviour and may constitute a serious offence. No graphics or images already published will be published unless permission to reproduce them is granted or they are in the free domain, which will be justified by providing proof of the conditions of use.

2.1. Headings

All sections, including notes, references and appendices, shall be numbered sequentially. Sub-sections–the titles of which shall be clear and concise–shall be in the form '1.1', '1.2' and '1.2.1'. Assign the headings with the option to assign style. No more than three levels of headings are allowed.

Do not number English and Spanish abstracts, notes, acknowledgements and references. To remove the automatic numbering assigned by the "Heading" styles, delete them as usual with the backspace key.

2.2. Text formats

Do not use underlining, bold or small caps.

Use capital letters only for acronyms. Do not use periods or spaces between the letters that make up the acronym.

Italics should only be used to emphasise terms in other languages, titles of works, very important key words that can serve as headings for a paragraph or set of paragraphs, and sparingly to emphasise other terms and phrases as the author wishes.

Use lists sparingly. Do not use lists with carriage returns or line feeds. Write complete paragraphs according to English grammar. You can put numbers or letters in brackets in your lists within paragraphs to give the reader information about the order or size of the list; for example, (1), (2) …

2.3. Figures y graphics

In addition to being embedded in the main text, figures and graphs should be presented in two complementary formats: In files from the programme used to create them (e.g. Excel, Photoshop, etc.) and in an export from the original programme to PDF. This is required because it is the only way to ensure their quality, especially if they contain text.

In exceptional cases, they can be submitted in raster formats (jpg, tiff, etc.) with a high resolution (at least 600 dpi). Be careful when creating these images from your computer screen. If you re-render to screen in Windows, you will get low resolution images. In this case, use as large a screen as possible, enlarge the window as much as possible, copy using the "print screen" key, paste into "Paint" or a similar program, save the file and check the results. There are programs available that allow you to obtain screen images at an acceptable resolution. The publisher reserves the right to reject images with insufficient resolution.

Figure 1. Main facade of the library

Graphics should be presented without a background or frame so that they stand out on the blank page (Figure 2). Do not repeat the title of the figure in the text, as it should already be given in the legend.

Figure 2. Example of a chart
without background or frame

In the body of the article, figures should have captions that indicate their content, preceded by the word "Figure" and a sequential number, followed by a period and a space (e.g., "Figure 1."). Use the "Figure or Table Caption" style for the caption.

If figures are wider than the standard width and you cannot lay them out properly (which requires section marks), place them at the end of the document in the non-column section and the layout team will try to arrange them in their place or keep them in the appendices. Specify in the text: “Figure n, in appendices”.

If the figures and graphics are your own, do not precise "Source: own production" or similar. If they are external, give the source with the usual citation system (see below) or a statement of the right to copy. In the acknowledgements, state whatever permissions you might have received to reproduce images, text and tables.

2.4. Tables

Tables must be created in the same word processor as the article. Tables should never be inserted as images or in any other embedded format.

In the text, they should have headings indicating their content, preceded by the word "Table" and a corresponding Roman numeral (e.g. "Table I.").

If the tables are wider than the columns, you can place them at the end of the document in the section without columns and the layout team will try to fit them in or keep them in the appendices. Specify in the text (table n, in appendix).

Use the "Table header" style for the table header and the "Table text" style for the text in the normal cells. Use the "Figure or table caption" style for the table caption.

Table I. Allowed character styles and their use

2.5. Equations and mathematical expressions

If you want to insert equations and mathematical expressions, use the equation system of Microsoft Word or similar. If you use an external programme, print each equation in a pdf file to preserve the original characters. Do not use raster files (jpg, png, tiff or similar) as they cannot be manipulated or resized well and often do not have sufficient resolution.

2.6. Notes

Explanatory notes should only be used in exceptional cases. Do not use the automatic system of your word processor. They should be referenced in the text by giving their serial number in brackets and included at the end of the paper in a section entitled "Notes" immediately before the "References" section, in serial order and preceded by their serial number in brackets followed by a tab.

References should be cited in the same way as the rest of the text (see the following section), and the full reference should be included in the "References" section. Web pages are considered bibliographical references and should be treated as such, avoiding their citation as a note.

Use the Notes style for footnote paragraphs.

2.7. In-text references

Bibliographical references in the text are given in brackets with the author's surname, the year of publication and, if necessary, the page number. The first name and surname of the author may be given outside the parentheses if this is more convenient. If there are several authors, they are separated by commas and the last two by " and ", " & " or their equivalent in the language used.

If two authors in the reference list have the same first surname, they will be referred to by their two surnames and, if both surnames are the same, by their first names as well.

If two or more works by the same author are from the same year, they will be distinguished by sequential lowercase letters of the alphabet after the date without a space.

If there are several references within the parenthesis, they will be separated by a semicolon if they are by different authors; and, if they are by the same author, the surnames are not repeated and the years are separated by a comma. Thus, for example, "It is a theory supported by several authors (Gallego, 1975; Fernández and Alonso, 1993) [...]", "According to Jaime Pérez (1993, p. 24) [...]", "The same author (Pérez, 1993, p. 27-28) states the convenience of [...]", "Differences have been detected in the replication of the experience (Menéndez, 1994a, 1994b; Menéndez and Alonso, 1997)".

If you include verbatim text from an author, put it in inverted commas, and if it is more than two or three lines long, do the following:

If the verbatim text you are reproducing is longer than two or three lines, follow a different procedure: put it without inverted commas in a separate paragraph in "Quote" style. If it is shown incomplete, include three dots in square brackets to indicate the ellipsis [...].

2.8. Format of the bibliographical references

Bibliographical references should be listed in alphabetical order at the end of the article under the heading "References", using the "References" style. They should follow the ISO 690 standard, with punctuation as close as possible to the abbreviated ISBD, but without spaces before the punctuation marks. Follow the format specified in the following paragraphs. Note that in documents that are component parts (articles, chapters, web pages within a site, etc.), the main reference is separated by a period and two slashes ". // " from the main reference to its source (journal, book, website, etc.).

References to websites should also be included in this section, not in the text or in a note. Entire websites are treated as monographs, and individual pages or other types of isolated files (pdf, etc.) as component parts, unless they are in a repository or have been included as exempt files, not as sections of the website, e-journal, etc.

Provide an appropriate reference to any references used in the text of the article; do not include in the references section documents that you have not cited in the text.

if the document has a DOI or URL, it is mandatory to include them (by this order of preference).

The format for the main types of material is given below, with elements that may or may not appear in italics, followed by an example.

2.8.1. Monographs, congresses, reports, standards y thesis

Surname, Name; SurnameN, NameN (function) (year). Title: subtitle. Edition. Place of publication: publisher; place of publicationN: publisherN. Doctoral thesis.

Delclaux, Isidoro; Seoane, Julio (1982). Psicología cognitiva y procesamiento de la información: teoría, investigación y aplicaciones. Madrid: Ediciones Pirámide.

Smith, Philip J.; Beghtol, Clare; Fidel, Raya; Kwasnik, Barbara H. (eds.) (1993). Proceedings of the 4th ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop: Columbus, OH, Oct. 24, 1993. Silver Spring, MD.: American Society for Information Science.

2.8.2. Articles in journals and periodicals

Surname, Name; SurnameN, nameN (function) (year). Title: Subtitle. // Title of the journal. Volume: issue, first page-last page.

Ellis, David (1992a). The physical and cognitive paradigms in Information Retrieval Research. // Journal of Documentation. 48:1 (March 1992) 45-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026889

2.8.3. Chapters of a monograph, a report or proceedings

Surname, Name; SurnameN, nameN (function) (year). Title: Subtitle. // Surname, Name; SurnameN, NameN (function) (year). Title: subtitle. Edition. Place of publication: publisher; place of publicationN: publisherN. First page-last page.

Markey, Karen (1990). Keyword searching in an online catalog enhanced with a library classification. // Bengtson, Betty G.; Hill, Janet Swan (eds.). Classification of library materials: current and future potential for providing access. New York: Neal-Shuman Publishers. 99-125.

2.8.4. Web and online resolurces

These should be cited as monographs, articles or chapters as appropriate. Then, after a period, give the URL.

Reference. URL

Sagredo Fernández, Félix; Espinosa Temiño, María Blanca (2000). Del libro, al libro electrónico-digital. // Cuadernos de Documentación Multimedia. 9. http://www.ucm.es/
info/multidoc/multidoc/revista/num9/cine/ sagredo.htm

3. The abstract

A scientific abstract provides information on the objectives, scope, methodology, results, conclusions and recommendations. Scope refers to the extent to which the objectives have been addressed. Results, conclusions and recommendations are distinguished as follows

• Results are the specific and concrete information or data obtained from the application of the methodology;
• Conclusions are derived from the results either by interpreting them within the framework of previous theoretical knowledge or by creating a new interpretive framework from them through a process of abstraction;
• Finally, recommendations refer to new problems and avenues for further study in the light of the results and conclusions, or suggestions for practical application of the conclusion.

The abstract should be written clearly and concisely, without redundancy or periphrasis, or information that is difficult to interpret, such as neologisms or unexplained abbreviations. It should be a minimum of one hundred words and a maximum of two hundred and fifty.

It is highly desirable that the first sentence of the first paragraph contains the name of the type of document. For example: "State of the art on the application of the European Quality Model to university libraries", "Project on the application of MARC21 to the cataloguing of institutional web sites", "Systematic review on the curation of content in advertising", etc.

4. Writing a scientific article: some obvious aspects that are frequently overlooked

• Systematisation. Scientific articles need to be written in a very organised way, with a strong textual structure. In research results articles, the usual structure is aims, methods, results, conclusions and recommendations. In state-of-the-art articles, the discussed papers are presented in a chronological or systematic order according to the ontology of their scientific field, then they are synthesised and discussed, and the conclusions and recommendations follow. Other types of articles may follow other structures, but in any case, their structure must be clear, explicit and obvious.
• Clarity and conciseness. The language of the scientific paper must be deliberately clear and concise. Exceptionally, authors with a good command of the written language may use literary resources when writing position papers and essays.
• Pertinence and economy. Previously known information should not be given unless it is the main starting point for the discussion. You can refer to previous information with references. The systematisation of previously known knowledge is the aim of a certain type of scientific article (review or state of the art) and requires complete documentation. In the rest of the article, only give the main references that form the framework of your work in the introductory paragraphs.
• Courtesy. Reference must be made to previous authors who have worked on the subject. It must be shown that the relevant previous literature is known, and that the paper is politely introduced into the scientific field to which it purports to contribute. It is not a question of agreeing, but of recognising the contributions of others and cooperating in the creation of a vibrant scientific community.