About

Partnership is the journal of “Partnership”, Canada's national network of provincial and territorial library associations. Partnership promotes the exchange of ideas about libraries, librarianship, and information science among practitioners across all library sectors. We are a Canadian, open access journal publishing double-blind peer-reviewed research and editorially-reviewed articles and opinion pieces.

Editorial policy and ethics

PARTNERSHIP is the journal of “Partnership”, Canada's national network of provincial and territorial library associations. 

Partnership promotes the exchange of ideas about libraries, librarianship, and information science among practitioners across all library sectors. We are a Canadian, open access journal publishing double-blind peer-reviewed research and editorially-reviewed articles and opinion pieces.

For further information see here: https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/about

Peer review process

All submissions to Partnership are subjected to editorial review. Articles featured in the Theory and Research and Innovations in Practice sections are governed by a strict double-blind peer review process. Submissions to these sections are carefully anonymized before being sent for review. Appropriate reviewers are selected from a database of more than two hundred Canadian and international subject experts based on their knowledge of the topic of the paper under consideration. Where necessary, the editors will search beyond this database to find qualified reviewers for a particular manuscript. 

Peer reviewers may indicate to the editors their permission to share their comments anonymously with other reviewers of the same manuscript. Pending such permission, reviewers may request to the section editor to view the other reviewer’s comments.

For the Innovations in Practice section, please see these Guidelines for peer reviewers. 

Individuals interested in becoming reviewers should contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Copyright

As a condition of publication in Partnership, all authors agree to the following terms of licensing/copyright ownership:

• First publication rights to original work accepted for publication is granted to Partnership but copyright for all work published in the journal is retained by the author(s).
• Works published in Partnership will be distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Authors grant permission for their work to be indexed in full text form in commercial indexes and non-commercial indexes. This may include but is not limited to, indexes such as Proquest, EBSCO, Erudit etc.
• Authors may enter into separate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in Partnership.
• It will be the responsibility of the authors to secure all necessary copyright permissions for the use of 3rd-party materials in their manuscript. Authors will be required to provide written evidence of this permission upon acceptance of their manuscript.
• Authors agree their abstracts may be translated into French. 

Note: This license applies to all works published after February 1, 2016. Articles published before this date are under CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Code of Ethics for Editorial Team

• All communication among the editorial team and between editors and peer reviewers and authors will take place in a clear, respectful, timely and transparent manner. 
• Section Editors are the primary contact between the author and the editorial team. If copyeditors, proofreaders, or layout editors have questions for the author during the production of an article, these should be directed to the Section Editor. This minimizes confusion and miscommunication with the author.
• Members of the editorial team who wish to submit a paper to the journal will submit it directly to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief will anonymize the paper and direct it through the publication process. Section Editors and/or peer reviewers will determine whether or not to accept the paper. Section Editors may not submit a paper to their own section.
• The Editor-in-Chief will remain neutral and treat all possible breaches of this Code confidentially. The Editor-in-Chief will take action against any individual(s) who do not adhere to the Code of Ethics. This may result in declining a manuscript, or dismissing a peer reviewer or editor of their duties.
• Appeals may be directed to the Partnership board for resolution.
• In the event of a dispute involving the Editor-in-Chief, the matter will be directed to the Partnership board for resolution.
• These rules of governance are applicable to any individual involved in the production of the journal. These include, but are not limited to: editors, peer-reviewers, authors, etc.

Code of Ethics for Authors

• Authors will conduct their research in line with best practices and regulations of their professional bodies and home institutions. Authors will adhere to the guidelines of TCPS 2 (2014): the latest edition of Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. The paper complies with the ethical requirements of Informed Consent and any conflict of interest has been declared.
• Authors will declare any conflicts of interest. (See, for example: Review of Practical Open Source Software for Libraries in Partnership 7(1), 2012).
• All authors must be named on the manuscript, and in the order in which they would like to be acknowledged, at the point of submission. 
• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
• The author retains copyright of their work. The author will acknowledge the Partnership as the first place of publication in subsequent use, such as placement in an Institutional Repository.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
• The author has obtained the permission of the copyright holder for the inclusion of any third party material, including images, in the text.
• There has been no falsification or fabrication of data findings.
• The paper includes no instances of plagiarism, such as verbatim copying of another’s work and submitting it as one’s own, or changing words and phrases while retaining the essential content of another’s work.
• If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
• Publication has been approved by all co-authors and responsible authorities at the organization where the work has been carried out. 
• Anonymous manuscripts will not be accepted.

Code of Ethics for Peer Reviewers

• Peer reviewers will agree to review manuscripts only for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner.
• They will respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are released by the journal.
• They will not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others.
• They will declare all potential conflicting interests, seeking advice from the journal if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant interest. A peer reviewer shall declare knowledge of the author if he or she detects this in the manuscript.
• They will not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations.
• They will be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments.
• They will decline to review if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased review.
• Peer reviewers will take into consideration the ethical standards required of authors when submitting their papers. They will assess whether the paper may be plagiarized, if informed consent ought to have been obtained, if authors have declared competing interests, and whether there is any indication the data has been fabricated or inappropriately manipulated.

Editorial board

Editors

Evette Berry, Editor-in-Chief, Calgary Public Library 

Éthel Gamache, Section Editor (French Language), Concordia University

Corinne Gilroy, Layout Editor, Mount Saint Vincent University

Krista Godfrey, Production Editor, University of Waterloo

Jen Hoyer,  Section Editor (Innovations in Practice), Brooklyn Public Library

Tamara Noor, Section Editor (Features), OCAD University

Rainer Schira, Layout Editor, Brandon University

Ann Smith, Section Editor (Theory & Research), Acadia University

Copyeditors

Kara Blizzard, University of Alberta

Chris Landry, OCAD University

Catherine Lachaine, University of Ottawa

Dahlal Mohr-Elzeki, McGill University Health Centre

Greg Nightingale, Western University

Andrea Quaiattini, McGill University

Emily Tyschenko, Guelph Public Library

Proofreaders

Deborah Hemming, Simon Fraser University

Mylène Pinard, McGill University

Social Media & Web Design

Graham Lavender, Web Design Coordinator, Michener Institute of Education at UHN

Natalie Colaiacovo, Digital & Social Media Coordinator, Centennial College

Translation

Patrick Labelle, University of Ottawa