Library Trends Call for Papers
Genres and Their Uses in Cultural Documentation: Exploring Generic Access to Creative Worlds
Guest editors: Pauline Rafferty (Aberystwyth University), Philip Hider (Charles Sturt University), Deborah Lee (University College London)
Extended abstract submission deadline: January 31, 2024
Full article submission deadline: September 2, 2024
Publication date: mid-2025
About this issue
Genres have long been recognised as an important means of making sense of, and navigating, creative worlds. Serving as labels for different components of these worlds, they constitute rich and often elaborate systems of categorization, utilised by creators, audiences and intermediaries. These labels are not always used consistently, however, and tend to be based on subjective and sometimes contested attributes, making for a fluidity, and slipperiness, in their definitions, reflective of artistic and societal development as well as of the personal nature of art itself.
Both the utility and slipperiness of genres make them an important area of study for those tasked with facilitating intellectual access to creative works, and for the field of knowledge organization. With practical interest in providing generic access to artistic and literary collections having grown in recent years, with, for instance, the development and implementation of the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), and the ‘genrefication’ of various library collections, scholarship into the nature of generic classification and how it can be leveraged to support the navigation of the ever-expanding creative universe is needed more than ever.
This special issue explores the concept and use of genre in a wide variety of creative domains, including well-established ones such as fiction, film and music, and emerging ones such as computer games, internet video, and digital art. We are seeking contributions from scholars with a wide variety of perspectives on genre, in order to explore and interrogate genre as an access and organising principle.
Potential topics
- Theories of genre for knowledge organization
- A comparison of genre attributes across different genres
- Genre information in library catalog
- The context and future of Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT)
- Automatic genre classification
- Aspects of genre and subgenre organization in one or more art forms, such as fiction, film, television, music, computer games, computer animation, video art
- Use of genres for access to non-fiction (e.g., biography, cookery books)
- Genrefication and genres in specific library contexts, such as school libraries and public libraries
Please note that this list is not exhaustive, and topics which relate to the issue’s theme, but which are not listed here are also very welcome.
How to write for this issue
Prospective authors are invited to submit an extended abstract of 500-1000 words (not including bibliographical references), outlining their proposed article by January 31, 2024. Decisions about the abstracts will be communicated by March 1, 2024, and authors of successful submission invited to write their full articles during March-August 2024. These should be 4,000-10,000 words (not including bibliographic references) and use the author-date referencing system in The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition. Detailed author instructions for Library Trends can be found at https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/library-trends. The full articles will be double-blind peer reviewed.
Instructions for submitting an extended abstract for consideration
This abstract should include the following:
- The author(s)’s name(s), affiliation(s) and email address(es)
- The proposed topic area and/or working title
- An abstract containing an outline of the proposed article’s research question(s), main topics covered, and scope and limits of the article’s coverage methodologies/approach employed, and (potential) findings
The abstract should include some indicative references, and references should use The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, employing the author-date system.
Please submit your abstract via email, with the subject line ‘Library Trends genre issue’, to the editors: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
Important dates
- January 31, 2024 – Extended abstract submission deadline
- March 1, 2024 – Authors notified of decisions on abstracts
- September 2, 2024 – Full article submission deadline
- January 13, 2025 – Revised article submission deadline