Published errors and errata in library and information science journals

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the characterization of corrections to the papers published in Library and Information Science (LIS) journals during 2006-2015. It studies the frequency and location of the published errors, time interval between the publication of the original papers and their corrections, as well as associations between journals’ impact factors (IF) and their correction rates.Design/methodology/approachThe population of the study comprised of 369 errata published in 50 LIS journals. The data were obtained from Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WoS) and Journal Citation Reports.FindingsThe results of the study revealed a correction rate of 0.37 per cent for LIS journals, which is substantially lower than that of 124 subject categories with at-least one erratum in the WoS. Among the countries with the highest number of errata in LIS journals, the USA ranked first, followed by China and England. However, the greatest share of errata to overall LIS publications of the country was seen in Kazakhstan, Russia and Botswana. Results showed that no statistically significant relationships existed between the journals’ IF and their correction rates. The highest proportion of errors published in LIS literature was occurred in authors’ information, references, tables and figures. Moreover, the average time from publication of the original articles to their corresponding errata was found to be 8.7 months.Social implicationsCorrecting the unintentional mistakes in scholarly articles is an ethical responsibility of researchers and journal editors.Originality/valueThe current research tries to investigate the characteristics of errata in the LIS field.