Code4Lib Editorial Committee Introduction

The Code4Lib Journal Editorial Committee works much as Code4Lib does: informally and collaboratively. One member of the Editorial Committee (EC) volunteers to be Coordinating Editor (ie managing editor) of a journal issue and is responsible for distributing the call for papers, communicating with potential authors, opening and closing editorial committee voting on submissions, and making sure that accepted articles have volunteer editors. For the duration of their tenure, the Coordinating Editor is generally responsible for any loose ends tying, and making sure everything proceeds smoothly, coordinating all of the rest of us.

Everyone on the EC may vote on article proposals as they come in. Voting is straightforward and recorded in the tracking spreadsheet. An article must have at least two 'yes' votes and more 'yes' votes than 'no' votes to be accepted. Once an article is accepted for publication, an EC member volunteers to take on editorial responsibility for that article and shepherds it from proposal to publication, acting as the journal's single point of contact with the author. Most Committee members take responsiblity for at least one article per issue, though the committee is large enough that there is some flexibility with editorial responsibility.

Editing an article includes making sure the article draft is submitted on time, distributing drafts to the full committee for comment, making editorial suggestions or recommendations to the author(s), tracking and enforcing submission deadlines, requesting full Editorial Committee approval of the final draft, and inputting the finished article into http://journal.code4lib.org.

More detailed information describing the entire process from sending out the call for proposals to publishing a new issue is available on the Journal site:

1. General outline of process and structure
2. More detailed information for editors (requires Wordpress login)

Above all, the Editorial Committee is informal and egalitarian. Jump in with your opinion and ideas!

Articles, from proposal submission through to publication, are tracked using the C4LJ Article Tracking spreadsheet in Google Docs. This Google document is private; only Editorial Committee members may view or edit it. Proposal votes and tentative issue assignments for accepted articles are tracked in this spreadsheet.

Much of the Editorial Committee's business is conducted via email on the C4LJ-Articles Google Group. This list is where we debate article submissions, volunteer to be editor or managing editor, discuss acceptance of articles, and take care of any other tasks in front of us that might be of a sensitive nature.

All other Journal business is discussed on the C4LJ-Discuss Google Group. If there's no reason to keep a conversation private, use this group.

Code4Lib Journal articles are published in a Wordpress installation hosted by ibiblio (http://journal.code4lib.org). The assigned editor for an article is responsible for entering the content into Wordpress, formatting it, and adding images and code snippets. Guidelines on entering articles are available on the wiki. We also maintain basic information about the Journal using pages in Wordpress (Mission, Editorial Committee, Process and Structure, Call for Submissions, Article Guidelines).

New editors need to request a Wordpress account:

1. Go to http://journal.code4lib.org/wp/wp-login.php?action=register
2. Register
3. Send your username to c4lj-articles@googlegroups.com so the technical editor can grant you Wordpress privileges.