Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Are we ready for another scholarly journal?

The APG mailing list has had an interesting discussion over the last week or so concerning Bible records - you can find the message thread in "Origin of Practice of Keeping Family Records in Bibles."

What is amazing to me is that from this discussion has come a proposal for a new genealogy journal concerning creation, development and destruction of records, evolution of and practices of record keeping, and the like. Craig Scott's post introduced the idea and subsequent posts fleshed out the proposal. It would be a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that would fill a gap in available journals by studying "development" rather than "content" and "application" of genealogy records.

I fervently believe that such a journal would be an excellent companion to the other scholarly journals being published which focus mainly on "content" and "application." Of course, some journal articles in NGSQ, NEHGR, APG and other scholarly journals have discussed the development of records and the evolution of types of records, but this new journal would be devoted to the subject.

There is more to genealogy and family history than pursuing just your own research goals in traditional and/or online resources. There are researchers, writers and editors in this profession who work hard to improve the "state of the art" in genealogy research. In the big scheme of things, they are vital and invaluable.

1 comment:

Lori Thornton said...

I agree that the discussion has been an interesting one, and I've replied to a few of those in position to create the journal that we are ready for such a journal. I believe it would be the type of journal that would garner the respect of the academic community once they have examined its contents. I believe that there are a number of us involved in genealogy who are also in academia. Having an article accepted for publication in a refereed journal, even if it is mostly an online journal with a limited print run, is the sort of thing for which those of us who sit on the tenure and promotion committees are looking. Most academics are increasingly utilizing electronic journals in some form or another. In fact, many libraries are cancelling print subscriptions in favor of electronic access because its what our clientele demands. Many academics are already using the Directory of Open Access Journals, and I would hope that any journal published would be included in a noted directory such as this.