Guidelines for Contributors to ACCESS

ACCESS, the Australian School Library Association's national journal for teacher librarianship, is published four times each year in March, June, September and December.

Articles are accepted on the understanding they have not been and will not be published elsewhere. Exceptions may apply, such as a substantial revision of previously published material or when specific permission has been granted for an article to appear in ACCESS.

Copy deadlines

Issue 1 -- copy deadline 6 January
Issue 2 -- copy deadline 7 April
Issue 3 -- copy deadline 7 July
Issue 4 -- copy deadline 6 October

Word length

5000 words -- Refereed articles
2500 words -- Feature articles
2500 words -- Research articles
2500 words -- Commentary articles
600 words -- Reports
600 words -- Conference reports
600 words -- Reviews

Submission

Articles should be submitted electronically to the editor as an email attachment in Microsoft Word. Acknowledgement of receipt of the article will be sent to the author(s) and the editor will liaise with the author(s) over the suitability of the article.

Refereed articles

In addition to general and themed articles on issues relating to teacher librarianship school libraries, ACCESS also publishes refereed articles (on request). ACCESS is registered as a refereed journal with the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. When authors request peer review of research, substantial and scholarly articles, they are reviewed by our panel of referees. Accordingly, ACCESS in on the list of ranked journals maintained by the Australian Research Council (ARC) for the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative.

An article submitted for consideration as a refereed article, must:

• contain original ideas and content
• be relevant to the profession of teacher librarianship and/or school libraries
• be of academic worthiness
• be of an appropriately scholarly standard
• be supported by adequate references
• meet the submission requirements of ASLA
• be research-based or an example of best practice

Peer-reviewed articles received by the editor are assessed and sent to two reviewers selected from our expert peer-review panel. These reviewers will conduct a double-blind review, that is, reviewers do not know the identity of the author(s), and the author(s) do not know the identity of the reviewers. The review outcomes will be sent to the author(s) including any recommended revisions.

Authors who would like articles to be refereed must submit their material one deadline in advance. The average time from review to notification by the author to accept or reject the outcomes will be 10 - 12 weeks from the receipt of the article.

See Reviewer Instructions for detailed criteria.

Format

The article should be double-spaced throughout using 12-point font size and standard margins. See also Styleguide for ACCESS.

Cover page

The cover page should include the title of the article, the author(s)' full name(s), institution affiliation, mailing address, e-mail address. It should also include a brief biography (50 to 100 words) and a full-colour headshot of the author(s) as a jpeg.

Title page

The title page should include the title of the article, the author(s)' full name(s), disclaimers (if any), an abstract of approximately 100 words.

Figures and tables

Each table or figure should be numbered consecutively and sent as a separate document to the article.

Images

Original drawings, cartoons and photos are to be sent as attachments. Electronic graphics must be high resolution.

If including any copyrighted material, copyright clearance must be sought and it must be identified that such clearance has been given.

Referencing

References should follow the APA7 format. Basic details required, in order, are:

• Name/s of author/s, editor/s, compiler/s (Surname, Initials) or institution responsible.

• Year of publication.
• Title of publication and subtitle, if any (all titles must be italicised).
• Series title and individual volume, if any.
• Edition, if other than first.
• Publisher.
• DOI or URL is online

See the Referencing Guide for further details and examples. [PDF]

Copyright

The Australian School Library Association Inc. (ASLA) and the author(s) jointly hold copyright of articles published in Access. The author(s) retain copyright of their articles but give permission to the ASLA to reprint their works in collections or other such documents published by and on behalf of the ASLA. Author(s) who give permission for their articles to be reprinted elsewhere should inform the editor of Access and should ensure that the following statement appears with the article: Reprinted, with permission, from Access [volume, issue, date, pages].