Instructions to authors
All submissions and correspondence should be addressed to the editors at [email protected]
The Library is a peer-reviewed journal; all submissions are blinded and sent to at least two expert readers.
Submission
Submissions are welcome at any time and may be sent as Word files to [email protected]
Contributors are asked to include with their submission an abstract of no more than 300 words, and the postal address they wish to use for correspondence. Hard copy may alternatively be submitted to the Editors, c/o New College, Oxford, OX1 3BN. Copy should be typed double-spaced throughout. It would assist the Editors if contributors took steps to suppress all self-identifications from their submitted text, so that readers can appraise a suitably anonymized version; non-anonymized submissions will be returned to authors for emendation. Images, if any, should be included in a separate file and not embedded with the Word document. Graphs and tables are discouraged unless absolutely necessary to the presentation of data. The Editors will be happy to discuss particular questions about submission by e-mail at the above address.
Style
Contributions to The Library should be submitted according to the recommendations of the MHRA Style Guide (freely downloadable from the MHRA website), with the following exceptions:
- in page ranges, the use of the leading zero is deprecated (so not ‘pp. 108–09’, but ‘pp. 108–9’)
- em-dashes are given unspaced (like—this, not like — this)
- life-dates are given in full (so ‘Charles Dickens (1812–1870)’ not ‘Charles Dickens (1812–70)’
- for foliation, the convention is for ‘fol.’ and ‘fols.’ (note that ‘fols.’ is given with a point, since ‘folios’ is a specialized usage and articulates a reference, which the point helps to clarify)
- be aware that the Public Record Office still exists as a legal entity under the portmanteau of the National Archives, and so references to the collections of the Public Records should still be made to ‘PRO’.
There is no fixed word-limit for articles, although the editors reserve the right to decline exceptionally long submissions, and shorter articles are particularly welcomed. Contributions shorter than c. 2,500 words will normally be treated, and published, as ‘Bibliographical Notes’. In general, publication follows order of receipt of contributions, with some precedence being given to papers read before the Bibliographical Society, and with the editors reserving the right to sequence publication in the interests of balanced content. Proofs are normally sent out three months before publication.
Author’s copies
Authors will receive a copy of the relevant issue of the journal, and access to an electronic copy of their article.
Images
If the article is to include reproduction of images then it is the responsibility of the author to ensure that all the requisite permissions have been sought to allow one-off reproduction. The Editors will require all authors to state formally that such permissions have been sought and granted.
Guidance is available at the Access and Purchase Resource Centre webpage.
Key requirements are:
non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the specified article and journal published by Oxford Journals, a division of Oxford University Press
print and electronic rights, ideally for use in any form or medium
the right to use the material for the life of the work (i.e. to have no time-restrictions on the licence granted)
world-wide English-language rights. If rights for all languages can be secured, this is preferable.
Third-Party Content in Open Access papers
If you will be publishing your paper under an Open Access licence but it contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:
Title of content
Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]
This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.
Open Access
The Library offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.
Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication.
Details of the open access licences and open access charges.
CrossRef Funding Data Registry
In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources in the manuscript. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.
Peer Review Policy
This journal operates double-anonymized peer review, meaning that the authors’ identities are hidden from reviewers, and the reviewers’ identities are hidden from authors. The Editors have oversight of the reviewers’ and the authors’ names. For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review.
How your submission is sent to OUP
If your manuscript is accepted for publication in the Journal, details of your manuscript and any accompanying supplementary materials will then be sent to OUP by the Editorial Office via a submission system. You will receive a submission confirmation email from the submission system when details of the paper are submitted through the system on your behalf, including information on:
- OUP’s Privacy Policy
- Expectations regarding originality, conflict of interest disclosures, and authorship regarding the manuscript.
Please contact the Journal Editorial Office if you have any questions, or any concerns about your manuscript meeting these expectations.
