About the Journal

Focus and Scope

SOURCE offers the reader an opportunity to view remarkable materials from our collections, learn about our innovative research and collaborations conducted both in the Libraries and with other colleagues throughout the University and beyond, and explore highlights of exceptional faculty and student services provided by the Smathers Libraries. 

To be accepted for publication, submissions must meet one or more of the following criteria:

  • Submission content demonstrates "enduring relevance," a quality of timelessness where content is not tied to a particular period or one-time event
  • Submission content speaks to the Libraries' strategic direction of transformative collaboration
  • Submission content focuses on issues of libraries and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
  • Submission content centers student voices, with preference to submissions that provide an opportunity for students to explore authorship by publishing about their work in the Libraries (e.g., internships)

Open Access Policy

SOURCE provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There are no publication charges, and all content is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author for non-commercial purposes. Nonetheless, reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein requires credit to the original publication source with a link to both the article and the license. This open access policy is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative's (BOAI) definition of open access.

Copyright Policy

Authors retain copyright to their publications. As of Spring 2021, SOURCE issues and contributed articles are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International license, which allows our readers to freely distribute and copy the magazine for noncommercial purposes without permission from the Smathers Libraries or article authors. Authors of articles published prior to Spring 2021 retain the copyright to their publications without the formal terms of a Creative Commons license.

SOURCE relies on the fair use provision of U.S. Copyright Law to incorporate photographs and other images where copyright is not held by the University of Florida.

Self-Archiving Policy

SOURCE permits and encourages authors to post items submitted to the journal on personal websites or institutional repositories both prior to and after publication, while providing bibliographic details that credit, if applicable, its publication in this journal.

Preservation Policy

Content published in SOURCE will be preserved by the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The Libraries are committed to long-term digital preservation of all materials in UF-supported collaborative projects. Redundant digital archives, adherence to proven standards, and rigorous quality control methods protect digital objects. The UF Digital Collections provide a comprehensive approach to digital preservation, including technical supports, reference services for both online and offline archived files, and support services by providing training and consultation for digitization standards for long-term digital preservation.

Content will be preserved indefinitely, unless a specific request for removal of a specific item is directed to the journal managers. If you believe that your copyrighted material has been deposited into this journal without consent, please contact the administrators at DigPart-Staff@uflib.ufl.edu.

Content is also preserved in the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) and CLOCKSS.

Plagiarism Statement

SOURCE does not accept articles containing material plagiarized from other publications or authors.

For the purposes of this policy, plagiarism is defined as copying of or reliance on work — including text, images and data — by others or yourself without proper attribution. Please be aware that you can plagiarize yourself; you must provide proper attribution in all cases where your previously published material or previously used data or images are included in your manuscript.

Plagiarism detected prior to publication will cause rejection of your manuscript. Plagiarism detected after publication will cause the published article to be amended to state that it contains plagiarized material; in extreme cases of plagiarism, the publication will be removed at the Editors’ discretion, and the reason for removal stated on the journal's website.

SOURCE does not consider the following situations to be plagiarism when proper attribution is made:

  • Translations into English of a previously published paper not in English;
  • Publication of all or part of a revised thesis or dissertation;
  • Publication of a paper previously made public as a conference presentation, white paper, technical report, or preprint

SOURCE follows workflows developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to deal with cases of plagiarism.

Correction, Retraction, and Removal of Articles

Correction. Despite the best of efforts, errors occur and their timely and effective remedy are considered the mark of responsible authors and editors. SOURCE will publish a correction if the scholarly record is seriously affected (e.g., if accuracy/intended meaning, scientific reproducibility, author reputation, or journal reputation is judged to be compromised). Corrections that do not affect the contribution in a material way or significantly alter the reader's understanding of the contribution, such as misspellings or grammatical errors, will not be published. When a correction is published, it will link to and from the work. The correction will be added to the original work so that readers will receive the original work and the correction. All corrections will be as concise as possible.

Retraction. SOURCE reserves the right to retract items, with a retraction defined as a public disavowal, not an erasure or removal. Retractions will occur if the editors and editorial board finds that the main conclusion of the work is undermined or if subsequent information about the work comes to light of which the authors or the editors were not aware at the time of publication. Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, inaccurate claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data will also result in retraction of the work.

Removal. Some circumstances may necessitate removal of a work from SOURCE. This will occur when the article is judged by the editors and editorial board to be defamatory, if it infringes on legal rights, or if there is a reasonable expectation that it will be subject to a court order. The bibliographic information about the work will be retained online, but the work will no longer be available through SOURCE. A note will be added to indicate that the item was removed for legal reasons.

Name Changes

The LibraryPress@UF is committed to supporting requests for author name changes and/or pronoun changes, with as few barriers as possible. Name changes and/or pronoun changes are available to authors upon request, with no legal documentation required. Upon receiving a name change request, the LibraryPress@UF will update all metadata, published content, and associated records under our control to reflect the requested name change. The LibraryPress@UF will not issue a notice of correction for the name change or notify co-authors or editors. While the LibraryPress@UF cannot control the use or appearance of an author’s name for external systems and publications administered by other editorial boards, and changes made to prior publications may not propagate to downstream environments, the LibraryPress@UF is committed to collaborating with other groups to support systemic changes to ensure name changes are fully supported.

Authors who wish to update or change their name should contact Chelsea Johnston, Scholarly Publishing and Repository Librarian, at cjohnston@ufl.edu. Requests will be treated with respect and confidentiality, and addressed as quickly as possible. 

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

The University of Florida is committed to creating a community that reflects the rich racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the state and nation. SOURCE contributes to this mission by promoting inclusivity through supporting open access; actively encouraging greater representation across cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints; and fostering transparency and openness throughout the publishing cycle.

To further our goals of diversity and inclusivity, it is recommended that authors, reviewers, and editors consider the following:

  • Encourage participation of people from underrepresented groups as authors, reviewers, and editors.
  • Include content from multidisciplinary scholars that fits publication scope.
  • Create an editorial board that reflects the diversity of a global academic community.
  • Maintain a clear and open process for article review and contribution.

Submission Review and Production Process

The SOURCE Editorial Collective solicits and reviews pitches for articles for each issue from library employees. After selection for an issue, and once the full articles are received (with images, author preferred name and position title), members of the Editorial Collective review the articles to ensure they are appropriate for SOURCE’s criteria (e.g., enduring relevance). Then, LibraryPress@UF Editor-in-Chief (and others from the Collective, a series editor, and/or others as applicable) review articles for any first-pass style/content changes, and make applicable changes following magazine/public journalism practices where the team makes non-substantive changes. If substantive changes are needed, the Editor-in-Chief contacts the author(s) to work with them as part of developmental writing to shape the piece for SOURCE by the author and with the author’s voice. Then, LibraryPress@UF Designer and Coordinator lays out the issue. Then, team members from the LibraryPress@UF copyedit and review, again making any non-substantive changes directly.