Author Guidelines

_{An Overview}

Prior to the submission of your manuscript to the University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal (UDSMLJ), please be sure to read aim and scope. Authors are invited to submit manuscripts that focus on different aspects of Library and Information Science. Only manuscripts that sufficiently meet the scope and aim of the University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal will be sent to the reviewers for the double blind review.

Contributors are required to affirm that they have the rights in the manuscript, and that the manuscripts are not being considered for publication or have not already been published in other journals. Contributors should not send their articles on the preprint platforms as it will affect the anonymity in the double blind review. We don’t provide copy editing; authors are therefore required to check the quality of their works prior to the submission. These include quality, accuracy, completeness and consistency of information provided.

_{Authors’ Ethical Practices}

University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal takes ethical practices in publishing with special attention. Authors should avoid plagiarism and any other malpractices. Upon submission all manuscripts will be subjected to plagiarism check. Manuscript with plagiarism issues will be outright rejected. Manuscripts that have been previously published in other publication outlets will not be acceptable for publication in our journal. All submissions to the journal will be subjected to plagiarism test to check the quality and originality of articles. Authors should also declare that their manuscripts have not published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

_{Declaration of Conflict Interest}

University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal requires authors to disclose any conflicting interests that are directly or indirect relate to the work submitted for publication in the journal. The conflicting or competing interest may include financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationships that may either affect the research reported or peer review process and decisions.

_{Recommended Structure of Manuscripts}

All submissions to the UDSMLJ should adhere to the following submission guidelines:

The length of manuscript should be between 4000 and 8000 words (references inclusive).
The articles should contain unstructured abstract of up to 200 words.
Include four to five keywords that best describe the contents of the manuscript.
Provide a title page containing the following information: title of manuscript, authors’ personal information e.g. full name, email address, institutional affiliation and ORCID.
Manuscript submitted should be in Word format.
University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal adheres to the APA reference and in-text citation styles.
Short communication e.g. book reviews should be between 2000 and 3000 words.

Section Specific Guidelines

Abstract

Authors should include unstructured informative abstract. The abstract should not exceed 200 words. The abstract should include a maximum of five relevant keywords.

Manuscript

For the sake of uniformity, all submitted manuscript should adhere to the following structure: Introduction (Background Information; Methodology (Material and Methods); Results; Discussion; Conclusions; Recommendations; Implications and References.

_{Citation and Referencing Styles}

UDSMLJ adhered to the American Psychological Association (APA) style of citation and referencing. Contributors are therefore required to align their citations and referencing with the recent APA referencing and citation guidelines.

_{Submission of Manuscript}

University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal is hosted on UDSM OJS platform. This is a web based online submission and peer review system. Authors are required to submit their manuscripts to the Online Journal System [OJS] at https://journals.udsm.ac.tz/index.php/lj/user/register [if your a have not registered] or at https://journals.udsm.ac.tz/index.php/lj/index if you are registered.

_{Accepted Manuscript}

Once manuscript has been accepted, authors will notified by email and have access to their manuscript for final proofreading. Once proofreading is completed and Agreement signed, articles will be published online as a complete issue where authors will have open access to their final articles.

In cases where errors are noticed in a published article, corrections shall be granted following satisfaction of the conditions put in place by the journal. When errors are noticed, the corresponding author shall notify the journal editor in writing and confirm that all contributors recognize the error and are in agreement that an action needs to be taken. This should be done by submitting a written notice preferably signed by all contributors. Contributors should be informed that any correction notice submitted shall be subjected to a full review that might result in requests for more information from them. The journal classifies errors as major and minor; where major errors are those that alter the meaning of findings or affect readers’ understanding of the same while minor errors have no influence on these two aspects. Contributors should also be informed that in some circumstances, the journal shall make minor corrections to articles. These are corrections that do not affect the meaning of the contents of the articles. The journal shall keep the contributors informed of such changes. Where changes have been made to original articles available online, a correction notice will be made available to inform readers of the changes made. This shall be done by adding footnotes of the concerned updates to the respective manuscripts.

The journal shall retract an article upon realization of the presence of an error or errors in its contents that puts its findings into question. Such errors may be associated with the methods and materials used to come up with the findings. In other cases, such an action shall be taken on articles that have been noted to have been prepared under unethical conditions (i.e. fabrication of data, plagiarism etc.). Upon confirmation of such malpractices, the retraction shall be done following the University of Dar es Salaam policies and COPE guidelines.

Copyright Notice

UDSMLJ is an Open Access Journal where authors license exclusive rights to the journal with CC BY-NC-ND license. Under this license users can reuse the content of the articles published in the journal as long as the credit creator (author) and the use is non-commercial with no derivatives or adaptation made. Authors have the rights to share and disseminate the contents to other platforms such as institutional repositories with the aim of maximizing the impact of their research. Authors have also rights to: extend a published work to book length; re-use parts, or figures and tables in other works; share and distribute their articles in conferences, symposia, or workshops; and share their articles in social media platform. However, authors have no rights to publish or submit the same work to other publishers or publishing outlets. The authors of the articles published in the UDSMLJ are exclusively responsible for the contents. No responsibility is assumed by the publisher nor by the editorial team for alleged libelous statements, infringement of intellectual property or privacy rights. The publication of an article shall therefore not constitute any representation of the editorial team or the journal.

UDSMLJ operates as an exclusive open access (OA) journal. By adopting an open access-publishing model, the journal ensures that articles are readily available online upon publication, thereby enhancing their visibility, readership, and overall impact. OA publishing model grants free and open online access to published articles with no legal, financial, legal and technical barriers. Being an OA journal, no fee is charged for publication, accessing, downloading, and using articles published in the journal.

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