Michigan Publishing is pleased to announce the first issue of Weave: Journal of Library User Experience. According to the editors,
While new jobs are being created for User Experience librarians and some departments are being renamed “User Experience” teams, there is still no comprehensive, rigorous publication for library UX professionals to share with and learn from their colleagues. Weave is intended to fill that gap. Weave helps practitioners and theorists come together to make libraries better.
Alongside traditionally peer-reviewed research articles such as “Improving the Library Homepage through User Research — Without a Total Redesign” and “Improving Library User Experience with A/B Testing: Principles and Process,” the journal features a review essay, an interview, and a “Tweetposium,” or curated presentation of a topical conversation facilitated by one of the journal editors on Twitter.
The journal, which will publish two issues per year, is not limited in its focus to library website design, however: the journal accepts submissions that touch on any aspect of a user’s experience interacting with a library, whether through a screen or in person. According to the journal’s submission guidelines,
Weave publishes a mixture of theoretical and practical material on user experience topics aimed at UX practitioners in libraries. “Practitioner” is defined loosely, so it could include just about anyone interested in improving the experience of using the library (and that should include just about anyone). Weave is experimental and library focused but not library-centric. The editors will consider publishing material that is not explicitly about libraries as long as there is some potential linkage to library practice.
Authors published in Weave retain the copyright in their work and, where possible, agree to publish their work under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
As a library-based publisher, Michigan Publishing is especially excited to team up with editors Matthew Reidsma, Kyle Felker, and Pete Coco to publish this exciting new journal. We hope that our colleagues in libraries and beyond will enjoy reading Weave–and consider submitting their own work to it!