Art Documentation Contributor Guidelines

Art Documentation is a peer-reviewed journal published semiannually (May and October) by the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) and the University of Chicago Press. The journal has a two-fold mission: to encourage the discussion of issues relating to both the documentation of art and the practice and theory of art librarianship and visual resources curatorship. Articles should fall within the scope of art and architecture librarianship, digital image management, technology related to the visual arts, art publishing, artists' books, and related fields. 

Art Documentation is indexed in Article First, ARTbibliographies Modern, Bibliography of the History of Art, Library Literature and Information Science, and LISTA: Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts. Full-text online is available through the JSTOR Current Scholarship Program and EBSCO Publishing. 

Editors:

Editorial Board:

Susan M. Allen
​California Rare Book School

Jonathan Brown
Institute of Fine Arts 

Inge Reist
The Frick Collection 

Lucile Trunel
Bibliothèque nationale de France 

Roxana Velasquez
San Diego Museum of Art 

Jayne Wark 
Nova Scotia College of Art & Design 

Deadlines

Fall Issue: March 1
Spring Issue: September 1 
 

Submission & Publication Process

1. Potential authors should contact the Art Documentation editor via e-mail about topics/abstracts for articles before sending manuscripts.
2. Once topics/abstracts have been approved, articles may be sent as e-mail attachments in MS Word format to the editor.
3. Questions about content, length, illustrations, or other issues should be discussed with the editor prior to submission.
4. Editors use a double-blind peer review process to review all articles. Two readers are assigned to each article, and recommendations from the reviewers and the editor are returned to the author, along with a publication decision. If accepted, authors then have one month to make revisions based on the comments before the final copy is due.
5. Authors have the opportunity to review any edits to the text before publication. Each author also receives a copy of the first page proof of the article to proofread.
6. Authors are asked to sign and submit a publication agreement form which grants copyright to ARLIS/NA, including the society's right to reproduce and disseminate the work mechanically or digitally for purposes in support of its educational and professional mission. However, authors may reprint or republish their own works without permission from ARLIS/NA provided the society is credited. Additional information may be found on the University of Chicago Press website.
7. Authors receive one complimentary copy of the journal issue which contains their submissions within a month of publication.

Content

1. Feature articles may take the form of theoretical or scholarly submissions, revisions of conference presentations, papers emphasizing library practice, descriptions of specific libraries or collections, interviews, or articles of a historical nature. Articles must relate to art librarianship, visual resources curatorship, or the documentation of art, and the writing style should be formal. Authors are asked to avoid use of the first-person voice if possible.
2. Articles should be 2,500 words minimum length plus any accompanying tables, charts, or images. Maximum length for an article is 8,000 words. Average article length is 2,500 to 5,000 words.
3. Contributions which have been published elsewhere or are under consideration by other journals will be ineligible for publication in Art Documentation under normal circumstances.
4. Copyright clearance and permission for publication for any portion of the submitted article, including images, must be obtained in advance by the author. The editor can assist with this process if needed.

Style and Form

1. Articles must follow the style guidelines provided by the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (currently the 17th edition).
2. All articles must be submitted in English, using American spellings. Editors use the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (currently the 11th edition) for preferred spellings of words.
3. Articles with significant style problems will be returned to the author for revision before the peer review process.
4. Submissions will be edited for content, style, spelling, grammar, and syntax. Editors will make the final decisions about article content and form.
5. A 75–100 word abstract should precede the body of the article.
6. Articles should be broken up by sub-headings at intervals of 500–700 words or as appropriate to the text.
7. Titles, column headings, etc., should be typed in upper and lower case. Book and journal titles should be typed in italics.
8. References to published works and quotations should be credited in complete notes using the Chicago Manual of Style notes and bibliography citation format (not author-date references). Authors should use the "insert footnotes/endnotes" function in MS Word to place the notes in the manuscript.
9. Acknowledgments, if any, should appear at the end of the article but before the "Notes" section, under the subheading "Acknowledgments."
10. Each article will include an author credit consisting of the author's name, position title, institution, and e-mail address.

Visual Materials

1. Authors are strongly encouraged to send illustrative material with their articles.
2. Charts and tables should be properly formatted electronically (or camera-ready), captioned, and clearly identified.
3. Digital formats are preferred for images. Originals should be professionally scanned at a minimum resolution of 300 PPI at their final printed size (Art Documentation column width is 5" wide). Accepted file formats are PSD, TIFF, JPEG (high quality), and EPS (no GIF files). If photographs are used, authors may submit high quality black-and-white prints or negatives; these will be returned if requested in advance.
4. Web screen images should be captured at the highest resolution and can be submitted via e-mail or printed on photo paper in order to be published. Please include the URL for any images captured from Web sites along with the date of access.
5. Full captions should be submitted for all images, including information regarding copyright permission, source of photograph/image, and credit for photographer, if applicable.
6. Ads may be submitted in any of the following file formats:

InDesign document (include fonts and links)

Photoshop: TIFF/JPEG/EPS (minimum 300 PPI)

PDF: print quality (include fonts)

EPS (outline or include fonts)