The practice of peer review is to ensure that only good science is published. It is an objective process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out by all reputable scientific journals. Our referees play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of Journal of Balkan Libraries Union (BLUJ) and all manuscripts are peer reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

Initial manuscript evaluation

An Editor first evaluates all manuscripts. It is rare, but it is possible for an exceptional manuscript to be accepted at this stage. Manuscripts rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are normally passed on to at least 2 experts for review. Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will usually be informed within 2 weeks of receipt.

Type of peer review

BLUJ employs double blind reviewing, where both the referee and author remain anonymous throughout the process.

How the referee is selected

Whenever possible, referees are matched to the paper according to their expertise. Our database is constantly being updated. We welcome suggestions for referees from the author though these recommendations are not necessarily used.

Referee reports

Referees are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript:
– Is original
– Is methodologically sound
– Follows appropriate ethical guidelines
– Has results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions
– Correctly references previous relevant work

Language correction is not part of the peer review process, but referees may, if so wish, suggest corrections to the manuscript.

How long does the review process take?

The time required for the review process is dependent on the response of the referees. However, the typical time for BLUJ is approximately 4-8 weeks. Should the referees' reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed, a further expert opinion will be sought. In rare cases for which it is extremely difficult to find a second referee to review the manuscript, or when the one referee's report has thoroughly convinced the Editor, decisions at this stage to accept, reject or ask the author for a revision are made on the basis of only one referee's report. The Editor's decision will be sent to the author with recommendations made by the referees, which usually includes verbatim comments by the referees. Revised manuscripts might be returned to the initial referees who may then request another revision of a manuscript.

Final report

A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees, and may include verbatim comments by the referees.

The Editor's decision is final

Referees advise the Editor, who is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the article.

• Peer review assists the chief editor and the editorial board in making editorial decisions while editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.
• Any reviewer who feels unqualified to review the assigned manuscript or unable to provide a prompt review should notify the editor and excuse himself/herself from the review process.
• Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to, or discussed with, others except as authorized by the chief editor.
• Reviews should be conducted objectively. There shall be no personal criticism of the author. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
• Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that had been previously reported elsewhere should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the chief editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
• Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
• Reviewers should decline to review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors.

Being a nonprofit journal, Journal of Balkan Libraries Union does NOT charge publication/processing fees from the Author(s).

Online submission and review of manuscripts is mandatory for all types of papers. Please prepare your manuscript following the instructions for authors given below before submitting it online. Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these) or in Turkish. The template of the journal can be downloaded using the following link:

http://balkanlibraries.org/frontend/document/BLUJ_template.doc

Journal of Balkan Libraries Union is a participant of CrossCheck, a service offered by CrossRef and powered by iThenticate software. iThenticate is a plagiarism screening service that verifies the originality of written work. Using iThenticate, all submissions are checked against millions of published, scholarly works, and billions of web content. 

This journal 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.Balkan Libraries Union & Trakya University

Journal of Balkan Libraries Union is committed towards open access publishing mode and it support open access in all forms. We have signed in the Budapest open access initiative to show our commitment towards open access publishing. If the author(s) are new to open access publishing mode they are informed to read the articles and website based information related to open access publishing mode which is revolutionising the publishing industry in the recent decade. Some of the resources are available at

1) Peter Suber's 'Open Access Overview' 

2) SHERPA’s – Authors and open access 

3) Open access ( Wikipedia) 

4) Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing

5) Budapest Open Access Initiative

Open access publishing model is an established publishing mode that provides immediate, worldwide, barrier-free access to the full text of research articles without requiring a subscription to the particular journal in which these articles are published. Mostly in this model, the publication costs including article processing cost are usually covered by the author’s institution or research funds or by the author(s) themselves. Open access charges replace subscription charges allow the publishers to make the article freely available to all interested readers to download and distribute the published article. Other than the initial publication charges paid for open access journals are no different from the normal subscription based journals and they adopt the same peer-review system to identify the suitability of the particular article to get published, they even undergo better quality control as any other scholarly journal.

Advantages of Open access publishing through us are

1. Unrestricted availability of article to all researchers and readers across the globe
2. Immediate availability of article once the article is published online
3. Higher citation and impact due to the reason that more researchers are able to view the article and use the same for their research purpose
4. Faster publication owing to quicker processing and online only publication mode.
5. High standards of publishing and stringent peer review process.
6. Highly sustainable publishing model – More researchers are turning towards open access publishing model.
7. Helping authors in long term self archival of the article.
8. Open access publishing mode provides a way for researchers from low-income and developing countries to participate more fully in the international research community.
9. Free exchange of scientific information can play an important role in international development.

All articles published through our journal adopting Open Access Publishing policy based on Creative Commons Attribution License. This means that all articles published in our journals, including any data, graphics and supplements, can be linked from outside in, crawled by search engines, re-used by text mining applications or websites, blogs, repositories etc. free of charge under the sole condition of proper accreditation of the source, original author(s) and original Publisher.

Copyright and License

Copyright of any article(s) published through our journal are owned and retained by the concerned author(s). Authors grant the publisher a license to publish the article and identify the Balkan Libraries Union as the original publisher. Authors also grant any third party, the right to use their article freely as long as its integrity is maintained and its original authors, citation details and original publisher are identified.

Author(s) certification

In submitting a research article ('article') to Journal of Balkan Libraries Union authors are requested to certify that:

They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.

1. the article is original, has not been formally published/ accepted for publication in any other peer-reviewed journal, and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights;
2. the article contains nothing that is unlawful, libellous, or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract or of confidence or of commitment given to secrecy;
3. they are the sole author(s) of the article and have full authority to enter into this agreement and in granting rights to Integrated Publishing Association are not in breach of any other obligation/ rights of any other person. If the law requires that the article be published in the public domain, they will notify publisher at the time of submission;
4. they have taken due care to ensure the integrity of the article and also aggress to follow ethical principles and procedures of scientific publishing. To their - and currently accepted scientific - knowledge all statements contained in it purporting to be facts are true and any formula or instruction contained in the article will not,
5. the Author declares that any person named as co-author of the  Article   is aware of the fact and has agreed to being so named.
6. author will indemnify the Publisher for, and hold the Publisher harmless from any loss, expense or damage occasioned by, any claim or suit by a third party for copyright infringement or arising out of any breach of the foregoing warranties as a result of publication of the  Article.
7. authors know clearly about the details of open access publishing and also had read and understood the terms of Creative Commons license 3.0.
8. author(s) had obtained the necessary and required permission from the concerned sources for the material used in preparation of the article and the content of the article is completely free from copyright violation.

Reprints and permissions

All research articles published through our journals are made available and publicly accessible via the Internet without any restrictions or payment to be made by the user. PDF versions of all research articles are available freely for download by any reader who intent to download it. This is a convenient way for users to print high quality copies of articles.

Figures and tables

Reproduction of figures or tables is permitted free of charge and without formal written permission from the publisher or the copyright holder as per the Creative Commons License, provided that the figure/table is original and prepared by the concerned author(s). Some articles that are published through Journal of Balkan Libraries Union may contain figures, tables or text taken from other publications, for which we does not hold the copyright or the right to re-license the published material. Please note that the concerned person(s) should inquire with the original copyright holder who will be mostly the publisher or original author, if that material can be further re-used.

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.Copyright © 2013 Balkan Libraries Union - All rights reserved.The copyediting stage is intended to improve the flow, clarity, grammar, wording, and formatting of the article. It represents the last chance for the author to make any substantial changes to the text because the next stage is restricted to typos and formatting corrections. The file to be copyedited is in Word or .rtf format and therefore can easily be edited as a word processing document. The set of instructions displayed here proposes two approaches to copyediting. One is based on Microsoft Word's Track Changes feature and requires that the copy editor, editor, and author have access to this program. A second system, which is software independent, has been borrowed, with permission, from the Harvard Educational Review. The journal editor is in a position to modify these instructions, so suggestions can be made to improve the process for this journal.

Copyediting Systems

1. Microsoft Word's Track Changes Under Tools in the menu bar, the feature Track Changes enables the copy editor to make insertions (text appears in color) and deletions (text appears crossed out in color or in the margins as deleted). The copy editor can posit queries to both the author (Author Queries) and to the editor (Editor Queries) by inserting these queries in square brackets. The copyedited version is then uploaded, and the editor is notified. The editor then reviews the text and notifies the author. The editor and author should leave those changes with which they are satisfied. If further changes are necessary, the editor and author can make changes to the initial insertions or deletions, as well as make new insertions or deletions elsewhere in the text. Authors and editors should respond to each of the queries addressed to them, with responses placed inside the square brackets. After the text has been reviewed by editor and author, the copy editor will make a final pass over the text accepting the changes in preparation for the layout and galley stage. 2. Harvard Educational Review Instructions for Making Electronic Revisions to the Manuscript Please follow the following protocol for making electronic revisions to your manuscript: Responding to suggested changes.   For each of the suggested changes that you accept, unbold the text.   For each of the suggested changes that you do not accept, re-enter the original text and bold it. Making additions and deletions.   Indicate additions by bolding the new text.   Replace deleted sections with: [deleted text].   If you delete one or more sentence, please indicate with a note, e.g., [deleted 2 sentences]. Responding to Queries to the Author (QAs).   Keep all QAs intact and bolded within the text. Do not delete them.   To reply to a QA, add a comment after it. Comments should be delimited using: [Comment:]   e.g., [Comment: Expanded discussion of methodology as you suggested]. Making comments.   Use comments to explain organizational changes or major revisions   e.g., [Comment: Moved the above paragraph from p. 5 to p. 7].  Note: When referring to page numbers, please use the page numbers from the printed copy of the manuscript that was sent to you. This is important since page numbers may change as a document is revised electronically.

An Illustration of an Electronic Revision

1. Initial copyedit. The journal copy editor will edit the text to improve flow, clarity, grammar, wording, and formatting, as well as including author queries as necessary. Once the initial edit is complete, the copy editor will upload the revised document through the journal Web site and notify the author that the edited manuscript is available for review.
2. Author copyedit. Before making dramatic departures from the structure and organization of the edited manuscript, authors must check in with the editors who are co-chairing the piece. Authors should accept/reject any changes made during the initial copyediting, as appropriate, and respond to all author queries. When finished with the revisions, authors should rename the file from AuthorNameQA.doc to AuthorNameQAR.doc (e.g., from LeeQA.doc to LeeQAR.doc) and upload the revised document through the journal Web site as directed.
3. Final copyedit. The journal copy editor will verify changes made by the author and incorporate the responses to the author queries to create a final manuscript. When finished, the copy editor will upload the final document through the journal Web site and alert the layout editor to complete formatting.