Name Changes

The Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) is committed to responding to requests for author name changes with as few barriers as possible. Name changes are available to authors upon request with no explanation or legal documentation required. This policy does not apply to author name misspellings due to copy-editing errors or affiliation changes.

In cases where authors wish to change their name for any reason following publication in JMLA, the lead editor will work with the production editor to update all digitally published content, metadata, and associated records under our control to reflect the requested name change.   In an effort to be as comprehensive as possible, we will re-deliver the metadata to PubMed and CrossRef; however, please note that changes to content in databases or other external platforms are beyond our control.

To protect authors’ privacy, we will not issue a notice of correction for the name change or notify co-authors or editors. Authors can request that JMLA notify the co-authors if desired. Other citation metadata (e.g. DOI) will remain the same, ensuring that previous citations to the article remain valid. 

Authors who wish to update or change their name as previously published in JMLA should contact the editors at jmla@journals.pitt.edu. Requests will be addressed as quickly as possible in a respectful and confidential manner.

The JMLA editorial board is committed to collaborating with other groups to advocate for systemic changes to ensure author name changes are fully supported in academic publishing. To that end, we strongly encourage all contributors to JMLA to utilize open systems like ORCiD which allow authors, researchers, and scholars to create profiles with associated unique, persistent identifiers independent of their legal names and/or institutional affiliations.

This policy was written by the JMLA Equity Advocacy Group with input from the Senior Editorial Team.

Resources Consulted:

American Physical Society (2021 September 23). Physical Review Journals Announce Inclusive Name-Change Policy. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/updates/name-change.cfm

Communications in Information Literacy (2023). Journal Policies. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit/about.html#journalpolicies

Council on Publishing Ethics (2021 January 13). A Vision for a More Trans-inclusive Publishing World: Guest Article. https://publicationethics.org/news/vision-more-trans-inclusive-publishing-world

Elsevier (2021 March 29). Elsevier Launches a Trans-Inclusive Name Change Policy. https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/corporate/elsevier-launches-a-trans-inclusive-name-change-policy

Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (2023). Editorial Policies. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/jchla/index.php/jchla/editorial_policies

JSTOR (2020). JSTOR Policy to Support Author Name Changes. https ://about.jstor.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Publisher-Summary-of-Name-Change-Policy-for-JSTOR-1.pdf

Midwest Archives Conference (2021). Author Name Change Request. https://www.midwestarchives.org/archival-issues

University of Florida Press (2021). Resources for Authors. https://librarypress.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/resources-for-authors/

Wiley (2020 December 14). Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics. https://authorservices.wiley.com/ethics-guidelines/index.html