Landscape Journal and Scholarship in Landscape Architecture

Abstract

Over the past 25 years Landscape Journal has made significant contributions to the scholarly base of knowledge needed for building the discipline of landscape architecture. The Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA), which owns Landscape Journal, recently identified five strategic goals for the journal: enhance subject-matter diversity, nurture scholarship in landscape architecture, increase readership and impact, reach out to diverse new contributors, and strengthen the connection to practice. Examination of its past performance relative to these goals and in comparison with other landscape disciplines and scholarly journals—through a variety of citation analysis tools, manual searches of the journal, and interviews of editors, publishers, and other decision makers in landscape architecture—shows that the journal is positioned to achieve some of these goals. Others will require substantive changes. To enhance the societal relevance of landscape architecture as a profession and ensure the intellectual growth of its academic programs, Landscape Journal must achieve all of CELA’s stated goals. Suggestions for moving the journal beyond the creation of knowledge by and for landscape architects, and toward greater participation in the broader community of scholars and practitioners concerned with design, planning, and management of the land, are based on these findings.