When Scholarly Publishing Goes Awry: Educating Ourselves and Our Patrons about Retracted Articles

Retracted articles, articles that violate professional ethics, are an unsettling, yet integral, part of the scholarly publishing process seldom discussed in the academy. Unfortunately, article retractions continue to rise across all disciplines. Although academic librarians consistently provide instruction on scholarly publishing, little has been written about their role in educating patrons about retracted articles. This article provides an overview of the article retraction process. Search strategies for locating retracted articles in several scholarly databases are discussed. Suggestions on how to incorporate article retractions into information literacy instruction are provided, including connections to the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.