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This article focuses on a paper written by Cornell University librarian Phil Davis, which suggests that the Emerald Publishing has reprinted content. In the hottest story to come out of the 24th annual Charleston Conference, held November 3-6 in Charleston, SC, Cornell University librarian Phil Davis presented a bombshell paper that detailed a pattern of republishing content without attribution at Emerald Publishing, formerly known as MCB University Press. Many of these articles, Davis noted, were published simultaneously in journals within the same or similar subject disciplines. The paper will be published in Library Resources & Technical Services next spring. Davis's work was prompted by Chuck Hamaker, a librarian at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who, while searching an Emerald database, learned that one article citing him was published in two different Emerald journals. He also notes, however, that library customers do have a significant complaint, since libraries pay subscription fees in advance for content they generally assume to be original.

The article examines how Phil Davis, life sciences bibliographer at Cornell University, is shaking up the scholarly community with his discovery of duplicate articles in Emerald/MCB University Press journals. According to Davis, he has found hundreds of examples of the same article published in more than one journal in at least 73 Emerald/MCB journals over 30 years. In response to Davis's allegations, Emerald undertook its own study and identified 560 republished papers from 1989 to 2004, about 1.1 percent of its total database content. Emerald promises it is "updating the database to ensure all attributions are fully visible [including] notification of subsequent publication as well as first publication" and has addressed in-depth Davis's findings and allegations.