Scholarly book publishers’ ratings and lists in Finland and Spain: Comparison and assessment of the evaluative potential of merged lists

[EN] Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to compare the lists of publishers in SPI (Spain) and the lists of VIRTA (Finland), in order to determine some of the potential uses of a merged list, such as complementing each other; and, second, to assess the effects of cross-field variability in the SPI rankings on the potential uses identified in the previous objective. Design/methodology/approach: VIRTA and SPI lists were matched and compared in terms of level and number of submissions (VIRTA) and prestige (SPI). Findings: There is a set of international publishers common to both information systems, but most publishers are nationally oriented. This type of publisher is still highly relevant for scholars. Consequently, a merge of national lists would provide useful information for all stakeholders involved in terms of grounding information for the rating of foreign, non-international publishers. Nevertheless, several issues should be considered in an eventual merging process, such as the decisions related to the use of field-specific rankings or general rankings. Practical implications: If merged, ratings ought to be kept separately. Ratings of national publishers can be imputed in other systems’ evaluation process, thus making the merging process potentially useful. Originality/value: This research explores obstacles and opportunities for merging scholarly publishers’ lists from an empirical perspective. It provides groundwork for future efforts toward supra-national combinations of publishers’ lists.Peer Reviewe