Publishing in the Archives Profession
A blog about scholarship, writing, and publishing for archivists.
RBM: Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage is accepting proposals for its Fall (November) 2026 issue! We welcome articles related to special collections librarianship, archives, or museum practice.
Articles should be written in a formal style and range between 3,000 and 5,000 words. The submission deadline is June 20th. If interested in submitting, get in touch with the Editor, Diane Dias De Fazio (diane.diasdefazio@gmail.com). Guidelines for authors can be found here.
Printing History 39 will spotlight print practices that engage critically with the theme of borders and border crossings. The topic can be approached literally and/or conceptually. We are particularly interested in articles that challenge, upend, or otherwise interrogate notions of national identity, imagined communities, and borderlands.
We invite interested researchers, professionals, and practitioners to share work engaged with the following topics:
In general, Printing History follows the Chicago Manual of Style. An APHA style guide and further information for contributors can be downloaded here.
Submissions should be emailed to editor@printinghistory.org. If you have questions about this issue, the process, or the journal in general, do not hesitate to write. We do not solicit proposals for articles, but we are happy to discuss ideas and abstracts via email.
Submission deadline: June 12, 2026
Archives and Records invites submissions for a future special issue exploring how contemporary archival practice is shaped by risk, ethics, and infrastructure in conditions of increasing organisational, technical, and environmental complexity.
Across archives, records management, digital preservation, conservation, audiovisual preservation, and related fields, practitioners are working within large-scale systems, interconnected services, and evolving governance frameworks. These contexts raise shared questions about appraisal, access, accountability, sustainability, professional responsibility, and the ethical limits of automation and technology adoption. This includes the increase in service models where data is stored in shared environments, creating scenarios by which responsibility is distributed and governance is less clearly defined.
At the same time, the role of the archive within institutions is changing. Archival functions are increasingly embedded within broader organisational infrastructures, requiring closer collaboration with areas such as enterprise architecture, IT service management, information governance, and research data services. These relationships are reshaping how archival work is understood, designed, and delivered, positioning archives not only as custodians of records, but as active participants in institutional strategy, systems design, and risk management.
This special issue seeks reflective, comparative, and practice-informed contributions that examine how archival work is governed, justified, and sustained in environments characterised by scale, interdependence, and uncertainty. Rather than focusing on a single technology or professional domain, the issue aims to foster dialogue across disciplines and institutional contexts.
Indicative themes include, but are not limited to:
● Risk as a strategic framework for archival decision-making, governance, and prioritisation
● Ethical judgement, refusal, or non-adoption of technologies (including AI) as professional practice
● Infrastructure as a socio-technical and environmental concern in archival work
● Appraisal, selection, and context-building in complex or large-scale systems
● Access to born-digital and digital-derived records, including sensitivity review and controlled access models
● Environmental sustainability and long-term stewardship responsibilities
● Convergence and overlap between archives, records management, conservation, and audiovisual practice
● Evolving skills and training requirements for archivists, records managers, conservationists, and AV engineers in an increasing automated environment
● Professional boundaries, skills, and labour in contexts of organisational and technical complexity
● Collaboration with internal or external peers or networks that reframe an archive’s role or identify within an institution.
Articles should be no more than 8,000 words (including footnotes and references) and written in accordance with the style guide and reference guide (Chicago endnotes and bibliography) provided by Archives and Records. Shorter papers may be considered or authors may be encouraged to collaborate if they submit similar proposals. For an informal discussion about publishing in the special issue, contact Caylin Smith (cs2059@cam.ac.uk).
In the first instance, please send a 500 words (maximum) proposal to: cs2059@cam.ac.uk, by Friday May 30th. Proposals should contain a brief outline of the proposed article, up to five key words, a title and author affiliations. All submissions will be double-blind peer reviewed prior to acceptance for publication. An invitation to submit an article does not guarantee publication in the final issue. All submissions should be presented in line with the Archives and Records Instructions for Authors.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Conflict Oral History: Ukraine, Palestine…& Elsewhere
While the focus on current events in the oral history field remains controversial, (contemporary) crisis oral history continues to grow. However, violent contemporary crises—from invasions and wars to the plight of refugees—often reflect decades if not centuries’-old conflicts and are therefore also historical. How can oral historians ethically engage in current conflict zones or with refugees? Is it too soon to do so? What are the costs of not documenting now? What is the long history of each country or region and how does that history inform peoples’ identity?
The Oral History Review invites article submissions on these and other issues from and about Ukraine, Palestine, and other war-torn countries and regions for consideration in the journal from Spring 2027.
Some potential themes to consider:
Please note that the Oral History Review published its first piece on Ukrainians living with–or in this case, fleeing–the Russian invasion of their country since 2022 in spring 2026.
SeeEleanor Paynter, “Crisis Oral History and the Asylum Timescape: Temporalities, Solidarities, and Affect in Interviews with Ukrainians with Temporary Protection in Italy” (Spring 2026, 53(1), 141–166). https://doi.org/10.1080/00940798.2026.2633140
To be considered for the Spring 2027 issue, submissions are due by July 2026, but we accept submissions on a rolling basis.
Please read our Mission Statement https://oralhistory.org/about-the-oral-history-review/ and contact the editors with any questions:
Holly Werner-Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, holly@hollythomasoralhistory.com
Molly Todd, Managing Editor, managingeditorohr@gmail.com
CALL FOR PAPERS
Oral History in Practice: Applied Oral History, Survey Articles, From the Archives
The Editors of the Oral History Review invite prospective authors to submit articles on oral history practice based on our recently expanded Mission Statement for consideration in issues beginning in 2027. In particular, we seek research-based articles focusing on state-of-the field surveys, applied oral history, and archives. We describe each of these features below.
Survey Articles
Survey articles serve as a kind of “state of the field” essay. They explore the evolution and/or current role of oral history.
Some Survey Article topics of special interest to the Editors include:
New Survey Articles:
Applied Oral History Articles
These articles extract broad lessons from specific projects that all oral history practitioners can learn from. These will most often focus on projects that result in system-wide/broad changes, are scalable, or can serve as a model in other contexts and locations.
Some Applied Oral History Article topics of special interest to the Editors include:
New Applied Oral History Articles:
From the Archives
In “From the Archives” features, authors analyze an archival oral history collection in terms of the original goals of a project and collection, as well as the collection’s historical value, accessibility, and its use–or usefulness–in secondary research.
Some From the Archives feature topics of special interest to the Editors include:
New From the Archive articles:
To be considered for the Spring 2027 issue, submissions are due by July 2026, but we accept submissions on a rolling basis.
Please read our Mission Statement https://oralhistory.org/about-the-oral-history-review/ and contact the editors with any questions:
Holly Werner-Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, holly@hollythomasoralhistory.com
Molly Todd, Managing Editor, managingeditorohr@gmail.com
The Editors of the Oral History Review invite prospective authors to consider themes around oral history, climate change, and the environment for publication beginning in 2027.
Broadly speaking, these themes include but are not limited to oral history and—
Some ideas & questions to consider regarding the climate crisis:
For reference, see recent OHR articles on oral history and climate change:
To be considered for the Spring 2027 issue, submissions are due by July 2026, but we accept submissions on a rolling basis.
Please read our Mission Statement https://oralhistory.org/about-the-oral-history-review/ and contact the editors with any questions:
Holly Werner-Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, holly@hollythomasoralhistory.com
Molly Todd, Managing Editor, managingeditorohr@gmail.com
If you are selected to contribute to the issue, you will be notified in late June and a draft of your assigned submission (approximately 1,500 words) will be due in late August 2026.
There are few issues facing exhibition-makers as evergreen as what makes a good wall label. There are also few issues as divisive. After well over a century of visitor research into the effectiveness of labels and countless books, articles, guidelines, tips, and tricks for writing more effective labels, standards still vary widely across institutions—and even across exhibitions staged by the same institution. Add to this the failures of language itself, from its gendered, racist, cultural, and classist assumptions to its (in)accessibility for large numbers of people, and one might be forgiven for asking why labels are still such a ubiquitous communication strategy. Exhibition last broached this topic specifically in its Spring 2016 issue, “The Power of Words: Written, Spoken, Designed.” With all that has happened in the intervening decade, from a pronounced rightward drift in Western politics that has made language as hotly contested as ever to the rise of ChatGPT and other large language models capable of writing for us, we want to check in to see how practitioners are shaping the present and future of exhibition communication through labels and beyond.
Proposals for this issue might address:
Proposals can focus on a specific exhibition, provide an overview of exhibitions and practices, or offer an insightful review of current literature and other resources to help elucidate core practices. The exhibitions and/or elements discussed can be created by or for museums of all disciplines, historical sites, galleries, institutions that collect and display living collections, or others. Proposals might come from designers, exhibit developers, interpretive planners, curators, writers, educators, or others who create and contribute to exhibitions at all stages of their careers. In all cases, accepted authors will be expected to write articles that illuminate larger issues. Exhibition descriptions should be critical and analytical, and theoretical research and evaluation findings (even if informal) must be used to support arguments for the strengths and weaknesses of a project.
A Note About AI
Authors are expected to write their own articles, without the use of AI (large language models, ChatGPT, etc.). This includes using AI to edit your submission (beyond Word’s spelling or grammar check features). If authors plan to use AI to assist with data collection or other research functions to facilitate the creation of their articles, this use must be disclosed and properly cited (more detailed information will be provided if your proposal is selected).
Exhibition does not use AI in any of its editorial processes. All submissions will be reviewed by a panel of your peers with many decades of combined experience who are all committed to creating meaningful content for our field. We believe this human-centered approach results in articles that honor your individual voice while protecting your intellectual property. We welcome first-time authors and ESL authors and will provide additional editorial support as needed.
How to write and submit a proposal
There are two parts to a proposal (which must be submitted as a Word document):
Part 1: Description (400 words max)
The description must:
Please note that accepted articles will be expected to provide critical, candid discussions about issues and challenges, successes and failures, and to provide some level of evaluation and/or theoretical grounding.
Part 2: Brief Bio
Please provide a brief bio (no more than one paragraph) for each author that describes their background and qualifications for writing the article (please do not include resumes or CVs).
Please send all proposals as Word documents via email to Jeanne Normand Goswami, Editor, Exhibition at: jeanne.goswami@gmail.com. Submissions from colleagues and students around the world are welcomed and encouraged.
Deadlines: Proposals are due June 3, 2026. Our editorial advisors will vet proposals in a blind review process, and you will be notified of acceptance or non-acceptance in late June. Articles of 2,000 to 3,000 words maximum, along with high-resolution images, will be due in late August.
Other ways to contribute
Would you like to contribute to Exhibition but don’t have a project that fits the call? We are looking for volunteers to contribute to the journal as book reviewers and exhibition critique writers.
What we’ll need:
If you are interested in being considered for these opportunities, please let us know:
Please send requested information via email to:
Jeanne Normand Goswami, Editor, Exhibition at: jeanne.goswami@gmail.com. Submissions from colleagues and students around the world are welcomed and encouraged.
Deadlines: All information is due June 3, 2026. Book review and exhibition critique submissions will be considered by our editorial team alongside article proposals in June 2026. If you are selected to contribute to the issue, you will be notified in late June and a draft of your assigned submission (approximately 1,500 words) will be due in late August 2026.
The Library History Round Table (LHRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) invites submissions for the Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award, named in honor of ALA’s first president, the distinguished nineteenth-century librarian, historian, and bibliographer. This award is given annually and recognizes the best essay written in English on library history. The winner will receive a certificate, a $500 cash award, and an invitation to have their essay considered for publication in Libraries: Culture, History, and Society.
Criteria
Manuscripts submitted should not be previously published, previously submitted for publication, or under consideration for publication or another award. To be considered, essays should
The Library History Round Table is particularly interested in works that place the subject within its broader historical, social, cultural, and political context and make interdisciplinary connections.
Applicants are encouraged to follow the submission guidelines for Libraries: Culture, History, and Society when formatting their manuscripts. Submissions should conform to the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, using the author-date system, and should not exceed thirty typewritten, double-spaced pages.
Submissions and Selection
Applicants must submit their manuscripts electronically. Applications must be received by Thursday April 30th. The application deadline is firm; submissions received after the deadline will not be forwarded to the committee.
Please upload your manuscripts electronically via the web form: LHRT Justin Winsor Award Submission Form.
Interested applicants can direct inquiries to Rachel Trnka, Justin Winsor Award Committee Chair, rachel.trnka@ucf.edu; please include “LHRT Winsor Award” in the subject line.
Contact Information
Rachel Trnka
Instruction & Engagement Librarian
UCF Libraries
Contact Email
rachel.trnka@ucf.edu
The historiography of 20th-century modernism has historically marginalized the Global South, frequently framing Africa’s modern heritage as derivative, or strictly a product of exogenous colonial and post-colonial interventions (Le Roux, 2003; Uduku, 2006). For our inaugural issue, we turn our attention to a critically under-theorized and rapidly disappearing subset of the continent’s history: the Modern Heritage of Africa.
The material and socio-cultural realities of this heritage are vast and complex, ranging from the Afro-Brazilian typologies of West Africa and the brutalist university campuses of the independence era (Herz et al., 2015), to colonial railway networks, early industrial mining towns, and the mid-century cinemas and radio stations that gave birth to new urban cultures. Currently, mainstream heritage discourse often struggles to adequately conserve or interpret these sites, largely due to an over-reliance on Eurocentric conservation frameworks, such as the Venice Charter, which traditionally prioritize static material authenticity.
In response, and guided by the decentering mandate of the Cape Town Document on Modern Heritage (2022) alongside the recently adopted Nairobi Outcome on Heritage and Authenticity (2025), this issue argues that preserving the memory of these sites requires a profound epistemological shift. The Cape Town Document underscores the imperative to untether the concept of the “modern” from its Eurocentric origins, advocating for equitable, expanded definitions that account for plural modernities and multiple narratives. Complementing this, the Nairobi framework establishes that African heritage is dynamic, community-centered, and intricately links the tangible with the intangible. Consequently, we must re-examine these contentious structures not as inert, fossilized relics, but as active sites of socio-spatial negotiation whose authenticity is continuously evolving.
We challenge the prevailing notion that “Modern” heritage is strictly a Western phenomenon or a direct import. Contributors from across disciplines: history, anthropology, architecture, urban studies, and cultural heritage are invited to analyze these sites critically through the lens of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS), the Cape Town Document, and the pluralistic framework of the Nairobi Outcome.
We ask scholars and practitioners to consider questions such as:
“When the music changes, so does the dance.” — Hausa Proverb
In the spirit of this proverb, we seek to understand how African heritage practice dances with modernity, adapting to and transforming the physical and cultural remnants of the 20th century.
We welcome original research articles, case studies, conservation reports, and critical essays that engage with the following sub-themes:
Nsibidi is committed to epistemic justice and encourages the use of indigenous languages for key theoretical, spatial, and cultural concepts. Terms without direct English equivalents should be retained in their original language and explained contextually within the text.
All submissions will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review process. We encourage submissions from academic researchers, heritage practitioners, and spatial designers.
Please send all abstracts, full manuscript submissions, and inquiries to the editorial team at:
journal@nsibidi.institute
Contact Email
journal@nsibidi.institute
URL
Theme: Collections, Collecting, Collectives
The urge to collect predates the development of modern museums. The Wunderkammer, also known as the “Cabinet of Curiosities,” was a practice established in Europe in which collectors could admire the beauty and artistry of foreign artifacts while also exhibiting their wealth and power to society. This model then became the basis for Western museums. These collections became open to the public through collectives gathering and demanding equal space, changing how objects were seen from sites of creation to consumption. Moreover, with the inclusion of the public, collections transformed from a performance of status to a highlighting of personal memorabilia, allowing people to preserve and display what is most important to them. How do we reframe collecting not as an elite pursuit but as a practice integral to our humanity? Collectives gather to admire what stands in pristine cases, that once were part of the earth, made by someone’s hands, and held close to someone’s heart. What begins as an intimate act of gathering soon hardens into structure. Collections emerge not merely as accumulations of objects, but as frameworks that determine what is preserved, displayed, and ultimately remembered.
Collections:
A collection is an accumulation of objects. Cultural institutions and organizations inherit the work of preserving cultural and personal heritage. What responsibilities come with holding, curating, or inheriting a collection? How does collecting build upon these responsibilities? How do they build narrative and tell a story? How do museums portray history through the physical? How do we form relationships with relics?
Collecting:
Collecting is an activity that manifests in auction houses, stores, homes, and streets. Along with histories of physical collections, the importance of oral history creates a sense of unity and oneness with oneself through history. When memory is sustained through people rather than objects, it becomes inherently collective. What are the economic and environmental impacts of collecting? How can collecting become a site of ritual for oneself and others? In the context of collecting, how can spaces such as libraries and personal collections demonstrate ways of life and create a sense of history? How can acts of collecting help preserve traditions in new and distinctive ways?
Collectives:
Collectives make up the core of museums. From administrators and educators to visitors and guests, people are the lifeblood of cultural institutions. Yet, collectivity does not begin or end within museum walls. How does collective action extend beyond institutional frameworks and move into communities, organizing, people-centric networks, and shared cultural labor? How do collectives form through shared objects, tastes, grief, or resistance? How do we interact with various institutions? How can collectives change what is seen and what is obscured? How can collectives be formed and appreciated outside of a central museum space?
Produced and edited by the University of Illinois Chicago Museum and Exhibition Studies graduate students and published by Chicago-based Bridge Books, Fwd: Museums strives to create a space for challenging, critiquing, and providing alternative modes of thinking and production within and outside of museums.
For our twelfth issue, we invite contributions and collaborations rooted in reflections on collections across cultural institutions, personal archives, and community-held alike. What does it mean to collect within and beyond systems of capital and curation? How do institutional collections intersect with personal, familial, or grassroots forms of gathering and preservation? What is collective about museums?
Fwd: Museums invites academic articles, artwork, essays, exhibition/book reviews, creative writing, interviews, poetry, rants, love letters, and experimental forms to analyze, critique, and make space for new thinking about museums and exhibitions. All submissions should follow the guidelines and relate to the journal’s mission statement (bolded above). We strongly encourage book and exhibition reviews on multiple topics, but require all other submissions to connect to the 12th issue’s theme, “Collections, Collecting, Collectives.”
The submission deadline is January 5, 2027, 11:59 PM (CST). Submit your work here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewSwV6sx0d6mPwX7x6DrYObxj0X1e2WdhB2IVaVeQBzNzVYA/viewform
Questions? Email fwd.museums@gmail.com.
Find us on Instagram @fwd_museums
Guidelines
Written submissions such as essays, research papers, and poems should be between 2,500 – 4,000 words and use Chicago Manual of Style formatting and citations, in a DOCX file. Broadly accessible language that a large audience can understand is preferred. If you think your submission may exceed 4,000 words, please email us at fwd.museums@gmail.com to discuss the length of your submission.
All images should be sent as separate files (not embedded in text) at 300+ dpi in tiff format. Note in-text where images should be inserted and include credit, caption, date of execution, materials used, and dimensions, as appropriate.
A Note on Reviews
Reviews should be between 1,500 – 2,500 words. We welcome long-form museum, exhibition, film, and book reviews with a point of view and connections to social, historical, political, and other contexts, rather than summaries of book contents. We invite creative formats; email us if you’d like examples. Check our Instagram or email us for books available for review.
Who Should Submit?
Anyone! You! Students, faculty, scholars, museum employees, artists and art handlers, volunteers, part-timers, activists, and other people with something to say about museums, exhibits, and cultural work are welcome to submit.
Please see the Journal Style and Manuscript Guide for information on how to format your submission.
Contact Information
Dr. Therese Quinn
Museum and Exhibition Studies
University of Illinois Chicago
Contact Email
fwd.museums@gmail.com
URL
Publishing in the Archives Profession 