Category: Call for Papers

CF: La Gazette de archives (France)

French

La Gazette des archives est une revue professionnelle scientifique éditée par l’Association des archivistes français (AAF). Découvrez la refonte de la revue à notre webinaire du 25 juin 2024 !

La Gazette des archi­ves est une revue à comité de lec­ture à ambi­tion pro­fes­sion­nelle et aca­dé­mi­que qui pro­meut et contri­bue au déve­lop­pe­ment de la recher­che et de la réflexion en archi­vis­ti­que. Elle s’adresse prio­ri­tai­re­ment aux archi­vis­tes fran­çais et fran­co­pho­nes ainsi qu’à la com­mu­nauté aca­dé­mi­que inter­na­tio­nale des cher­cheurs en archi­vis­ti­que ou qui mènent une réflexion sur des aspects tou­chant à la ges­tion des archi­ves et à leur contexte de pro­duc­tion, à leurs usages ou à leur place dans la société (cher­cheurs en his­toire, scien­ces de l’infor­ma­tion, socio­lo­gie, psy­cho­lo­gie, etc.). Elle a pour objec­tif de publier des tra­vaux ori­gi­naux rela­tifs à la théo­rie et à la pra­ti­que archi­vis­ti­que, de favo­ri­ser le dia­lo­gue entre les dis­ci­pli­nes, entre les champs pro­fes­sion­nels et de contri­buer à la cir­cu­la­tion des connais­san­ces sur les archi­ves à tra­vers le monde.

Participez à notre webi­naire le 25 juin 2024 pour en savoir plus !

Comment écrire dans La Gazette des archi­ves ?

La Gazette des archi­ves publie des numé­ros thé­ma­ti­ques et des varias. Pour les numé­ros thé­ma­ti­ques, un appel à contri­bu­tions est dif­fusé sur la page Internet de la revue et sur les réseaux. Les contri­bu­tions non thé­ma­ti­ques sont accep­tées au fil de l’eau.

La revue com­prend plu­sieurs rubri­ques :
–  Article ori­gi­nal : publi­ca­tion ori­gi­nale pré­sen­tant un propos argu­menté, démon­tré et étayé par une ana­lyse de la lit­té­ra­ture et des sour­ces (archi­ves, enquête…), sus­cep­ti­ble de faire avan­cer la recher­che ou la réflexion sur les archi­ves
–  Pistes et pers­pec­ti­ves : arti­cle qui peut adop­ter un ton plus spé­cu­la­tif et expri­mer une réflexion nova­trice sur la théo­rie ou la pra­ti­que archi­vis­ti­que. Il est recom­mandé de pren­dre contact avec le comité de rédac­tion
au préa­la­ble
–  Entretien : entre­tien inédit avec une per­son­na­lité, pré­sen­tant un apport pour la théo­rie ou la pra­ti­que archi­vis­ti­que
–  Étude de cas : retour d’expé­rience ana­ly­ti­que sur un projet ou une acti­vité qui pré­sente un carac­tère ori­gi­nal et apporte une réflexion sur la pra­ti­que archi­vis­ti­que
–  Compte rendu : compte rendu pro­blé­ma­tisé d’un ouvrage ou d’un événement scien­ti­fi­que qui pré­sente des réflexions archi­vis­ti­ques

La revue accepte des contri­bu­tions en langue fran­çaise. Pour une contri­bu­tion en langue étrangère, il convient de contac­ter au préa­la­ble le comité de rédac­tion.

Les arti­cles ne sont pas rému­né­rés. Les auteurs signent une auto­ri­sa­tion de publi­ca­tion et sont tenus de res­pec­ter le format d’édition : uti­li­sa­tion d’une charte éditoriale et d’un modèle de texte com­mu­ni­qués par la rédac­tion et dis­po­ni­bles ci-des­sous. De même, vous y trou­ve­rez un manuel d’écriture inclu­sive à consul­ter libre­ment.

English

La Gazette des archives is a professional scientific journal published by the Association of French Archivists (AAF). Discover the redesign of the journal at our webinar on June 25, 2024!

La Gazette des archives is a peer-reviewed journal with professional and academic ambitions that promotes and contributes to the development of research and reflection in archives. It is primarily aimed at French and French-speaking archivists as well as the international academic community of researchers in archives or who are thinking about aspects relating to the management of archives and their production context, their uses or their place in society (researchers in history, information sciences, sociology, psychology, etc.). Its objective is to publish original work relating to archival theory and practice, to foster dialogue between disciplines, between professional fields and to contribute to the circulation of knowledge on archives throughout the world.

Join our webinar on June 25, 2024 to learn more!

How to write in the Archives Gazette  ?

The Gazette des archives publishes thematic issues and miscellaneous issues. For thematic issues, a call for contributions is published on the journal’s website and on social networks. Non-thematic contributions are accepted on an ongoing basis.

The magazine includes several sections:
–  Original article : original publication presenting a reasoned argument, demonstrated and supported by an analysis of literature and sources (archives, survey, etc.), likely to advance research or reflection on archives
–  Tracks and perspectives : an article that may adopt a more speculative tone and express innovative thinking on archival theory or practice. It is recommended to contact the editorial board in
advance
–  Interview : unpublished interview with a personality, presenting a contribution to archival theory or practice
–  Case study : analytical feedback on a project or activity which presents an original character and provides a reflection on archival practice
–  Report : problematized report of a work or a scientific event which presents archival reflections

The journal accepts contributions in French. For a contribution in a foreign language, please contact the editorial board in advance.

The articles are not remunerated. The authors sign a publication authorization and are required to respect the publishing format: use of an editorial charter and a text model communicated by the editorial staff and available below. Likewise, you will find an inclusive writing manual to consult freely.

CFP: Studies in Oral History (Australia)

Studies in Oral History, Issue No. 47

Editors: Skye Krichauff and Carolyn Collins

The Power of Oral History – Risks, Rewards & Possibilities

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Contributions are invited from Australia and overseas for the peer-reviewed articles section of the 2025 issue of Studies in Oral History, the journal of Oral History Australia (OHA).

Oral history can be powerful in so many ways: interviews generate potent emotions, recordings capture the power of voice as well as the power of silence, and multimedia productions engage and connect new audiences with the complexities of the past.

Fundamentally, oral history transforms the historical archive and challenges mainstream histories. It can shift traditional power dynamics, bring forth new voices and perspectives, reshape policies and politics, and shake up old certainties.

Yet these possibilities come with risk as well as reward – recording sensitive subjects is never easy. Creating an oral history production takes time, skill and care, and sometimes goes wrong. Imaginative re-uses of oral history recordings can raise ethical and legal complexities. And oral histories that disrupt accepted narratives can generate pain and conflict in families, communities and nations.

We invite papers that employ or interrogate oral history methodologies and illuminate aspects of the risks, rewards and possibilities of oral history. Contributions across the following themes are suggested (although not mandatory):

  • Indigenous oral histories and oral traditions
  • Oral history, culture and language
  • Interpreting memory in oral history
  • Transgressing boundaries with oral history
  • Documenting diverse voices with oral history
  • Histories of protest, activism and rights
  • Contested memories and histories
  • Oral histories of working lives and social class
  • Migrant and refugee history
  • Gender and oral history
  • LGBTIQA+ oral histories
  • Ethical issues in oral history
  • Technology and oral history
  • Archiving and oral history
  • Oral histories of family, community or place
  • Creative uses of oral history recordings
  • Oral history in galleries, libraries and museums

As all articles are subject to anonymous peer review, pleasure ensure your submission contains no identifying material. Articles submitted to the Oral History Australia Editorial Board for peer review will first be assessed for suitability by the Editorial Board. Please consult the Guidelines for Contributors, the Peer review FAQ and Journal Style Guide for further information.

Word Limits and Deadlines

To be considered for peer review, articles should be no more than 8,000 words, including references. Publication of the issue is anticipated in late 2025.

The submission deadline for articles for peer review is 17 January 2025.

Submission

Send submissions to: Dr Alexandra Dellios, Chair, Oral History Australia Editorial Board, email editorialboard.journal@oralhistoryaustralia.org.au.

Reports

Submissions are also invited for the reports section of the 2025 issue of Studies in Oral History. Reports may describe oral history projects conducted by museum curators, heritage professionals, consulting historians, community historians, academic historians and more. Projects may have resulted in public outcomes such as websites, exhibitions, podcasts, theses, articles or books. Please note the reports section is not peer-reviewed; notes from the field, updates on exciting new work, or reflections on the process and/or outcomes of oral history projects are encouraged. Reports which relate to the issue theme are welcome but not mandatory.

Word limit: 1,500 words.

Deadline for report submissions: Monday 30 April 2025.

Please send reports to our Reports Editor Alexandra Mountain:  reports.journal@oralhistoryaustralia.org.au

Please note that while the reports are not peer-reviewed, we cannot accept all reports for publication and accepted reports will need to be edited for length, clarity and adherence to the Style Guide. Reports will be selected on the basis of quality of writing, the diversity of oral history perspectives showcased across the reports section and relevance to the special issue theme. Please consult the Guidelines for Contributors and Style Guide for further information.

CFP: Historic House Museums: Nordic Perspectives

The anthology Historic House Museums: Nordic Perspectives (tentative title) presents a broad range of perspectives on historic house museums in the Nordic countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, and Iceland. The book sheds light on how the Nordic countries understand, define, preserve, exhibit, manage, and communicate about our historic house museums. This includes house museums in the broadest sense of the word – from farmhouses, manor houses, artist homes, bunker museums, open air museums, and other types of historic buildings that have been preserved, and where people have lived for shorter or longer periods of time.

Much of the current literature on historic house museums comes from the US or the UK, where many efforts have been made to create overviews, categories, and definitions that clarify a typology for historic house museums and how historic house museums can be understood.

In our anthology, we want to contribute to this literature by presenting perspectives on historic house museums from the Nordic countries, where our unique cultures, history, and climate come into play. In some ways, the Nordic countries are very different from one another, but in other ways we are closely connected, not least through political history, language, culture, and to some extent – climate. This anthology will present perspectives from the Nordic countries regarding the most pressing issues, challenges, and potentials related to historic house museums in this region of the world. This includes perspectives on preservation and conservation, organisational perspectives, interpretation, collections, dissemination and visitor communication, community and identity, material or immaterial heritage, and not least more general discussions of how historic house museums are defined, categorised, and understood in the different Nordic countries.

The anthology targets museum staff, researchers, and academic students who work within the fields of museums & cultural heritage. It aims at giving Nordic house museums and Nordic house museum researchers a voice in international discussions about the definitions and value of this unique category of museums.

More about the call and the topics: https://museologi.au.dk/publikationer/call-for-papers

We ask authors to submit article proposals of between ½ and 2 pages.

The submission date is October 1st, 2024

Information about submissions can also be found at this link:

https://museologi.au.dk/publikationer/call-for-papers

Contact Information
Project manager, Mia Falch Yates
Department of Art History & Museology, Aarhus University
Contact Email: my@cc.au.dk

URL: https://museologi.au.dk/publikationer/call-for-papers

Attachments

Call for Papers. Pdf

CFP: Museum Worlds

Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 
Call for Special Section Proposals 

The Editors of Museum Worlds: Advances in Research invite proposals for Special Sections to feature in future issues of the journal. Sections should focus on themes that fit the journal’s remit which aims to trace and comment on major regional, theoretical, methodological, and topical themes and debates, and to encourage comparison of museum theories, practices, and developments in different global settings. Sections could, for example, cover regional trends in museum theory and practice; current challenges such as climate change or Indigenisation of museums; or could be based on a topical conference panel. 

Sections will normally be no more than 60,000 words and include an editorial comment from the section editor(s) of 1000 words, plus up to six full length articles of 7000 words (including notes and references), though some section editors may choose to include conversation pieces, photo essays, and shorter length reports or reviews to cover a wider range of formats appropriate to the Special Section theme. Full details on word lengths and format can be found in the journal guide for submissions (https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/museum-worlds/museum-worlds-overview.xml?tab_body=submit). 

TIMESCALE 
Proposals for Special Section should include an abstract of 500 words explaining the focus of the section plus an indicative list of content/authors. These should be submitted as Word documents by 01 September 2024 to Alison Brown (alison.brown@abdn.ac.uk) and Conal McCarthy(conal.mccarthy@vuw.ac.nz). 

A decision for the Special Section to feature in Museum Worlds Volume 13 will be made by a panel consisting of Alison Brown, Conal McCarthy and a member of the Editorial Board by 01 October 2024, with proposal authors notified as soon as possible thereafter. 

The Special Section editor(s) will liaise with section contributors and will arrange peer review in line with the journal’s stated processes. They will ensure the section content is submitted to Alison Brown and Conal McCarthy by 01 April 2025. 

Section editors will be supported through the production process but are responsible for ensuring that their section meets all journal requirements and the publishing schedule. This includes ensuring that any images and permissions meet the publication requirements of the journal and are submitted at the same time as the Special Section content. 

The journal editors reserve the right to make final decisions related to Special Sections. 

CFP: The Anthem Impact in Historic Built Environments and Material Culture

The Anthem Impact in Historic Built Environments and Material Culture series publishes concise, cutting-edge scholarly works on architecture, landscapes, significant cultural artifacts and their respective overlaps and intersections with intangible cultural heritage. This series seeks scholarly works ranging from 20,000 to 30,000 words, delving into the exploration of how cultural traditions imbue meaning into places and artifacts. Given the interdependence between historic built environments, material culture, and ecosystems, we also welcome inquiries examining the role of natural heritage. The unique coverage of this series will be of interest to students, educators, scholars and lifelong learners. 

Series Editor 
Barry L Stiefel, College of Charleston, US. 

Proposals 
We welcome submissions of proposals for challenging and original works from emerging and established scholars and practitioners that meet the criteria of our series. We make prompt editorial decisions. Our titles are published in digital and print editions and are subject to peer review by recognized authorities in the field. Should you wish to send in a proposal for original research, literature review / analytical surveys, advanced tutorials or other reference works, please contact us at: proposal@anthempress.com.

Contact Information

Proposals can be submitted to proposal@anthempress.com

Questions can be submitted to stiefelb@cofc.edu 

Contact Email

proposal@anthempress.com

URL: https://anthempress.com/anthem-impact-in-historic-built-environments-and-material-culture

Call for Book Proposals: Palgrave Studies in Queer Literary, Visual and Material Cultures

NEW SERIES
Call for Proposals
Palgrave Studies in Queer Literary, Visual and Material Cultures

https://link.springer.com/series/17238

Series Editors

  • Michel Bronski, Professor of the Practice in Media and Activism in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University, USA
  • Dominic Janes, Professor of Modern History, Keele University, UK
  • Kate Thomas, K. Lawrence Stapleton Professor of Literatures in English, Bryn Mawr College, USA

Brief Description 

Palgrave Studies in Queer Literary, Visual and Material Cultures tests, contests and expands the boundaries of queer studies in global and transnational contexts and across historical periods. The series engages a wide range of cultural production including literature, graphic narrative, film, performance, architecture, art, virtual design, interior and furniture design, and landscape design. We welcome titles that bring “queer” cultures and sexualities into conversation with related areas of enquiry, especially critical race theory, trans studies, disability studies, feminist theory, eco-criticism, post-colonial theory, and Marxist theory. The series is dedicated to cross-cultural, interdisciplinary and intersectional work across many forms of difference and diversity.

Although the series will focus on Anglophone works we invite research that crosses over from other disciplines and cultural contexts. For example, a book on late Victorian British queer male writers might discuss the influence of the French decadent writers of that period, as well as other aspects of European literary production. Or, again, work that explores British visual and textual cultures from India might usefully contextualise them in relation to subcontinental practices and understandings of sexuality and art.

The editors welcome new book proposals for monographs (70,000-100,000 words) and edited collections (80,000-125,000 words).

If you’re interested in submitting a proposal, please contact the Executive Editor for Literature at Palgrave Macmillan, Molly Beck (molly.beck@palgrave.com). 

Contact Information

Executive Editor for Literature at Palgrave Macmillan, Molly Beck (molly.beck@palgrave.com). 

Contact Email

molly.beck@palgrave.com

URL

https://link.springer.com/series/17238

Call for Contributions: Information Technology and Libraries Journal, New Column

Information Technology and Libraries Journal (ITAL) is seeking authors for a new column titled “ITAL &”.

The “ITAL &” column is a non-peer-reviewed, featured column that focuses on ways in which the library’s role continues to expand and develop in the information technology landscape. The emphasis will be on emerging ideas and issues, with a particular aim to recruit new-to-the-profession columnists.

Some examples of possible topics include:

AI: How will the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning change various aspects of librarianship and different types of libraries? How are library professionals working with or fighting against artificial intelligence? Are libraries using generative AI in marketing materials or using large language models to streamline workflows? What cybersecurity implications arise?

General technology review: Looking back at the ten-year range, what are the major changes or improvements in library technologies that have occurred since 2014? What are the current and emerging technologies that enable telecommuting, cloud computing, and hybrid learning in libraries? What are the potential scenarios and implications of library technologies in the next five and ten years, and what are the best practices and strategies to prepare for them? This column could provide a platform to discuss and envision prospective library technologies.

Other topics of interest could include, but are not limited to: disability and accessibility, cybersecurity and privacy, the open movement / open pedagogy, linked data and metadata, digital humanities / digital praxis, digitization efforts, programming and workshops, the overlap between library technology and other library departments (acquisitions, readers advisory, information literacy and instruction, scholarly communications), or other emerging technologies and their implications for library work.

This column is intended to be practitioner-focused, and we will happily entertain submissions from folks who have expertise in libraries and technology but who may not work in a traditional “library” environment or role. We are also happy to work with first-time authors and folks based outside of North America, though columns need to be submitted in English.

Since this is a non-peer-reviewed column, there is also an opportunity to engage in new ways or different formats, so creative submissions will also be considered. (Examples: comics, zines, videos, autoethnography, case studies, white papers, policy documents, interviews, reports, or other things commonly referred to as “grey literature.”) If you would like your column to be in a format that differs from a standard editorial essay, please explain in your proposal.

Those who are interested in being an author for this column should submit a brief proposal / abstract that outlines the topic to be covered. Proposals should be no more than 250 words. Please submit your proposals to this Google Form no later than June 30, 2024.

Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by July 8, 2024, with the submission deadline for our quarterly issues on the first of February, May, August, and November. Completed column submissions should be roughly 1500-2000 words.

Please contact column editor Shanna Hollich (shollich@gmail.com) with any questions.

CFP: Journal of Digital History

Teaching Digital History: a CfP
(see full call)

For its first Open Ended Issue, the Journal of Digital History will explore how we teach digital history and how we think about the pedagogy of digital history. We are particularly interested in questions of how we can integrate digital history into the traditional curriculum, the best practices for teaching it, how we would like to teach it in regions of the world where such a practice is nascent, and how to further solidify the scholarship of teaching and learning as a sub-discipline. Teaching Digital History is a practice in constant motion, based on an unstable set of pedagogical toolkits, that is multifaceted as digital history itself is multifaceted.

Following the innovative practices of the Journal of Digital History, submitted articles will be multilayered. Though articles can start from different points of view – teaching practices, pedagogical theory – contributions will develop three layers:

  • the narrative layer – that will expose your main arguments;
  • the hermeneutics layer – that will explain the (computing or pedagogical) tools that allow to put your arguments into practice, and their critical reviews;
  • the data layer – that can be, for this open issue, made of different things: surveys, interviews, curriculum(s), teaching modules.

The Open Ended Issue’s editorial team will welcome articles on many subjects, that include but are not limited to:

  • teaching Digital History as a topic;
  • teaching DH-related tools (GIS, development languages, text processing, topic modeling tools) as methods to study history;
  • pedagogical tools/theories/practices: confrontation with new tools and paradigms, peer group projects, hand’s on courses, (interdisciplinary) team teaching scenarios, development of digital self learning tools, engagement, digital storytelling, etc;
  • how does the implementation of digital tools and digitization change the way we teach history?
  • failures and hindrances in the teaching of Digital history;
  • digital history text-book related articles (not the text-book itself, but a discussion on its scope, on how it should be written, on which skills should be taught, etc);
  • History of teaching Digital History.

If you have any questions or want to discuss a proposal, please contact the special issue editors at jdh.admin@uni.lu.

How to submit

As this is an open-ended issue, submitting an article can be done any time. To submit an abstract please go to the dedicated page.

CFP: Engaging with Big and Small Historical Data

The material that historical research – and humanities scholarship in general – is based on traditionally carries names like ‘archival’ or ‘primary sources’. The ongoing disciplinary movement towards digitization and datafication forces us to engage with our material in new ways: it becomes data. The aim of the volume Engaging with Big and Small Historical Data, under contract with Routledge as a part of their Engaging with… series, is to provide a guide for the scholarly community of historians to reflect on the consequences of these current developments. We invite historians and other scholars with an interest in this topic to contribute to the volume. 

The structure of the volume is based on the following question regarding the datafication of historical scholarship. We are specifically looking for scholars interested in contributing to the named chapters within each of these parts of the volume, although we are open to any other suggestions that fit the aims of this volume:

0. Defining Data. The growing abundance of data has long been celebrated under the guise of ‘big data’. The contributions that this volume will start with will together address the most important debates that underlie this rhetoric. They elaborate on the epistemological consequences of thinking in terms of big data, on the rhetoric of ‘newness’ of big data, and on questions of bias, power, and inequality that come with big data.

Available chapters:

  • Historicizing the data deluge
  • Data (and) inequality: power and ethics

1. Where are data to be found? Data is not always stored in the archives and libraries that we know how to work with. Preconditions for access to data are changing. Historians have to cope with paywalls, versioning, permissions, and formats. They have to learn about OCR, image recognition, and other techniques. Most of all, they are usually not in control of what material is or can be turned into data. This raises crucial questions about what material can be worked with as data in the first place, and what material is being left out, excluded, overseen, or forgotten.

Available chapters:

  • Digitization and the role of heritage institutions

2. How do we engage with data? Working with data impacts the epistemological preconditions of historical scholarship, if only because its methodologies usually originate from other fields of research. Does working with data necessitate a (new) quantitative turn in historical scholarship, or can it be integrated into hermeneutic traditions? How do current developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, which have a huge potential for historical research, impact traditional views on methodological reflection and source criticism?

Available chapters:

  • Becoming interdisciplinary
  • Data and open science: presenting scholarship in the digital age

3. What can we find in data? Tools and techniques for computational analyses of data are advancing with great speed, and historians and other scholars have been using them in a large variety of ways to study history. These techniques allow for new research questions, as well as new perspectives on familiar questions.

Available chapters:

  • Maps
  • Reconstructions

The title of this volume aims to capture the often intertwining trends that are hidden under these questions. It refers to the various dimensions of scholarship that come with digitization and born digital data. In addition, the juxtaposition of big and small also evokes two widely discussed approaches to using data in a humanities context – which are all but mutually exclusive. A more elaborate introduction to the volume’s aims and design can be found at http://tinyurl.com/BigandSmallData. 

The volume primarily aims to target the field of history. However, even if based on historical examples, the contributions to this volume are to have relevance for other fields of humanities research. After all, the historical data that is being digitized is used in a wide range of fields, from cultural studies to philosophy and from media studies to linguistics. Therefore, scholars from adjacent fields working with historical data are also warmly invited to contribute.

Contributions are ca. 7000 words long (excl. bibliography) and, ideally, relate to a combination of concepts, key terms/methodologies and case studies. Due date for the first draft of contributors’ chapters is Jan 1, 2025. Revised chapters are due in the Spring of 2025. Expected publication of the volume is the Fall of 2025.

Interested scholars are asked to send proposals of max. 300 words no later than July 1, 2024 to volume editor Pim Huijnen at p.huijnen@uu.nl, who you may also contact with any questions. 

Contact Information

Pim Huijnen, Utrecht University

Contact Email

p.huijnen@uu.nl

URL

http://tinyurl.com/BigandSmallData

CFP: Archival Accessioning, special issue of American Archivist

The American Archivist editorial board invites submissions for a special section in American Archivist illuminating the wide-ranging spectrum of archival accessioning practices in the archives field today.

This special section will place dual emphasis on the process and output of the National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group (ABP), along with broader practical experiences and perspectives from folks actively working to implement a diverse range of accessioning labor throughout the archival lifecycle in different contexts. We strongly encourage submissions that are practical in nature, as well as works that explore contemporary accessioning theory and praxis.

Submissions can explore any of the many operational facets of contemporary archival accessioning, including:

  • pre-custodial engagement, donor relations, radical empathy and candor, and relationship building/maintenance
  • packing and transportation of collection material
  • foundational and/or iterative archival description
  • development of an accessioning program, particularly as it relates to operational impact and sustainable stewardship
  • born-digital accessioning
  • ethical concerns and lived experiences related to accessioning practices
  • physical stabilization, preservation interventions, space usage, and stacks management
  • sustainability and climate impact of accessioning practices
  • appraisal, deaccessioning, and reappraisal
  • management of and advocacy for accessioning labor
  • perspectives on the evolution of archival accessioning; critical analysis of foundational concepts; archival concepts (e.g., provenance, respect des fonds, appraisal) in relation to contemporary accessioning practices
  • post-colonial, post-custodial, reparative, and/or community-centered approaches to accessioning
  • applied theoretical frameworks (e.g., critical race theory, feminist theory)
  • perspectives on archival education and training for accessioning 
  • members of the National Best Practices for Archival Accessioning Working Group (ABP) are particularly encouraged to submit pieces that place the newly developed best practices into real world contexts or that expand upon aspects of the best practices

We seek submissions from authors with a variety of career experiences and diverse perspectives related to archival accessioning practices. The editorial team especially encourages submissions from first-time authors and early-career archives and special collections professionals, as well as from colleagues working in nonprofit organizations; HBCUs, AANAPISIs, and/or HSIs; public libraries; museums; and community archives.

Submissions may take any of the following forms:

  • Research Articles: analytical and critical expositions based on original investigation or on systematic review of literature. (Suggested length: 8,000 words)
  • Case Studies: analytical reports of projects or activities that take place in a specific setting and offer the basis for emulation or comparison in other settings. (Suggested length: 3,000 words)
  • Perspectives: commentaries, reflective or opinion pieces, addressing issues or practices that concern archivists and their constituents. (Suggested length: 2,000-2500 words)
  • Professional Resources: can be annotated bibliographies, other items designed for practical use within the profession, or essays that review the developments (as opposed to the literature) in specified areas in a way that describes particular initiatives and places them in the context of broader trends. (Length varies)

American Archivist is the peer-reviewed, semi-annual journal of the Society of American Archivists. Established in 1938, the journal seeks to reflect thinking about theoretical and practical developments in the archival profession; the relationships between archivists and the creators and users of archives; and cultural, social, legal, and technological developments that affect the nature of recorded information and the need to create and maintain it. 

Submissions will be reviewed by the editorial team, following American Archivist editorial policies. All submissions selected for inclusion in this special section will go through the American Archivist peer review process, the rubric for which can be found here. 

Inquiries and submissions can be sent to: accessioningspecialsection@gmail.com 

The deadline for submissions is October 1st, 2024.

Editorial Team

Rosemary K. J. Davis
Head, Archival Accessioning
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 
Yale University Library

Rachel Searcy
Accessioning Archivist, Archival Collections Management
New York University Libraries

Audra Eagle Yun
Head of Special Collections & Archives
University Archivist
University of California, Irvine Libraries