Timeline Update: September 2024 We're very close to publication. In October we'll contact authors for final review and signed author agreements. Our goal is an early December 2024 publication. Stay tuned!
Chapter Proposals
We anticipate a future call for proposals in 2025. We are currently working with our first cohort of submissions. Future calls will be for chapter proposals for a peer-reviewed open-access textbook. The text will have two sections. The first will be educational content, such as general reference overview or lesson plans, about primary and archival sources and their formats. The second section will be instructional content for educators to implement in classes or outreach experiences.
The primary audiences for this text are university level students and continuing learners handling archival and primary source materials. Aspiring and experienced primary source professionals are the audience for the instructional and pedagogical chapters. A secondary audience are professionals and practitioners who can expand or refresh their knowledge by referring to specific topics of interest as needed.
Submissions that explore working with materials related to marginalized groups or content that addresses accessibility accommodations are especially sought. Preferential selection will be given to proposals that take advantage of the online format and incorporate sample resources from the public domain that will illustrate the chapter’s content. In this way students and educators at institutions without local access to a particular format or type of source may still engage with it.
Below is a non-comprehensive list of the types of chapters that we are interested in. We seek proposals that focus on specific types of materials, cultural perspectives, languages, formats (physical/digital/hybrid) and other nuances.
Section 1: Reading, handling, and contextualizing primary source materials.
We seek two types of chapters in this section:
- General reference overview that outlines key concepts that would help a learner engage with the format. Consider this the – “my students are working with newspapers today, what foundational information should they know about newspapers before we start handling and reading them?” section. Anticipated length: 500-3000 words.
- Lesson plans focused on a specific source, or sources. Our goal is to either embed digital representation of sources discussed in the textbook or link out to them. The source should be publicly accessible. These lessons should include an introduction that contextualizes the source and includes citations. Anticipated length: 1000-3000 words.
Types of formats we would like to explore include, but are not limited to:
- Documents
- Languages
- Photographs
- Film/video
- Music
- Oral histories
- Material culture
- Textiles
Section 2: How to Teach
These chapters are written for the educator and intended to help identify pedagogical and practical approaches to teaching with primary sources. Anticipated length: 750-2000 words.
Types of content include, but is not limited to:
- Virtual Instruction
- Teaching instruction sessions online
- Plugins or software
- Tools and equipment
- Asynchronous
- In Person
- Hands-on
- Group projects
- Small classes
- Large classes
- It’s a tour, but interactive!
- You have 30 minutes notice
- Digital
- Teaching with digital objects
- Teaching people how to digitize
- Teaching how to preserve born digital sources
The textbook will be published via New Prairie Press, a unit of Kansas State University Libraries, on the Pressbooks platform.
Those submitting chapter proposals are encouraged to participate in the peer-review process at review one other submission. While this is not required, we believe this will facilitate an efficient and timely review process.