Contributor Guidelines

This is a draft set of guidelines for contributors.

General Guidelines

• Emphasize quality over quantity. We should have enough contributors not to have to worry about the quantity of posts.
• What is history? Anything in the past (the usual "history," also daily life, society, visual and performing arts, culture, etc), even the recent past for very important events (9/11, Katrina).
• Keep in mind the broad audience for the blog.

Types of Sources to Cover

1. New exhibits, particularly major exhibits and/or if there are online samples from the exhibit.

2. Digital collections - As a general rule, please focus on new digital collections of primary sources. However, posts could also cover particularly good examples of hidden resources in older digital collections.

3. A single document/object or a small group that is featured on a blog/video/newsletter (or that you want to feature):

• NewberryMinute and other snapshots of collections/items on YouTube
• Mass. Historical Society's Object of the Month
• Examples from a contributor's institution

4. Announcements of newly acquired and/or processed manuscript collections

5. "In the News"

A specific photo /document or collection that is featured in the news (NYT, NPR, etc).

Example of NYT Streetscapes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/realestate/09streets.html?8dpc

6. Newsletters

Example: announce new issues from major repositories (Schlesinger, Duke, Smith,...)

Example 2: specific articles from newsletters

7. "On this day" highlights primary sources that are related to a specific date (month/day).

LC, the National Archives, and the NYT also use this sort of feature.

8. New books (last 2 years) that include letters, diaries, oral histories, etc.

9. Highlight new technologies that may offer new opportunities for researchers/teachers

(e.g., PhilaPlace).

Use of Images/Copyright

Hopefully many of the entries will include images, which should make the blog more attractive and engaging. You will need to ask permission from an archive/library/etc. if the image is still in copyright.

Images by government agencies and book jackets are ok to use without permission. A good quick reference source from Cornell is  Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States.

Labels

Blogger offers the option of using labels (tags) to describe the content of the posts. Although we don't need to worry about assigning subject headings, using labels to describe the type of resource(s) featured in a blog post is helpful.