Notes from the Field, a publication of the TPS Collective, is accepting submissions about teaching and working with primary sources for three series of peer-reviewed blog posts: Epic Fails, Collaborative Wins, and an Open Call.
Grounded in issues your colleagues in the field are exploring, this call is intended to highlight a broad range of voices from all sectors of the TPS community. Please see the calls below for more information.
Epic Fails
Not every class session goes according to plan—and sometimes, what happens instead teaches us more than a perfectly executed lesson ever could. Notes from the Field invites submissions for our “Epic Fails: Learning From Experience” series that reflects on teaching with primary sources when an activity fell flat, a carefully designed plan went awry, or an unexpected turn led to a surprisingly successful outcome. We’re especially interested in candid reflections on what authors learned from these experiences and how they shaped their teaching going forward.
Collaborative Wins
Did you recently collaborate with an archivist, librarian, faculty member, student, or community member? Tell us about it! What did you create (e.g., a TPS lesson plan, exhibit, or community event), and what steps did you take to ensure a successful collaboration? We’d love to celebrate your win and to learn tips for successful collaborations with different kinds of people in different kinds of spaces.
Open Call
We are also accepting submissions on topics related to teaching and working with primary sources to be featured in peer-reviewed blog posts. While we ask that contributions fall into either our “Reflective Practice” or “Practical How-To” categories, this fall we are once again open to reviewing submissions from a range of contexts. Our hope is that this call for miscellaneous submissions will create opportunities for practitioners to submit work that may fall outside our recent thematic calls.
Contributions should be 1000-1100 words and are subject to Notes from the Field’s peer-review process.
Posts will be published on a rolling basis beginning in December 2026. Full submission information is available in the Notes from the Field author and peer review guidelines.
Any questions, expressions of interest, or submissions can be sent to the Notes from the Field general email at tpsnotesfromthefield@gmail.com.