SUBMITTING PROPOSALS
Proposals should consist of the following items:
1. A brief description, of no more than 1,000 words, of the document(s), its significance, the state of the text, and how it is to be presented;
2. No more than two brief samples of the manuscript or earliest extant version;
3. Annotated transcriptions of the MS samples;
4. Where applicable, annotated edited versions of the sample texts.
5. Statement of Editorial Method, including:
Whether it is to be an all-inclusive or selective publication, providing a statement on selection standards if needed;
Indicating previous publication, in whole or in part;
Commenting on how the printed records will be organized;
Describing transcription methods and textual policy (i.e., how the editor will treat spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc);
Providing a list of any supplementary material that may be included.
Submit proposals via email to [email protected] or via regular mail to Sally E. Hadden, Editor of Publications, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 87 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, MA 02108.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED VS. UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS
Generally, CSM gives priority to previously unpublished documents, but will also consider texts and other scholarly resources already printed in whole or in part, if the prior publication is:
1. In the public domain;
2. In a hard-to-find source;
3. Materially defective in terms of the accuracy of the transcription;
4. Materially incomplete;
5. Without any, or adequate, annotation;
6. Needed to make a larger proposed publication complete.
PRINT VS. DIGITAL PUBLICATION
The CSM will publish in book form primary sources and documents that its Publications Committee judges to qualify as "reading texts," or texts that have great scholarly and/or broader cultural importance, as well as literary texts that may have some appeal for a wide audience of readers. The CSM reserves the right to publish all future printed publications additionally in digital form, thereby ensuring that such publications are preserved for the indefinite future on physical servers or other storage media.
The CSM will publish in digital form primary sources and documents that its Publications Committee judges to be of prohibitive length to issue in book form, that serve a specialized readership, and that are predominantly of value as searchable documents. However, CSM, in negotiation with editors and contributors, may make available a print-on-demand option for born-digital publications by securing a press to perform delivery. The CSM, in negotiation with editors and contributors, may also opt to publish born-digital documents, especially lengthy ones, in installments, so as to make the sources available more quickly or to provide the possibility of community sourcing.
In certain cases, a literal transcript of a text may be made available online, while the edited version is published in book form.