Hi, incoming HLIG convener here, looking to assess interest in a future panel, presentation, or discussion about Substack newsletters and videos as
- a platform for popular history writing (see: Best History Substack Newsletters )
- a platform used by some high-profile former journalists and scientists, the most famous historian being Heather Cox Richardson - but also extremists and conspiracy theorists
- a platform that's starting to get cited in scholarly publications (in the Scopus database, a search for substack in the References field finds 624 items from 2020 to present, half of which were published in 2025-6). )
- a platform that could be worth developing online archival collections from, as part of a "gray literature" ecosystem to which zines and perhaps blogs also belong
- a platform small/new/slow/finite enough that curated approaches to collection development may be possible
If any of this is at all intriguing to you, please comment. Do you subscribe to any Substacks for work or fun? How do you think about Substacks - what other platforms, genres, or formats are they like, and unlike? Should history librarians "collect" them and if so, what does that look like to you?
-Rachel Brekhus, U of Missouri
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Rachel Brekhus
Research and Instruction Librarian, University of Missouri
She/Her/Hers
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