Publishing

For decades, The State Archives Head Office has published research and popularization works on history and archival science. These primarily include source materials, monographs and analyses, with a particular focus on finding aids, guidebooks and exhibition catalogs, created not only by state archive staff, but also by researchers and specialists operating outside our structure.

The publishing efforts of The State Archives Head Office broadly contribute to popularizing and raising interest in the holdings and activities of the State Archives network. These efforts are governed by the Act of 14 July 1983 on the national archival holdings and archives, which stipulates that the responsibilities of the General Director of the State Archives are, among other things, to ‘popularize knowledge about archival materials and archives, and to engage in information and publishing efforts’, in addition to ‘overseeing the research and publishing efforts of the state archives’.

We work with many research and academic centers, including the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw University, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, cultural institutions operating in Poland and abroad, as well as public service organizations.

The State Archives Head Office also publishes Archeion, Poland’s oldest scholarly journal of archival science, which is listed in the registry of periodicals of the Minister of Science and Higher Education (70 points). In addition, The State Archives Head Office also supports some twenty research and popularization publications issued in various parts of Poland by various state archives.

Our publications can be purchased in a traditional book format, as well as being available online as a free download in the form of PDF, ePub and Mobi files.

Every publication request we receive is assessed and peer-reviewed (for more information, see the ‘Publishing Procedure for Research Paper Assessment and Review’ section below), and their preparation for printing follows the principles of publishing ethics in an effort to combat predatory publishing practices (for more information, see the ‘Principles of Publishing Ethics’ section below).

Katarzyna Górska
Senior Specialist
The Department of Archival Science
e-mail: kgorska@archiwa.gov.pl
tel. (22) 56 54 629

The State Archives Head Office
ul. Rakowiecka 2 D, 02-517 Warszawa
www.archiwa.gov.pl

  1. A publication is submitted to The State Archives Head Office.
  2. The publication is reviewed internally by The State Archives Head Office, with a focus on its content and formal and editorial aspects.
  3. Publication costs are assessed.
  4. The publication is included in annual publishing schedule.
  5. The publishing schedule is approved by the General Director of the State Archives.
  6. The publication is peer-reviewed (for more information, see the ‘Publishing Procedure for Research Paper Assessment and Review’ section).
  7. Conclusion of publishing agreements.
  8. Author’s corrections post-review.
  9. Editing and proofreading.
  10. Graphic design, typesetting and text makeup.
  11. Publication printing and binding.
  12. Information, popularization and promotion efforts.
  13. Paid and free distribution of the publication.

§ 1.1. In relation to its publishing efforts, the Head Office of the State Archives employs a submission review procedure whose purpose is to maintain the highest possible quality of the research it publishes.

2. Research papers submitted to The State Archives Head Office for publishing are assessed internally and subject to an external peer review.

§ 2.1. The internal assessment of submissions is conducted by The State Archives Head Office staff, and focuses on the content of the papers and their formal and editorial aspects.

2. If a paper has been approved internally, the head of The State Archives Head Office department responsible for publishing approves its inclusion in The State Archives Head Office publishing schedule for a given year.

3. The preliminary publishing schedule referred to in section 2 is presented to the General Director of the State Archives, who conducts a final verification of the submissions and approves the publishing schedule.

4. The inclusion of a paper in an approved publishing schedule constitutes a decision to publish that paper.

§ 3.1. Submissions included in an The State Archives Head Office publishing schedule are reviewed by one or more independent reviewers who are researchers working at institutions which do not employ the author of the publication being reviewed.

2. The reviewer(s) are selected by The State Archives Head Office.

3. The external peer review is conducted using the open review model, which means that the identity of the reviewers and authors is publicly known.

4. In special cases, The State Archives Head Office may opt for a review model in which the identity of the reviewers is not known to the authors, and the identity of the authors is not known to the reviewers (double-blind review).

5. The outcome of an external peer review may involve:

1) accepting the publication with no corrections;
2) accepting the publication after any corrections suggested by the reviewers have been applied;
3) rejecting the publication.

6. The primary peer review criteria are:

1) substantive correctness;
2) innovativeness;
3) originality of the contributions to the current state of knowledge;
4) methodological correctness.

7. Upon a positive external peer review outcome, a publishing agreement is concluded with the author.

8. If even a single external peer review is negative, the submission is rejected and removed from the The State Archives Head Office publishing schedule.
§ 4. The State Archives Head Office informs the author by electronic means about the outcome of the review, any recommended corrections to the paper and further steps related to its publishing.
§ 5. When reviewing research papers, The State Archives Head Office follows the ‘Best Practices in Scientific Review Procedures’ document published by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

§ 1. The publishing efforts of the Head Office of the State Archives comply with the principles of publication ethics, whose purpose is to combat dishonest publishing practices. In particular, they are compliant with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

§ 2. In order to meet the publication ethics standards, members of The State Archives Head Office staff involved in publishing are required to:

1) meet the ethical norms specified in Prime Minister regulation no. 70 of October 6, 2011 on the guidelines related to observing the rules of public service and the ethical principles of public service staff (Official Gazette of the Republic of Poland item 953);
2) observe the principles of scholarly integrity;
3) meet editorial standards;
4) combat the following practices:
a) publishing commissioned works under the name of their alleged authors (ghostwriting),
b) ascribing authorship to individuals whose contribution to the work is negligible or non-existent (guest authorship);
5) meet standards whose purpose is to prevent plagiarism and publishing scientifically fraudulent works;
6) respect copyrights;
7) demand information about how a publication was funded.

§ 3. Within the context of The State Archives Head Office publishing efforts:

1) authors are required to submit a declaration confirming that the work submitted is original and created independently, does not infringe upon any third-party rights and has not yet been published (in its entirety or in fragments) as part of other works;
2) for collective works, authors submitting their publications are required to provide information about the authorship of the individual fragments of their works;
3) works submitted for publication are published based on copyright publishing agreements.
Legal basis: Art. 21(1)(9) of the Act on the National Archival Resource and State Archives of July 14, 1983 (Journal of Laws of 2019 item 553).