Five ways to contribute
Feedback, corrections, reviews, discussions, citizen-historian uploads.
There are five ways to contribute to the Library. Each one fits a different kind of contribution. This page walks through all five, in the order most patrons meet them.
You need a Library Card to use any of these channels. The Card is free; see Reading and the Library Card if you do not have one yet.
1. Feedback
Feedback is the general-purpose channel. Use it when you have a thought, a question, or a note that does not fit anywhere else. Examples: “The chart on this page is hard to read on my phone.” “I’d love to see Wyoming covered next.” “The third paragraph here repeats the second.”
How to submit. At the bottom of every page, click Submit feedback on this page. The form has two fields: a subject (optional) and a body. Type what you want to say and click Submit.
What happens next. You get a ticket number like FB-2026-00042, viewable on your My Library page under My tickets. A librarian reads it. They may respond directly — you will see the response on your ticket and in your Inbox — or they may close the ticket as noted. Not every piece of feedback needs a reply.
2. Corrections
Corrections are the structured-correction channel. Use this one when you have spotted a specific error or improvement — a wrong date, a missing source, an outdated number, a misspelled name. Corrections are where the Library most needs careful readers.
How to submit. At the bottom of every chapter and state page, click Submit a correction to this page. A form opens with four fields.
- The claim that’s wrong — paste the exact sentence or number from the page, so the librarian can find it.
- Your proposed fix — what the page should say instead.
- A source backing your fix — a citation, a URL, a book and page number, a document.
- The reasoning — why your source supports your fix.
Click Submit. You get a ticket number like CR-2026-00017.
What happens next. A librarian reads the correction. If they accept it, your fix lands in the next update of the page, and you are notified. If they decline it, they reply with the reason — sometimes the source does not say quite what the proposed fix says, sometimes the original page is actually right and the wording needs to be sharper. Either way, you get a response.
3. Book reviews
Reviews are the place to react to one of the Library’s books — Schools of the Republic, The Eighth Anchor, Who Steals from Children, Volume I.
How to submit. Visit the reviews page for the book — for example, /reading/schools-of-the-republic/reviews/. Choose a rating from one to five stars, write your review, and click Save.
What happens next. A librarian reads the review and publishes it when ready. Until publication, you can keep revising. Once published, the review appears on the book’s reviews page with your display name and patron number, and you can no longer edit it directly; for changes after that, submit feedback on the reviews page.
4. Discussions
Discussions are the threaded-conversation channel. Use this when you want to ask a question or open a topic for other patrons — about methodology, a state’s record, an argument in one of the books, a piece of news in the Newsroom.
How to submit. Visit /discussions/. To start a new thread, click Start a thread, give it a title, and write the opening post. To reply, open a thread and use the reply box at the bottom.
What happens next. Each thread gets a ticket number like DI-2026-00031, viewable on your My Library page. Threads are public — anyone can read them. Only Card holders can post or reply. Discussion moderators have tools to hide posts or lock threads when needed; see Discussion moderators.
5. Citizen-historian uploads
The citizen-historian channel is for primary-source material — a piece of historical evidence that the Library might add to the source library. Examples: a great-grandfather’s letter, a period photograph, a local newspaper clipping, a Section 16 marker photo from a state where the original township grid is still visible, an oral history transcript, a deed, a board minute.
How to submit. Use the correction channel. Go to a page that the material relates to — a state page, a chapter, or just /about/ if it does not match a specific page. Click Submit a correction to this page. In the body, write a brief description of what you are submitting and where it came from. In the upload control, attach the file or files.
What happens next. The head librarian reads the submission, evaluates the material, and either accepts it into the source library (and grants you the citizen historian badge on your Card), declines with a reason, or asks for more information about the source. See Citizen historians for more on what the head librarian is looking for.
File attachments
The feedback, correction, and review channels all let you attach files. The limits are the same in every channel.
- Up to ten megabytes per file.
- Allowed types: images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WEBP), PDFs, and plain text.
- Files are stored privately. You can see your own uploads. Librarians can see uploads on tickets they are working on. Nobody else can.
If you need to upload something larger than ten megabytes, send feedback first and a librarian will work out how to receive it.
If you submit something and never hear back
The librarian queue can be longer than usual at times — especially when a book release or a court ruling drives a wave of feedback. You can check the status of any ticket on your My Library page, under My tickets. If a ticket has been open for more than a month with no movement, send feedback and a librarian will look into it.
More on tiers and advancement: /pro/roles/ — the institutional ladder, with the full list of recognition and stewardship paths.
