The Portal at TCSS and TX GLO

Posted by & filed under General.

In the last week and a half, The Portal to Texas History was honored to sponsor and have an exhibitor’s booth at the Texas Council for the Social Studies’ Annual Conference and the Texas General Land Office’s Save Texas History Symposium.
Jake Mangum was happy to a represent the Portal at the Texas Council for the Social Studies’ Annual Conference which took place from October 30th through November 2nd, in Frisco, Texas. The conference brought together K-12 social studies teachers from across the state. Jake was able to share information on the Portal’s Texas History for Teachers resources as well as possible ways in which teachers that don’t teach Texas history can use The Portal to Texas History’s 2.3 million+ items.

Visitors happy about the Portal swag.
Teachers, Caitlin Baumgarten, Keke Powell, and Nichole Ritchie, enjoying Portal swag.

Jake was also excited to attend the Texas General Land Office’s Save Texas History Symposium in Austin, between November 7th and 8th. The symposium hosted 17 speaker who spoke on the theme Texas Takes Shape: Cartography and History in the Lone Star State.

Exhibitor booth at TXGLO
Jake Mangum speaking to a symposium attendee as she catches the photographer taking a picture.

Three Texas Libraries Receive Newspaper Digitization Grants from the Ladd & Katherine Hancher Foundation

Posted by & filed under General, Grants, Hancher Library Foundation Grants.

The Ladd & Katherine Hancher Library Foundation has awarded three Texas public libraries with grant awards totaling $76,340.00 to digitize their community newspapers.

The award recipients are:

  • The La Porte Public Library to digitize the La Porte Chronicle
  • The Pilot Point Public Library to digitize the Pilot Point Post-Signal
  • The Crowley Public Library, to digitize the Crowley Star

The Digital Newspaper Unit sends its congratulations to these three libraries, along with a special thanks to the publishers of these newspapers for supporting newspaper preservation in Texas.  The Texas Digital Newspaper Program is the largest, continually growing, single-state, open access digital repository of newspapers in the U.S., and the hard work of Texas community libraries and publishers is what makes building access to this rich collection possible.  

Helen McDonald Memorial Nimitz Conference Recap

Posted by & filed under Events, General.

Written by Isabella Baxter, student assistant in UNT Libraries’ Digital Projects Lab

The National Museum of the Pacific War’s annual conference, hosted by the Admiral Nimitz Foundation, was held at the Historic Nimitz Ballroom in Fredericksburg, TX, on October 17th-18th, 2025. This year’s theme was “Pop Culture, Propaganda, and Politics: Reflections on the Pacific War 80 Years Later.” Key speakers included Rob Buscher, Janet M. Davis, Richard B. Frank, Dr. Ambyre Ponivas, Steven Rawle, and Henry Sledge, each of whom contributed their knowledge in individual and group panels.

Nimitz Conference Poster

Isabella Baxter attended on behalf of UNT Libraries Digital Projects Unit, presenting a research poster titled “A Comparison of Slang Diction in Young Adult Correspondence.” The topic pulls from the Antone Bruns letter collection, which Baxter worked on as a metadata employee. The collection features approximately 700 letters between Antone Bruns and his girlfriend—later wife—Otha Lee Bruns, and is an excellent example of young adult diction at the time. Slang and popular diction aligned well with the conference’s theme, which included propaganda comics and other methods of wartime communication.

During the conference, Baxter spoke with many of the museum’s patrons and each of the panelists, sharing information about metadata writing, the Portal to Texas History, and the Bruns collection.

The Admiral Nimitz Foundation has partnered with the Portal to Texas History to digitize items from their vast archive for the museum’s collection on the Portal.

 

 

 

 

23rd Annual Family History Conference

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The Portal to Texas History had the pleasure of being a sponsor of the 23rd Annual Family History Conference in Tyler, Texas, on October 11, 2025. Jake Mangum attended the conference as a representative of the Portal. This year’s theme, “Your Past Unlocked: Emerging Technology in Genealogy,” seamlessly aligned with the Portal’s mission to offer free, worldwide access to historical resources.

During the conference, Mangum connected with over 100 attendees and vendors. He also took the stage to present, sharing insights about the Portal’s background, showcasing some favorite resources, and demonstrating effective research strategies.

UNT @ the 2025 National Digital Newspaper Program Awardee Meeting

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On September 29 and 30, 2025, Tim Gieringer and Ana Krahmer represented UNT at the National Digital Newspaper Program’s Annual Awardee Meeting.  This meeting, hosted by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, marked the 20th anniversary of the National Digital Newspaper Program, while UNT marked its eight award round.

In addition to presentations from representatives with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, state-awardees also presented about the impact of NDNP on their local newspaper preservation efforts.  Krahmer and Gieringer presented about the partnership for newspaper digitization between UNT and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, which will result in 100,000 pages of newspapers being digitized annually from the TSLAC physical and microfilmed newspaper collection. With 49 newspaper titles represented in this collection thus far, spanning from 1853-2006, the state library newspapers offer research opportunities of all kinds. 

Ana Krahmer was also invited to discuss how the Digital Newspaper Unit conducts research into the public domain status of newspaper titles that they submit for inclusion in the NDNP Chronicling America repository.  This presentation explained how the Newspaper Unit bases its local process on the national process taught by NDNP staff.  In November, Ana Krahmer and Mark Phillips will offer a copyright and licensing workshop to Portal to Texas History partners interested in understanding more about the topic of permissions.

In all, the 2025 conference was a wonderful way for Krahmer and Gieringer to connect with other newspaper digitization specialists from around the country, and they were honored to participate in this meeting.

Chronicling America is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress to build a nationwide, open-access repository of digitally accessible historic newspapers.