The March 27th Virtual Portal to Texas History Partners Forum showcased the exciting work that UNT Libraries’ Digital Libraries Division and partners of The Portal to Texas History are accomplishing! This event gave Portal partners the opportunity to ask questions about how their Portal contributions impact researchers, and it was a chance for people to share their experiences in working with these Texas history resources and to learn helpful tips about navigating the Portal.
Presentations from the UNT Libraries included a welcome from Interim University Librarian and Vice Provost, Dr. Sian Brannon and a Portal to Texas History overview from Dr. Mark Phillips, the Associate University Librarian over the Digital Libraries Division. These presentations showcased how contributions from our partners have benefited UNT students, faculty, and the wider public through the wide variety of partner-contributed materials related to Texas history. Dr. Ana Krahmer presented about how partners can add their newspaper collections to the Texas Digital Newspaper Program, and Jake Mangum presented about the Rescuing Texas History program. Also from UNT, Christina Kellum and Tim Gieringer gave tours of the Digital Projects Lab and the Digital Newspaper Unit, respectively offering windows through the virtual realm into their daily routines.
A presentation from Dreanna Belden and Courtney Abubakar about Texas History for Teachers highlighted how partner contributions are being incorporated into lessons for the K-12 History classroom, developed by Courtney and other members of the UNT team. Offering a different perspective, Marcia McIntosh, librarian from the Digital Projects Lab, and two student workers from the division, presented about what their daily work with partner materials involves. Noah Garcia, from the Digital Projects Lab, gave an informative explanation of the scanners he works with to represent partner materials on the Portal, while Spencer Houghton from the Digital Newspaper Unit showed how his work contributes both to the National Digital Newspaper Program and to The Portal to Texas History.
To close the forum, Portal to Texas History partners presented about how access to their collections on the Portal have benefited their own patrons and researchers. These partners included:
- University of Texas at Arlington, Madeline Lowry
- The Dallas Way, Robert Emery
- Dallas Genealogical Society, Tony Hanson
- Travis County Archives, Christy Costlow
- Harrison County Historical Museum, Margaret Culbertson
- National Museum of the Pacific War, Nicole Bagly and Rachel Barnett
- Moore Memorial Public Library, Theresa Mayfield
- DallasNews Corporation, Kelley Smith
- LeTourneau University Margaret Estes Library, Shelby Ware and Gary Borders
- Rice University Fondren Library, Jerrell Jones
These presentations highlighted the value of the Portal and the support it receives from the Cathy Nelson Hartman Portal to Texas History Endowment. All UNT Libraries staff who heard these presentations were deeply impressed by the partner work with the collections, and they all agreed that they could have listened to Portal partners talk all day. We are very grateful for the dedication and hard work that Portal to Texas History partners put into building access to their Texas history collections. Keep an eye out for future Portal to Texas History events that showcase partner collections!
