Portal to Texas History Grant Materials Page: 2 of 5

                                
the digitized copies were placed online.
The third group affected by this project consists of museums and libraries. In
preparation for this proposal, UNT representatives spent five days traveling for site visits to
libraries and museums, including small institutions in rural areas. Archivists and librarians
repeatedly expressed their interest in digitizing materials in their collections. However, in many
cases, they noted their lack of knowledge about technology and about the digitization process
as the reason they have not begun projects. Many of these groups wrote letters of support for
the Portal project (see Attachment B).
The Portal project will rectify the above described situations by providing services to
libraries and museums to meet their expressed need for technology and knowledge to begin
digital projects. As a result, Texas students, teachers, historians, and other researchers will
gain ready access through the Portal to an array of digital copies of major artifacts, manuscripts,
photographs, maps, letters, and other primary source materials about Texas history. TIF grants
and other funding sources wired Texas schools and libraries and gave them computers and
Internet access. The Portal will build on this existing infrastructure to connect students and
researchers to a wealth of materials about Texas history.
Project Objectives
To fulfull our goal to create a Portal to Texas History, five objectives to be achieved are:
" Build a technical structure for the Portal services.
" Create standards and best practices guidelines required for the Portal project and
services, and design a training module to educate library and museum staff who lack
knowledge of the digitization processes outlined in the standards and guidelines.
" Develop a Portal Web site to guide researchers in the use of the resources.
" Supplement already available Texas electronic historical materials by digitizing two