Grant Recipients for Fiscal Year 2021
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Library Technology Academy Grants — FY 2021
Atlanta Public Library
$10,000.00
In partnership with the Cass County Genealogical Society and its members, the library proposes establishing a Memory Lab for personal digital archiving, which provides equipment for digitizing home movies and scanning photos and slides. Patrons will gain digital literacy skills on cyber-safety and security, as well as training on specific pieces of digitization equipment. The training and access to equipment provided will also support and promote small business and economic development opportunities in our rural community.
Balch Spring Public Library
$10,000.00
Using stakeholder data to inform our decision, we propose focused on three areas for updating technology for our community. First, to improve our printing service, we will purchase additional printer/copier/coin box and credit card machine in our computer lab to assist with patron self-service. Second, we will purchase WiFi hotspots for community members that do not have home access. Third, in order to appeal to our teen population, we will purchase gaming equipment, in addition to a lockable storage cabinet, mobile charging stations and furnishings with electrical outlets.
Bonham Public Library
$10,000.00
The Bonham Public Library proposes a multi-pronged approach to improve user access to library technology resources and put the library on a sustainable cycle of maintaining its technical resources. To do this, we propose upgrading staff computers to handle administrative tasks, purchase a self-service printing and scanning station; add self-checkout stations, develop a long-range plan for equipment replacement and upgrades, and finally providing technology training to all library staff so tech issues do not land on one person.
Charlotte Public Library
$9,998.00
The objective of this project is to upgrade the technology and provide new software programs for stakeholders, specifically senior citizens with opportunities to learn how to use technology to their advantage. Through workshops and classes, seniors will develop a personal email account (including an understanding of the importance of secure passwords and ways to remember them), learn how to access banking, utility, and pursuit of personal interests (Skype or Face Time), obtaining travel tickets as needed, or to take a class online.
Dickinson Public Library
$10,000.00
The Dickinson Public Library’s project idea centers around adult learning programming for the community we serve. The library would like to add English as a Second Language (ESL) Classes and additional computer classes that provide skills that will help workforce sustainability. To meet these needs, we will purchase an interactive Vibe board, stand, laptops, and computer software subscription to assist us in providing programming for our project. To provide tools for English as a second language classes we are also planning to purchase MANGO, a language program that teaches language skills using conversational methodology.
Dublin Public Library
$10,000.00
The Library proposes upgrading various technology services to meet their intention of creating a Healthy Space, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Purchases are tied back to three main points: Safety, Security, & Service. To address the library’s safety needs we will create spaces for people using computers and their own devices. To address our security concerns we will install security cameras around the outside of the building. For basic service needs we have created a user-friendly layout for the entire library and we will update our equipment, including internet cabling, desktops and laptops, and install computer management software.
Nancy Carol Roberts Memorial Library
$10,000.00
The Library proposes the “Welcome to Your Library Program”, which would foster a welcoming and comfortable environment for new and non-traditional library users, with a special focus on non-English speakers in our community. Through the use of portable translation tour guide system and laptops, library staff would conduct tours and digital literacy sessions in patron’s native languages to begin building trust and bridge the language divide.
Riter C Hulsey Public Library
$10,000.00
Our project, Mobile Tech Carts, seeks to change the lack of technology for teens. The Mobile Tech Cart will actually consist of two carts, which may be deployed simultaneously or one at a time. Each Mobile Tech Cart will be fully equipped with either a gaming system and VR technology. The carts will also be able to travel to our satellite facility, the Literacy Depot building.
The Library at Cedar Creek Lake
$10,000.00
The Library at Cedar Creek Lake plans to implement new technology as a key element of expanding the library’s small underserved teen area. The library intends to add a portable gaming station, an Oculus Rift S VR headset that will be paired with a new laptop for games and other virtual experiences as well as a media creation/editing station, complete with editing software and scanning and printing hardware.. A television mounted to the wall in the teen area would also serve as a digital display for promoting events when the gaming station was not in use. This intends to fill a gap in technology services currently offered, while also giving area teens a space they can call their own with technology that fits their interests and needs.
Texas Reads Grants — FY 2021
Alicia Salinas Public Library
$9,308.00
One focus of the Alicia Salinas Public Library (ASPL) is to provide programs and services to enhance literacy and to develop a joy of reading. The ASPL will provide a digital learning resource hub, with computers and software that will focus activities on improving these skills.
Allen Public Library
$10,000.00
Allen Public Library will expand services to include digital literacy by purchasing three AWE Early Literacy stations. This project will supplement our existing programs for children and will be of benefit to our patrons in several ways: provide computer access to children that too young to receive library cards needed to use our internet computers, encourage positive learning interactions between children and caregivers, and provide access to activities for library visitors when no programs are scheduled.
Bowie Public Library
$6,882.00
The purpose of the Book to Movie Book Club program is to encourage youth and adults in the community to come together in a unified project and foster a love of reading in the community’s youth. Program participants of all ages will read a book, watch a movie based on the book, and then discuss the two together in an open discussion.
Dallas Public Library
$9,500.00
Dallas is a rapidly aging city with dementia-related conditions on the rise. There has not been a correlated increase in affordable services for cognitively impaired older adults and their caretakers. Access to services is further complicated by the lack of reliable transportation for older adults. The Dallas Public Library will develop regular programming for individuals with dementia and their caretakers.
Honey Grove Library & Learning Center
$9,200.00
The “Families Read Together” program will target community members who are interested in developing literacy skills among their families. Designed to target families with limited English proficiency, it will address literacy by providing modeling and direct teaching of parent and child reading time and activities.
Laredo Public Library
$10,000.00
The Laredo Public Libraries (LPL) recently became a part of the Build a Better Book (BBB) Network, one of only 2 locations in Texas. This national network of libraries, schools, and makerspaces provides training in the fabrication of accessible materials including books, games, and graphics for people with physical and cognitive disabilities. Funding will support BBB workshops and equipment allowing participants to feel and experience reading through the lens of someone with a visual, physical or learning disability.
North Richland Hills Public Library
$7,950.00
The North Richland Hills Library requests funding support for the 2020 Mid-Cities Teen Book Fest (MCTBF). The MCTBF is an annual author festival highlighting middle grade and young adult authors for the teens of the North Texas area.
Speer Memorial Library
$4,425.00
Speer Memorial Library would like to provide free copies of book discussion titles to participants of our Morton's Book Club book discussion program so they can 1) own a book, 2) feel free to highlight and write notes on it, and 3) hopefully pass this book along to someone they think might benefit from the book and share the love of reading. Book discussions will be scheduled, on average, every six weeks, to allow ample reading time for participants. The program targets adults and senior citizens.
The Library at Cedar Creek Lake
$5,000.00
The library’s summer reading program has proven popular in past years, with the number of participants increasing each year. The library anticipates and encourages this trend of growth through expanded hours of programming geared towards benefiting the community and highlighting other educational programs already provided by the library. Grant funding will allow for an increase in summer programming.
TexTreasures Grants — FY 2021
Lamar University
$3,000.00
Lamar University’s Special Collections is seeking funding to digitize 750 photographic slides and negatives documenting the Big Thicket. 500 of the slides depict fungi from the Big Thicket National Preserve and environs and 250 are of Big Thicket scenes showing history, crusaders who fought to create the first national preserve in the United States, and activities of the Big Thicket Association.
Abilene Christian University
$25,000.00
The Christian Chronicle (Dallas, Tx.) has been published continuously since 1943, starting in Dallas, Texas, and is the best single source for news about Churches of Christ, and related news in Texas, the US and around the world. A completed Christian Chronicle digitization project will leverage the best options within the Portal to Texas History platform to present the Chronicle in a way that is both pleasing for the browsing user and highly accessible for the searching user.
Arlington Public Library System
$8,216.00
This project seeks to digitize and make available for online browsing the Arlington Journal newspaper covering years from 1897 to 1920 in partnership with the University of North Texas’ Texas Digital Newspaper Program & Portal to Texas History.
Austin History Center
$25,000.00
The Austin History Center Association (AHCA) is proposing a TexTreasures Original project to identify, digitize, and provide broad access to images from the Austin American-Statesman Photographic Morgue (AAS) that document communities of color in Austin and throughout Texas.
Cleburne Public Library
$24,820.00
The Cleburne Public Library is requesting funds to digitize the Cleburne Times Review (CTR), beginning with issues published in 1934 through the end of 1955. This is a multiphase project that will eventually result in the digitization and free accessibility of all issues of the City’s newspapers.
Cooke County Library
$25,000.00
The Cooke County Library is requesting funds to digitize the Gainesville Daily Register (GDR), beginning with issues published in 1915 through the end of 1923. This is a multiphase project that will result in the digitization and free accessibility of all issues of the GDR, the oldest surviving newspaper in Gainesville and Cooke County, providing an invaluable resource to those researching events and individuals in North Texas.
Denton Public Library
$24,820.00
The Denton Public Library is requesting funds to digitize the Denton Record-Chronicle (DRC), beginning with issues published in 1939 through the end of 1954. This request is a continuation of the Denton Record-Chronicle Digitization Project awarded during the 2020 round of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s TexTreasures grant program.
Houston Public Library
$35,000.00
The Houston Public Library (HPL) in partnership with The Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI), will continue to digitize and make widely accessible historically important and previously unavailable Texas films.
Rosenberg Library
$24,896.00
In 2019-2020, the Rosenberg Library received a TexTreasures award to digitize 23,000 pages of the Galveston Tribune newspaper. The Rosenberg Library requests funding to continue digitization of the Tribune. The Rosenberg Library owns a nearly complete run of the Tribune, spanning the years 1885 to 1965. This next round would cover another 23,000 pages from approximately 1904 to 1921.
Southern Methodist University
$25,000.00
The DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University (SMU), holds the John Miller Morris Collection of Texas Real Photographic Postcards and Photographs (“Morris Collection”). Grant funding will be utilized to digitize and make available on the Internet 1,683 RPPCs showing Texas locations, buildings, people, events, and industries.
Texas A&M University Corpus Christi
$19,754.00
Special Collections seeks funding to survey, process and create catalog records for the Charles F. H. von Blucher Family Papers. The collection represents the history and contributions of 3 generations of a German American family from 1840-1940.
Texas A&M University Kingsville
$25,000.00
South Texas Archives requests funding to continue creating catalog records for the George O. Coalson Annotated Bibliography of South Texas Historical Resources for researchers and classes at TAMUK.
University of North Texas
$24,914.00
UNT will continue digitization of the Byrd Williams Family Photography Collection. The images selected for inclusion in Phase II will include preservation scanning of fragile prints such as cyanotypes and Polaroid prints, which are both subject to extreme fading over time, as well as additional scanning of vintage prints and negatives of people and places across Texas.
University of Texas at Arlington
$24,909.00
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (FWST) Photograph Collection at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) Libraries Special Collections contains an estimated 4 million negatives documenting Fort Worth, North Texas, and much of West Texas from the mid-1920s to 1991. The University of Texas at Arlington is requesting a third year of funding for 15,000 more images taken between 1950 and 1959.
University of Texas at San Antonio
$24,146.00
The cultural heritage exhibits at the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) provide a window into the diverse lifeways, customs, music, dance, and foods of the groups that call Texas home. This pilot project will produce one online exhibit, providing a template for subsequent digitization of the ITC’s 20+ exhibits and a model for experiential learning and engagement.
Regional ILS Cooperative Grants — FY 2021
Abilene Library Consortium
$75,000.00
The Abilene Library Consortium (ALC), desires to increase multi-type and multi-size library collaboration across the region through an expansion of its current shared integrated library system (ILS). The project’s primary goal is to improve service, lower costs, and allow for the inclusion of libraries of all types across the region. A secondary goal is to share the developed service and support model with the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) for use in other Texas regions. Having received a TSLAC FY 2020 ILS Cooperative Grant for the planning stage of this project, the ALC requests funding for system migration and training costs for the 3-5 rural libraries joining with the ALC in 2021.
Special Projects Grants — FY 2021
Amarillo Public Library
$23,897.00
Grant funds will support the purchase of supplies and equipment for a Downtown Library Makerspace, as well as training for staff to effectively operate this new array of services. Having a Makerspace at the library will allow community members to use tools and technology not easily accessible elsewhere.
Euless Public Library
$20,500.00
The Euless Public Library seeks to expand services by creating a sensory inclusive space and offering sensory inclusive programming and materials to its patrons of all ages and abilities. With guidance from professionals in the HEB ISD Special Education Department and a designation of sensory inclusivity from a nationally known organization, Kulture City, we seek to attain designation as a sensory inclusive space in an effort to expand services and impact in the community, and further our goal of being a true library for all.
Arlington Public Library System
$28,750.00
Arlington Public Library’s project will include art classes in our makerspace for children and adults, artist exhibits, and a free non-juried exhibit. This project will strengthen the creative capacity of our community by allowing anyone to learn to express themselves through art, as well as contributing to the local artist community, giving them a place to display their work and to grow as professional artists.
Dallas Public Library
$75,000.00
The Creative Learning Spaces project at Dallas Public Library aims to engage teenagers with technology they won’t have access to in their homes and schools. The project specifically targets students ages 12-16 in two economically depressed neighborhoods in Dallas. Through hands-on STEM projects with real-world applications, the library will provide them with the opportunity to gain 21st century skills and perhaps discover a talent or interest that could lead to a future career.
Denton Public Library
$54,058.00
Denton Public Library is requesting funds to expand and update The Forge makerspace. In 2020, Denton Public Library will be relocating the makerspace to a larger room in the North Branch, effectively doubling the size. The move is an opportunity to expand makerspace offerings with community requested maker equipment and technology, updated furniture, and a staff workstation. The updated makerspace would be a welcoming intersection of technology, design, arts, craft, design, and hands-on-learning.
El Paso Public Library
$74,998.00
EPPL Work PLACE (Public Literacy Access for Careers & Entrepreneurship) is modeled after the efforts of urban libraries that have joined with community partners to enhance economic and educational opportunities for small businesses. Networking, funding, and mentorship opportunities for entrepreneurs are facilitated through networking partnerships established between the library and relevant community partners.
Grapevine Public Library
$75,000.00
The Grapevine Public Library will create an esports hub in order to provide increased access to high power equipment, high speed data communication, and a collaborative space for team building, learning, socializing, entertaining, practicing, and competing. The hub will ensure that the community has an entryway into the arena of esports and the benefits awarded to its participants. These are experiences currently inaccessible to the underprivileged, underskilled, and underrepresented due to high equipment costs, demanding technology access, brutal competition, and limited opportunities.
Irving Public Library
$75,000.00
In order to provide access to technology that promotes lifelong learning, Irving Public Library will transform its digital media labs into complete makerspaces at two library locations. Funding will allow for creation of a “maker movement” through the purchase of equipment, development of curriculum, training for library staff, public access to the spaces, and the start of basic programs and activities.
Judy B McDonald Public Library
$9,510.00
The Library Encounter Box is a take on the ever popular subscription box. In this case, a monthly package designed for book and library lovers. The box will provide a taste of library programs and staff insight. Every day we find opportunities to educate our patrons about what we can offer them. As a monthly box, we will have a new theme for each iteration, and there will be boxes for adults, middle and high school students, and elementary students, each with an approach tailored for the needs of the age group.
University of North Texas
$74,996.00
The collective historical memory contained in Digital Repositories, such as The Portal to Texas History, should be available to anyone seeking access. This includes audio/visual content (hereafter A/V). Currently, deaf and blind users lack fundamental access. This project seeks to expand access to this material by adding captions, transcriptions, and other accessible alternatives to the existing content.
University of Texas at San Antonio
$72,777.00
The UT-San Antonio Libraries proposes a project to develop an open access Digital Literacy Toolkit to give students and adult learners digital skills needed to succeed in college coursework, the workplace, and their personal lives.