Recipients

Alvarado Public Library
$8,616
Alvarado Public Library intends to promote literacy, learning, outdoor family engagement, and physical activity by installing a StoryWalk® project. The StoryWalk® places a deconstructed children’s picture book along a walking path at a City Park. Stories in motion will provide a unique opportunity to join both fitness and reading together while bringing awareness to the importance of literacy for audiences of all ages.

Arlington Public Library System
$10,000
Authors in Arlington is a new program for Arlington Public Library that will provide the local community with the opportunity to meet and engage with influential and popular children’s authors. This program will be a series of author visits which will include book talks, Q&A sessions, book signings, and meet and greets. Author visits are consistently requested by the local community but few of these opportunities exist due to their expense. The library plans to provide this opportunity to the public for free, opening the world of literature to those who might not otherwise get such a chance. Grant funding would be used specifically for speaker fees. The Arlington Public Library will use alternate funding to cover any additional costs.

Balch Springs Library - Learning Center
$9,989
The Luedeke Park Story Walk Program offers an innovative approach to community engagement and literacy promotion by combining the joys of reading with the beauty of nature. Situated in the heart of the community, Luedeke Park serves as an ideal setting for families, individuals, and groups to immerse themselves in the magic of storytelling while enjoying the outdoors.

Burnet County Library System
$5,144
Bertram is a rural community in Central Texas where 62.75% of the population is economically disadvantaged.  Access to valuable programs is extremely limited because of location and budgets.  The proposed authors visit will help encourage literacy; improve the community’s reading culture; and will encourage writing, creativity and expression.

El Paso Public Library
$10,000
The El Paso Public Libraries will increase engagement in the annual summer reading program by providing books to participants and welcoming a very special guest illustrator in celebration of art and literacy. Goals include encouraging students to read for pleasure and increase comprehension skills, as well as becoming lifelong readers and library users. The proposed grant program aligns with objectives to enhance existing programming while adding additional programming that will help reach members of the community that may not be currently engaged with the library.

Harris County Public Library
$10,000
The ESL program is designed to support non-native English speakers in acquiring essential language skills for successful integration into the community. Expanding access to ESL programs In Harris County, Texas, is crucial to meet the needs of its diverse immigrant population and will enable the library to take a strategic approach centered on equity and ease of access.

Hewitt Public Library
$10,000
The Hewitt Public Library (HPL) invites its community to “Color Our World” alongside middle-grade graphic novelist Jason Platt and comfort fiction novelist Katherine Center during its 2025 Summer Reading Program. HPL will host Platt for a two-day event of presentations on storytelling and illustration. Center will visit for presentations on her creative process and the link between her writing, humor, and craftiness when creating her heartfelt reads.

Honey Grove Library & Learning Center
$7,645
Let’s Get Visual! is the eagerly anticipated 2025 Literacy Project for the Honey Grove Library & Learning Center. This project is designed to promote reading and visual literacy within the Honey Grove community by offering fun, engaging programs and materials focused on graphic literature.

Houston Public Library
$10,000
The Houston Public Library will expand the annual John P. McGovern Foundation Summer Reading Program in FY 2025 by adding one contract hire to assist with the planning, implementation, and reporting of Summer Reading Program activities, thereby strengthening HPL staff capacity. HPL will also increase participation by inviting speakers to present onsite as part of corresponding Summer Reading Program themes and activities. The library will also increase participation by inviting speakers to present onsite as part of corresponding Summer Reading Program themes and activites.

Judy B McDonald Public Library
$9,543
The Little Read Nacogdoches is a literacy initiative focused on promoting reading and improving literacy among children. Aimed at addressing literacy gaps and supporting early development, the program encourages reading as a key to educational opportunities and personal growth. The Little Read collaborates with schools and community organizations to host various literacy events, workshops, and activities. The major effort is distributing free books to children, especially those with limited access to reading materials. The program also emphasizes the importance of parental involvement, providing resources and guidance to create literacy-rich environments at home. Through these efforts, The Little Read Nacogdoches will significantly impact children's lives, fostering a generation of readers and learners and enhancing the community's literacy culture.

Little Elm Public Library
$5,414
Little Elm Public Library requests funds for a StoryWalk® at Beard Park, which has 32,300 annual visitors. Program goals are to promote literacy and language development in young children, encourage physical activity and healthy habits, foster family bonding, and connect children with nature and the outdoors in a new and different way. StoryWalk® is an innovative literacy program that combines the joy of reading with the benefits of outdoor activity.

Nueces County Public Libraries
$9,869
Nueces County’s 2025 Color Our World: Summer of Learning Program will provide several programs that incorporate art and literacy with instruction that could help our community with the development of motor skills, language & literary skills, social skills and enthusiasm for reading. These programs will include story writing, calligraphy, painting, drawing and printmaking. Books about the different art techniques and history will also be used to encourage continued learning at the library or at home. This grant funding will draw in more of our local community to our summer reading program with new and fun programs.

Rowlett Public Library
$10,000
Rowlett Summer Reading Program 2025 will provide educational performances to participants focusing on four different areas of literacy – cultural, ecological, digital, and visual. Providing these programs will create a love for visiting the library and--in turn--a love for reading. By offering enticing programs, the library hopes to encourage greater participation in the library’s reading challenge and result in more hours being read by more participants.

The Library at Cedar Creek Lake
$5,000
The library provides summer programming for area youth and adult populations in an effort to promote reading and educational programs hosted at the library. A major purpose of the library is to provide educational encouragement to a community characterized by low educational achievement and income. Utilizing volunteers, staff, educational programs, and reading logs, the library will offer programming five days a week during June and July. This programming emphasizes reading, learning, hands-on group activities, as well as educational fun.

Tyler Public Library
$9,447
Tyler Public Library is requesting funds to expand outreach programs to high-needs area in the community and establish educational and engaging family literacy programs. This project aims to foster literacy and a love of reading within the family unit and provide further educational opportunities for school readiness for children. Outreach programs will take place at four apartment communities. Library Youth Department staff and interns will lead an 8-week series of evening visits in fall 2024 and spring 2025. Eight families at each apartment community (a project total of 64 families) with children from birth to high school may register to participate in activities focused on family reading and writing. In addition to family literacy nights, a Little Free Library will be established at each apartment community.

Beaumont Public Library System 
$24,195.00
The Beaumont Public Library System and Tyrell Historical Library will digitize and then provide descriptive historical background information in metadata format on 618 u-matic video cassette tapes of news clips from the KFDM-TV (Channel 6) Collection between 1977-1988. The news clips contain a vast array of historical information related to items of public interest on a local, state, and national level. 

Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library 
$9,999.00
The Brayn Wildenthal Memorial Library of Sull Ross State University will fully digitize the Harry Warren Collection (1835-1932) to optimum preservation and accessiblity standards. The digital output will be freely available online through the Archive's public digital collections and patron reproduction requests. 

Dallas Pubilc Library 
$35,674.00
The Dallas Public Library will digitize the Juanita Craft Collections, established in 1973, including making 801 images accessible online. Juanita Craft was an American civil rights activist - the first Black woman in Dallas County to vote in the Democratic primary and deputized in the state to collect the pool tax. The digitized collection will help meet the demands for access and use resulting from the opening of the redesigned Juanita J.Craft Civil Rights House Museum in May 2023. 

El Paso Public Library
$35,200.00
The El Paso Public Library's Border Heritage Center (BHC) will hire staff to help digitize a portion of the Trost-Ponsford architectural drawing collection and make it accessible online. The collection provides a view into early 20th century El Paso architecture and that of the surrounding Southwest region, including 905 architectural drawings and plans of buildings in El Paso designed by the Trost & Trost architectural firm. 

Fort Worth Public Library
$39,189.00
The Fort Worth Public Library (FWPL) in this third-year project partnering with the University of North Texas Digital Libraries will continue digitization of the Fort Worth Press newspaper issues from 1940 onward, archival preservation of the electronic files created, and publication of the content on the Portal to Texas History website. FWPL hopes to add 37,950 more page-images to the digitized collection.

Houston Public Library 
$40,000.00
The Houston Public Library ‘s African American History Research Center will continue the digitization and preservation of additional bound and unbound volumes (approximately 15,000 pages) of the Houston Forward Times newspaper covering years 1960-1980. Once digitized, HPL will ensure accessibility for all researchers by making the collection available at no cost via the Houston Public Library Digital Archives and the Digital Public Library of America.

Moore Memorial Public Library
$49,538.00
The Moore Memorial Public Library will digitize the Texas City Sun newspaper from January 1934-December 1959. These newspaper pages will be added to the current selection of Texas City newspapers found in the Galveston County Newspaper Collection that are already accessible on the University of North Texas’s Portal to Texas History.

Plano Public Library System
$40,000.00
The Plano Public Library System (PPL) plans to digitize approximately 38,738 pages of The Plano Star-Courier for inclusion on The Portal to Texas History. PPL plans to submit issues covering 1904-1981, including issues missing from the current Portal to Texas History collection in addition to a significant set of issues not currently available online.

Prairie View A&M University 
$49,748.00
Prairie View A&M University proposes to build upon a previous TexTreasures grant. The Digital PV Panther Project (DPPP) will collaborate with the John B. Coleman Library and Waller County Historical Commission to finish processing, digitizing, and creating finding aids for the Cooperative Extension & Home Demonstration Collection. The finding aids will be submitted to TARO (Texas Archival Resources Online) and published on the school’s websites.

Southern Methodist University 
$40,000.00
SMU and the DeGolyer Library holds 236 Texas cookbooks in the public domain, 1888-1969. The DeGolyer Library and Norwick Center for Digital Solutions (nCDS), both units of SMU Libraries, are proposing to digitize and make available on the Internet an estimated 175 cookbooks comprising a total of 15,150 pages. The freely accessible files may be used for many purposes, including the study of Texas history, foodways, cuisine, and culture.

University of North Texas 
$39,982.00
The University of North Texas Libraries will digitize issues of the El Paso Herald and The El Paso Herald-Post and provide free public access to them on The Portal to Texas History, with the goal of expanding dates of existing digitized content for those titles from 1927 up to 1940.

University of Texas at Arlington 
$14,330.00
UTA Libraries Special Collections contains The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (FWST) Photograph Collection housing an estimated eight million negatives documenting Fort Worth, North Texas, and much of West Texas. UTA Libraries was previously awarded TexTreasures grants to digitize and capture metadata for 45,000 FWST negatives from the 1940s and 1950 and will digitize 5,000 more images, dating 1960-1964. Scanned images will be available through MavMatrix, UTA Libraries’ institutional repository and archival hub.

Partners Library Action Network (PLAN)
$75,000.00
PLAN seeks to provide a year-round set of practical training programs that will enhance the tactical and strategic knowledge and skills of 800+ librarians across the state. PLAN will target libraries and librarians that have a service area of less than 50,000 residents. In-person sessions will be held throughout the state, to meet librarians wherever they are. Virtual training options will also be avialable. 

Houston Public Library 
$26,569.00
The Houston Public Library will grow leadership from within the library by providing quarterly on-demand training for all current and incoming staff through live virtual training courses offered by Strategic Government Resources. This program will increase staff professional development to grow their customer services skills, and ultimately, their library careers. 
 

Cooke County Library 
$8,774.00
The Cooke County Library is requesting funds to cover 12 months of unlimited data for 14 AT&T Mobile Wi-Fi hotspots currently owned by the library that are available for checkout to Cooke County residents, plus add an additional five more to the library's collection. This would bring a total of 19 to the library's collection. 

Dickinson Public Library 
$24,983.00
The "Cultivating Tech-Literate Young Minds" project aims to enhance early literacy skills. With limited access to technology and low literacy scores, the project will install AWE computer stations and add Launchpad tables for use by youth. These resources, stationary at the library as well as available for checkout, provide children with extended learning opportunities. Staff will offer support and collaborate with Dickinson ISD to promote literacy through technology. 

Judy B McDonald Public Library 
$10,497.00
Armchair Explorations is an outreach program designed to enrich the lives of seniors through the exploration of VR technology and a tech petting zoo. VR headsets, tablets, e-readers, and assistive technology empower seniors to embark on virtual adventures and explore the digital landscape. Tech Petting Zoo participants will have hands-on access to cutting-edge devices, fostering digital literacy and enchancing their technological proficiency. 

Pottsboro Area Public Library 
$24,013.00
The Pottsboro Library proposes "Virtual Library Walls: Pages on the Go", a groundbreaking initiative to make digital reading materials widely accessible outside the traditional library space. This program will install digital wallpapers - essential interactive bookshelves with QR codes - that link directly to the library's Overdrive collection and public domain works.

Rowlett Public Library
$24,268.00
The Rowlett Library's Adult Education Job Skills Training will support and encourage GED and ESL students throughout the Rowlett community by helping participants overcome potential barriers, enhance their employability, and successfully navigate the job market. The Job Skills Training will be a supplement to the ESL or GED tutoring, with success measured by the number of students obtaining employment within one year of completing the training. 

University of Dallas
$25,000.00  
The Conwan-Blakley Memorial Library used a previously awarded SPP-23016 (2022) grant to establish a Core Text Collection to assist minority and Pell-eligible first-generation students. This same underserved population will benefit from the university's new designation as an Hispanice Serving Institution (2023), which supports retention and degree completion of Hispanic and Latino studnets, and the new grant will expand the Core Text Collection. 

Celina Public Library 
$60,778.00
The City of Celina requests $60,778 in second-year funding to hire a full-time Librarian/Driver to operate and oversee the Celina Bookmoblie, as well as purchase an additional 150 large print books. The project will improve access to books and promote literacy and lifelong learning among underserved community members who may not have access to the main library. The Bookmobile will be able to operate on weekend, significantly increasing access. 

Denton Public Library
$74,742.00 
The Denton Public Library will create an accessible and inclusive library for all individuals by purchasing furniture to enhance accessibility and rearranging the North Branch Library. This includes tables with ample space for asssistance, adjustable-height tables, caregiver/child workstations, and adjustable-height online public access computers. Along with accessible and inclusive furniture, adaptive technlogy will be purchased. 

Dublin Public Library 
$42,427.00
The Dublin Public Library will host monthly programming focused on different aspects of health literacy. Our mission is to educate patrons on the benefits of mindfulness by incorporating culinary and health literacy and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) activities into our offerings, as well as sensory-friendly environments.

El Paso Public Library 
$75,000.00
The El Paso Public Library Literacy Center has established new partnerships that have enabled staff to offer digital computer classes outside of library facilities utilizing our mobile computer classrooms funded through TSLAC. The Literacy Center is in dire need of a new vehicle to transport our staff, computer equipment, and electrical connections to these new venues. 

Georgetown Public Library 
$75,000.00
Working with the local health foundation and its Friends group, the Georgetown Public Library will a hire a senior library assistant who will be charged with launching the GPLXpress Service, which includes a reserves locker system, bookdrop, and community outreach and education. The service station will be placed at the Carver Center for Familes in Georgetown. 

Hewitt Public Library 
$45,600.00
The Hewitt Public Library aims to increase its offerings in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematices (STEAM) education through partnerships with the Midway school district, local homeschool families, and other community partners. HPL will develop programming for youth ages 3-18 using a variety of interactive toys, equipment and technology, and it will expand on passive activites for independent play and experimentation. 

Houston Public Library 
$75,000.00
Houston Public Library seeks to expand its Career Online High School (COHS) program in FY 2025 by providing tution to 40 new program participants. The SACS (Souther Association of Colleges and Schools)  accredited high school completion program offers adults ages 21+ the opportunity to earn their high school diploma and prepare them for entry into the workforce in partnership with Smart Horizons and Workforce Solutions. 

Nicholson Memorial Library System 
$74,983.00
With grant funding, the Garland Public Library will work with its Friends group and local partnerships to provide free project supplies and expand makerspace activites and supplies to several underserved communities: low-income populations, individuals without college degrees, small business owners, and Spanish speakers. Funding will allow the library to expand available free equipment, supplies, classes and open lab times. 

Partners Library Action Netwark (PLAN)
$75,000.00 
The Texas Library Rescue supports small and rural libraries in need of dramatic capacity building, providing completion of a major project or training for a library director/staff to overcome a major hurdle that cannot be completed alone or with a small staff. The program recruits a team of volunteers who conduct intensive hands-on work, lead training, and provide support for a short period. At the end of the intensive work period, the participating library has its challenges addressed, with an action plan for follow-up strategies. 

Plano Public Library System 
$50,120.00
This project will support the installation of library material lockers at the Sam Johnson Recreation Center for Adults 50+. Library locker systems allow users to pick up requested library materials without needing to visit a library location, an important option for older residents with limited access to transportation or mobility challenges. 

Traphene Hickman Library 
$54,740.00
The Traphene Hickman Library will support technology access in three ways: by creating a makerspace, offering maker checkout kits and business equipment for circulation, and purchasing laptops to provide business, technology and STEAM programming. 

Victoria Public Library 
$32,064.00
This is the second phase of a project that removes barriers to the library. The Victoria Public Library will install a self-service locker that allows 24/7 access to reserved library materials. This project targets individuals and families whose work, school schedule, or other physical limitations inhibit access. Expanding self-service lockers in an alternate location will increase access to library materials.