Tejano Voices Press Release
The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
announce the receipt of a grant from the Texas State Library and Archives'
TexTreasures program. The $20,000 grant will partially fund a project
called Tejano Voices, which will provide improved access to 77 oral
history interviews conducted during the 1990s by U.T. Arlington political
science professor, José Angel Gutiérrez.
The interviews emphasize the personal stories
and struggles of Tejano leaders, many of whom are the first individuals
of Mexican descent in their communities elected or appointed to government
office. The interviews uniquely reflect the history of the Tejano
community as it pressed for an end to racial segregation in the state
and access to political power in the post-WWII period. The interviews
are housed in Special Collections at the U.T. Arlington Libraries
and are available for use by the public during Special Collections'
normal operating hours of Monday 9:00 am-7:00 pm and Tuesday-Saturday,
9:00 am-5:00 pm.
The project will run from September 1, 2001,
through August 31, 2002. It will feature a web site which will provide
access to streamed audio of the interviews and to the interview transcripts.
Staff from the Libraries' Digital Library Services program area will
create digital files and will design and implement the project web
site. In addition to staff resources, the Libraries will contribute
the use of the equipment required by the project. Grant funds will
be used to pay the salary of a professional cataloger, who will work
on the project half-time for one year in Special Collections. The
cataloger's contribution to the project will include creating catalog
records for the interviews and contributing information to the project's
database and web site.
The purpose of the TexTreasures grant program
is to assist public and academic libraries in Texas to provide access
to their special or unique local collection holdings and to make information
about these holdings available to library users across the state.
The TexTreasures program is supported by the Institute of Museum and
Library Services.
The Tejano Voices Project will be under the direction
of Ann Hodges, Special Collections Projects Manager at the U.T. Arlington
Libraries. For more information, please contact:
Ann Hodges
Special Collections Projects Manager
U.T. Arlington Libraries
P.O. Box 19497
Arlington, Texas 76019-0497
E-mail: ann.hodges@uta.edu
Telephone: 817/272-7510
Fax: 817/272-3360
|
