Exploring History Digitally

A trip to the past is just one mouse click away through a historical resource here at UTA Libraries.  

People can explore more than 100,000 images from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and other UTA Libraries Digital Gallery collections online for free. 

Sara Pezzoni, the photo collections coordinator in Special Collections, stated that the digital gallery is a great resource for connecting with history. Its impact goes far beyond campus, reaching people globally. 

"The digital gallery is just a wonderful tool to reach a worldwide audience and share our materials. It makes them extremely accessible," Sara said. "The Star-Telegram is our largest collection on the digital gallery and there's only 2% or less of the collection that's been digitized." 

Sara stated that the negatives with the collection are stored in a cold storage facility at the Central Library where they are preserved for future generations.  

As of last summer, 2022, there are about 6 million negatives in the collection. Prints that are a part of the collection are stored in the Special Collections Department. 

"I counted this morning that there are almost 300 different collections represented in the digital gallery, " Sara said. "That is only a sampling of what we have, which is over 800 processed collections in Special Collections." 

The digital gallery not only features photographs but also features items such as maps, personal family papers, historical manuscripts, and musical scores that have been digitized.  

Items people may not expect to see among the collections in the digital gallery are papers from politicians during their time in office and bills they have contributed to. 

Sara stated that the materials she enjoys working with most are the photos taken by photojournalists working at local newspapers. To her, these photos document life, one snapshot at a time. 

"I love all of our newspaper photograph collections because I have a background in journalism," she said. "The newspaper collections provide a sampling of everyday life and big-breaking stories of events that are important to the local community. These materials illustrate a richer history of this area from the perspective of the press in their efforts to create a more informed public." 

Sara wants to encourage people to use the digital gallery for their personal projects, for something they may be researching academically, or to learn more about history. 

Each photo in UTA Libraries Digital Gallery has a unique story and history to tell just waiting to be shared with someone. 

Any help with a project or a photo request can be directed to Sara at sara.pezzoni@uta.edu. 

The UTA Libraries Digital Gallery is online at https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery. 

Read this story online to learn about how to search the gallery.