Creating Open Access to A Historic Newspaper from an International Port City

Abstract

In 2019, the Rosenberg Library of Galveston partnered with UNT to apply for an IMLS-funded Library Services & Technology Act TexTreasures grant through the Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission. This grant was intended to digitize Galveston’s Evening Tribune, from 1885 to 1900, on The Portal to Texas History, and it represented the beginning of a productive cross-institutional partnership that has resulted in open access to rich newspaper content for researchers worldwide.

Galveston, Texas, known as the “Wall Street of the South” until the Great Hurricane of 1900, served as an international shipping and trade hub, particularly as the U.S.’s largest cotton port. Also a center of publishing, many newspapers were founded and dissolved in early Galveston to such an extent that it was dubbed the “newspaper graveyard.” The Evening Tribune began publication in 1880 under the name, The Print, and was one of the few newspapers to survive to long-term publication. Upon successful completion of the 2019-2020 grant round, the two libraries received two additional years of funding to make the Galveston Tribune collection available up to 1916. In addition, after the success of the Tribune partnership, the libraries have collaborated to build access to a set of labor union titles representing Galveston and Texas between 1901 and 1950.

This paper will discuss the approach the institutions took to partner and will explore the grant project management process as a case study in collaborative workflows. It will explore the impact of building open access to this historic news content on educating researchers about a city that was rich in trade and was a hub of labor activism in the U.S. It will conclude with discussing the educational initiatives both institutions have undertaken to incorporate these newspapers into program planning in library outreach and instruction.