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Adopt a Book Digitally!

 

TSGS has become a partner with The Portal to Texas History project through the University of North Texas Library System. This project provides unique historical material online for all Texans. We believe these materials should be available to everyone, and since 2002, the Portal has offered historians, researchers, students, genealogists, and lifelong learners a digital gateway to the rich collections held in Texas libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, and private collections.  With the Adopt a Book Digitally! program The Portal intends to digitize 1,000 books about Texas history.  Selected books include city and county histories, city directories, biographies of notable Texas characters, and other Texana titles. The books will be available online for free public access.

Providing a book online provides several benefits:

            People can access rare books that may otherwise be too fragile

            Everyone has free internet access 24 hours a day

            Electronic editions allow full-text searching, just go to the page you need

            Content of the book is protected from floods, fires, or other disasters

 

TSGS presented The Portal with a $1000 grant to digitize nine books in 2007 and authorized an additional grant of $2000 to digitize more books in 2008. We are encouraging all Partner Societies to join this effort. Your support is crucial for meeting the objectives of this goal, and we hope you will consider making an investment in providing access to these books.  Please help us provide a lasting resource for all people who love Texas history. The Portal would like to include books representing all 254 counties in Texas.  The majority of the books selected for the project are in the public domain, that is, published before 1923.  Books published before that date are no longer under copyright.  For books published after 1923, The Portal has worked with a number of authors and other copyright holders to obtain their permission to place a copy online for free public use.  The authors and copyright holders retain copyright to their work, but have given permission to put a digitized version on the Portal to Texas History. 

 

For more information and to download an adopt a book form visit the website:

http://texashistory.unt.edu/young/educators/books/adoptabook.shtml

 

Books Adopted by TSGS in 2007 on The Portal to Texas History Website

 

  1. Memorial and biographical history of Ellis County, Texas . . . containing a history of this important section of the great state of Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its future prospects; with full-page portraits of the presidents of the United States, and also full-page portraits of some of the most eminent men of the county, and biographical mention of many of its pioneers, and also of prominent citizens of to-day., pub 1892, 573 pp, $105.

 

  1. Texas Indian troubles. The most thrilling events in the history of Texas illustrated. Author Hilory G. Bedford, pub 1905, 249 pp, $50.

 

  1. Indian fights on Texas frontier. A history of exciting encounters had with Indians in Hamilton, Comanche, Brown, Erath, and adjoining counties. Author E. L. Deaton, pub 1894, 199 pp, $42.
  2. Reminiscences of the boys in gray, 1861-1865. Sketches of several hundred Confederate veterans, now residing in Texas, giving particulars of their war service. Author Miss Mamie Yeary, pub 1912, 904 pp, $200.

 

  1. Memorial and biographical history of Johnson and Hill counties containing the early history of this important section of the great state of Texas together with glimpses of its future prospects, also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens of the present time, and full-page portraits of some of the most eminent men of this section, pub 1892, 735 pp, $160.

 

  1. Memorial and biographical history of McLennan, Falls, Bell and Coryell counties, pub 1893, 999 pp, $225

 

  1. Pioneer history of Bandera county, seventy-five years of intrepid history, by J. Marvin Hunter, pub 1922, 287 pp, $70

 

  1. Texas and the Texans; or advance of the Anglo Americans to the South-west including a history of leading events in Mexico, from the conquest by Fernando Cortes to the termination of the Texan revolution by Henry S. Foote, pub 1841, 2 volumes, $132

 

  1. DeWitt’s colony by Ethel Zivley Rather, pub 1905, 97 pp, $30

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