THO:History

From THO

Vision:

Texas Heritage Online envisions unified online access to the cultural heritage resources held by Texas institutions to enhance understanding of our cultural heritage and better serve our users.

Mission:

Texas Heritage Online promotes collaboration among Texas institutions by establishing common standards, sharing best practices and facilitating cooperative funding to provide online access to cultural heritage resources that benefit learners.

History:

In May of 2004, more than 80 representatives of libraries, museums, archives and governmental agencies responded to an invitation by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to explore this vision and propose a plan to achieve it. A majority of participants volunteered their time to serve on one of six work groups.

Following that first meeting, the Work Groups created a Strategic Plan as a framework to guide an initial period of development for the initiative. The Texas Heritage Digitization Initiative, as it came to be known, identified six goals, aligned with the six elements of the Mission Statement and objectives of the Work Groups, for achieving the vision of unified online access to cultural heritage collections:

• Goal #1: Promote collaboration among Texas institutions through the integrated efforts of the THDI organization, a statewide institutional host, digital repositories, and regional/topical partnerships
• Goal #2: Establish common standards to ensure digital collections are compatible both among Texas institutions and with similar projects in other states
• Goal #3: Share best practices by offering training and mentoring opportunities for all participating institutions
• Goal #4: Facilitate cooperative funding for the operation of the THDI organization itself as well as for projects organized by participating institutions
• Goal #5: Identify and assess potential digital collections held by Texas institutions
• Goal #6: Enhance learning by understanding the needs of end-users and providing interpretive context to the online data

In February 2010, the members present at the THDI Annual Meeting approved new Bylaws, which renamed the organization Texas Heritage Online. An expanded Board of Directors was also elected, to which were added two Strategic Partners, the UNT Libraries and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Texas Heritage Online is administered by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and is supported in part by funds granted by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. For more information, please contact us at tho@tsl.state.tx.us.