User:Texas Librarian

TIDES (Teaching, Images & Digital Experiences)

Teaching, Images & Digital Experiences (commonly known as TIDES) is a collaborative digitization project, primarily focused on organizing and making available unique cultural and historical resources found in and around East Texas. Founded in September of 2002 and funded by a series of local and national grants, the Ralph W. Steen Library at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) developed TIDES as East Texas’ first collaborative digital initiative. Since that time, the program has grown in both scope and size, gaining institutional support and the development of new library department - Digital Projects - which now maintains the development of the project.

History

The project began in 2002 with a Texas Telecommunications grant. This grant enabled the digitization of resources from the Steen Library's East Texas Research Center (ETRC), which were then organized as a free online database for educators teaching Texas history. Originally called Texas Tides, the first version of the project focused on the waves of people and cultures that arrived and subsequently shaped Texas history and culture. In 2005, Texas Tides was awarded a three year National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The funds from this grant allowed an expansion in scope and services, as well as the formation of the Library's Digital Project department, which now handles the maintenance and growth of the project. In response to these leaps, the project's name was changed from Texas Tides to simply TIDES (Teaching, Images & Digital Experiences), which better reflects the purpose and mission of the project.

Collections and Access

TIDES currently hosts over 22,000 primary source resources organized into 24 collections, with more items added on a regular basis. Resources include photographs, documents, newspaper clippings, letters and correspondence, and cultural artifacts. Through the IMLS grant, TIDES was able to form partnerships with other libraries and museums in both Texas and Mexico, which allowed Digital Projects to digitize and organize portions of the collections of these institutions and make them freely available in an online database. The TIDES database is organized using CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management software.

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