The Texas Historical Commission (THC) has selected UNT Libraries’ The Portal to Texas History: Texas Borderlands Newspaper Collection as this year’s recipient of the Award of Excellence in Preserving History. The award recognizes preservation of this significant collection and celebrates its power to promote a greater understanding of state and local history.

Spanning three centuries and incorporating newspapers from counties on or near the Texas-Mexico border, the Borderlands collection brings to life the voices and viewpoints of people who lived here. Agricultural innovations, military conflicts, cultural challenges, and politics are covered along with news of daily life and world events. Newspapers represented in the collection include English, Spanish, and French titles.

According to Ana Krahmer, Director of UNT Libraries’ Digital Newspaper Unit, “The Texas Border has seen a lot of exciting history, and we hoped every issue of these newspapers would serve as a puzzle piece to fill in the picture of that history.” The newspapers come from libraries and museums throughout the border region and comprise 87,722 pages and 118 years of content. Digitization was accomplished with the generous support of three TexTreasures grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, awarded through the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.