Angelo State University (ASU) is one of CCDI’s 2024 Higher Education Awardees. The team began their project in December 2023 and will be presenting about their work at CCDI’s upcoming Summer Fuse 2024 event in Washington, D.C.
ASU is receiving $69,999.06 for their project, “All History is Local: Celebrating the People of West Texas,” which centers on the Library of Congress’ observation that all history is local. The ASU team will work with faculty, students and staff to identify resources in the Library’s collections that build connections between national topics and the local history of Black and Hispanic or Latinx communities in West Texas. The research will culminate in an interactive national StoryMap that takes users through these narratives. StoryMaps is a web-based platform that can be used to create interactive stories by combining maps, multimedia, and narrative text.
Isabel Brador, a Program Specialist for the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative, interviewed the team to learn more about their project plans.
Congratulations on receiving a CCDI Higher Education award! Can you tell us about your project?
As a Hispanic-Serving Institution, Angelo State University’s population reflects the demographics of its West Texas locale of San Angelo. We named our project All History is Local: Celebrating the People of West Texas. Our goal is to facilitate discovery and promotion of LOC digital collections that illuminate the lived experiences of Black and Hispanic or Latinx populations, specifically weaving national themes and stories into the West Texas cultural narrative. To accomplish this, we are identifying sources and writing short articles that build connections between national historical topics and the experiences of people in our region. Then, we are giving further life to these articles by transferring them to an interactive website that features these stories and complementary digital artifacts.