Thanks to a $25,000 Tex Treasures grant, awarded to us by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, we are able to bring even more of Kendall County's history right to your home!
The library will apply the $25,000 award to provide broader access to Boerne’s history with the digitization of The Boerne Star from issues dated from 1966 to 1993. The project is proceeding quickly, with new editions being added all the time. We're already up to 1980! The digitized pages will be available globally through the Portal to Texas History, where the issues from 1940 to 1965 already reside.
In the library’s most recent customer satisfaction survey, more than a quarter of respondents said they used the library to explore local and genealogical history, and several made remarks about preserving and making available online the documents in the local history section.
Adult Services librarian Robin Stauber, who manages the library’s Dietert Historical Archives is excited to be offering this expanded access. “Digitizing 27 additional years--just over 24,000 pages--of The Boerne Star rounds out knowledge of our county and dovetails nicely with our huge multi-phase plan to collect, preserve, and make accessible as much of our local history as possible!”
Several library staff members and volunteers are working tirelessly to paint a more complete picture of the people who have lived and died in the Boerne area. Natalie Morgan, assistant library director, is anxious to use the new digitized newspapers to connect family members on the massive Findagrave.com website. “Everyone from the past was important to friends and family, and they shouldn’t be forgotten. With this new information at our fingertips, we’ll be able to read old obituaries and discover the interesting lives many of these people led, as well as their origins and loved ones’ names. We will then share that knowledge with anyone doing family research.”
“Communities in every corner of Texas will benefit from the resources that have been made available through this list of forward-thinking grant proposals,” said TSLAC Director and Librarian Gloria Meraz.
This award is funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services through a grant to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (Grant #LS-252486-OLS-22).* (2022)