The Texas Historical Records Advisory Board (THRAB) is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2020 Archival Awards of Excellence, Advocacy, and Distinguished Service.

Created in 2016, the Archival Award of Excellence recognizes significant achievements in preserving and improving access to historical records in Texas. The board selected Travis Williams, Special Collections Librarian and Archivist at St. Edwards University, for the Archival Award of Excellence in the individual category for his work on Hillhops: A Craft Beer Showcase. The Showcase promoted archival materials in an innovative forum and engaged the greater community with Special Collections. THRAB appreciated the creative approach to outreach and hopes the recognition will inspire others to attempt such endeavors.

The Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) is the recipient of the Archival Award of Excellence in the institutional category. TAMI partnered with the Office of the Governor’s Texas Film Commission to launch the Texas Film Round-Up, a program to digitize film contributions from people, institutions, businesses, and others from around the state. With 3,800 curated videos available on their website, the collection represents a broad scope of Texas history both in time and geographic region. TAMI also offers free educational tools online for those who wish to teach with film from the site.

THRAB’s Advocacy for Archives and Distinguished Service awards are new categories this year and recognize outstanding achievements and lasting impacts on the archival community and the historical record in Texas.

The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health was selected for the 2020 Advocacy for Archives Award. The Hogg Foundation recognizes the importance and value of creating, maintaining, and providing access to its organizational archives which provides important research collections in the area of mental health, an area that has been largely overlooked. By establishing an archive, employing an archivist, and welcoming interns to learn and apply archival practices, the Hogg Foundation promotes to other organizations how meaningful an archive may be and increases the value of archives to others.

For his lifetime of contributions to the archival profession, THRAB selected archivist, educator, historian and former THRAB coordinator Dr. David B. Gracy II, who died on September 26, as the recipient of its inaugural award for Distinguished Service. After launching his archival career with a position as archivist of the Southwest Collection at Texas Tech, Gracy left the state to establish the Southern Labor and University Archives at Georgia State University in 1971. Returning to Texas, he served as State Archivist and THRAB coordinator (1977-1986) and built the archival enterprise program at the University of Texas’s School of Information, where he taught from 1986 until his retirement in 2011. Over his long career, Gracy published numerous articles on archival topics and books based on historical research and served as editor and on the editorial boards of various journals. Nationally, he served as president of the Society of American Archivists and the Academy of Certified Archivists, which he helped establish. Texas State Historian Monte L. Monroe says of Dr. Gracy that, “For decades, he has been the touchstone and leader of every effort to preserve archival materials and to support the great public, private, and academic institutions that hold the treasures of our past.”

THRAB will present awards to recipients during its next meeting on October 23 which will be held virtually via Zoom. For details on how to join, visit www.thrab.org.  

About the Texas Historical Records Advisory Board (THRAB):

THRAB serves as an advisory body for historical records planning and supports efforts to preserve and provide access to archival collections throughout the state. Funding for THRAB is provided by the National Historical Publications Records Commission (NHPRC), the grant-making arm of the National Archives and Records Administration. The state archivist is appointed by the governor to preside over the nine-member board.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/node/67765