Tarlton Law Library
Jamail Center for Legal Research

Project goals & objectives

The goal of the Texas Constitutions Project is to digitize the various versions of the Texas Constitution and convention materials and to make digital versions of the documents available online together with explanatory text and images.

1. To make important Texas historical and legal materials more readily accessible to members of the public.
2. To make unique Special Collections materials available to users at institutions throughout the state.
3. To advance the knowledge in the field of Texas history and Texas legal studies.
4. To make information about the unique holdings of the Tarlton Law Library's Special Collections available to library users across the state.
5. To enhance the education of a wide range of library users.
6. To remove the physical barriers that prohibit many library users from accessing important Texas historical and legal materials.
7. To reduce damage to important Texas historical and legal materials caused by physical access to rare books.
8. To preserve important Texas historical and legal materials in an alternative media to paper-based documents.
9. To enhance the Law Library's reputation as a premiere center for legal research in the State of Texas.

OBJECTIVES

Digitizing and publishing the many versions of the Texas Constitution and relevant convention materials will:

1. Give users an understanding of individual versions of the Texas Constitution within the context of a complete collection of Texas Constitutions and supporting convention materials.
2. Illuminate the social contexts behind the creation of the Texas Constitutions by cross-referencing them to convention materials.
3. Enable users with disabilities to access the versions of the Texas Constitution and convention materials without difficulty.
4. Advance knowledge in the field of Texas history and legal studies by uniquely presenting the numerous versions of the Texas Constitution and supporting convention materials together as a discrete collection.
5. Enable users to search the text of the complete collection of Texas Constitutions and convention materials.
6. Preserve the rare books containing versions of the Texas Constitution and convention materials by reducing the need for physical handling of the books.
7. Improve the readability of the text. Imaged copies will be easier to read than the original printed versions because the originals are faded and the paper is discolored and torn.
8. Enable users to access the Texas Constitution and convention materials from multiple locales.
9. Enable multiple users to access the same document simultaneously.