The Texas Digital Library (TDL) provides services to TDL member institutions and the faculty at these institutions. Each of the services supports the TDL’s goal of broadening access to the scholarly output of Texas colleges and universities.
For access to presentations and publications further describing TDL services, please visit the TDL Publications and Presentations page. You may also visit the TDL Wiki for additional user documentation about TDL services.
Institutional Services
TDL Institutional Repositories
The TDL provides repository hosting for member institutions. This service includes provision of hardware and storage, basic management of the repository software DSpace, and the creation of a customized look and feel using Manakin. With this service, all member institutions have the means to offer a repository service for their affiliates, improving the dissemination of institutional work. For a list of TDL Institutional Repositories, click here.
Vireo: Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Submission and Management System
With Vireo, the TDL’s electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) submission and management system, students at member institutions can submit digital theses and dissertations via a simple online interface, while graduate offices can manage the ETD submission and approval process behind the scenes. The system deposits the ETDs in institutional repositories where they are readily available to other researchers. The ETDs also become available through the federated TDL Repository via metadata harvesting.
TDL Repository
The TDL Repository provides a central access point for scholarly information created across the state of Texas. By aggregating resources from the many TDL member institutions, the TDL Repository presents a broad cross-section of academic publications, course materials, and research data, and makes it available to researchers around the world for browsing and download. Among its other collections, the federated TDL Repository contains records of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) submitted by participating member institutions, making these otherwise hard-to-find scholarly works available to a much wider audience.
Faculty Communication Services
TDL Electronic Journals
Support for publishing fully online, peer-reviewed journals is offered by the TDL. This service includes a complete workflow system for article submission, peer review, and editing that is fully web-based and designed to facilitate the de-centralized collaboration of the peer review process. This less expensive alternative to traditional publishing provides additional opportunities for information-sharing, particularly within specialized disciplines and emerging fields of study. TDL journals are open access, viewable by the public at no cost. TDL member faculty and staff can create a new journal by contacting Texas Digital Library staff at info@tdl.org.
TDL Scholarly Blogs
TDL institution faculty may share their work, latest news in their fields, excerpts from writing in progress, and other information through a scholarly blog. The TDL blog service focuses on disseminating information about research and scholarship produced by and impacting institutions of higher education in Texas. TDL member faculty and staff can create a new blog and begin writing instantly using the TDL’s automated Services Request System.
TDL Research Wikis
For those needing a tool to share information among groups such as project teams or discipline specialists, the TDL offers a wiki service. With shared editing capability and an easy-to-use interface, wikis provide a quick way to publish information to the group or to the world. Faculty members at TDL institutions may visit the TDL Services Request System to instantly create a wiki and begin editing.
TDL Online Conference Management
The TDL makes conference organizing and management easier and more efficient with Online Conference Management tools that help conference organizers create a complete Web presence and handle the clerical and managerial tasks associated with running an academic conference. TDL Online Conference Management uses Open Conference Systems, an open-source Web publishing tool developed by the Public Knowledge Project. TDL member faculty and staff can create a new conference Web site by contacting Texas Digital Library staff at info@tdl.org.
TDL Faculty Homepages
Faculty members at TDL institutions can create their own homepages — complete with biographical and professional information, as well as links to their other online work — in the TDL Faculty Directory.