The following post is part of UT Thanks Day. UT Thanks Day is an extraordinary time every year when our UT community comes together as one to thank donors. We are inspired and better-off through your generosity. Here are three stories you made happen.

You helped offset Sana’s tuition.

Sana Saboowala is pursuing a B.S.A. in Biology and a B.A. in Anthropology and is in the Polymathic Scholars and Liberal Arts Honors Program. She is also our student government documents and maps assistant in the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) and the recipient of the Nilsson scholarship for library student workers.

Thank you for helping offset tuition for Sana while we helped train her for the workforce. In her role, Sana safeguards and preserves official publications and information products of the U.S. Government in all formats. She protects materials vulnerable to decay, technical obsolescence, malicious cyber-attacks, and neglect.

Sana was overwhelmed by the daunting projects we put in front of her as a freshman four years ago but she overcame. Now a senior, we trust Sana to determine what is valuable to keep and what can be discarded before the digitization process.

Sana speaks in front of representatives from the Government Printing Office during audits—essentially officials evaluating the libraries and her work. A skill she was grateful to learn now having to present her own work at academic conferences. Sana stuck it out, excelled, and is now grateful for the lessons in leadership, self-initiative, self-confidence, and diverse array of skills she accumulated.

Her work experience at PCL helped her conduct independent research as a Mellon Mays Fellow, winning a highly competitive internship at the Harry Ransom Center, and writing an honors thesis.

You supported Sean and his 3D printed violin.

Doctoral candidate Sean Riley needed a six-string electric violin to play American composer John Adams’s “The Dharma at Big Sur.” Six string violins are uncommon, so he went to The Foundry in the Fine Arts Library to make one. To complete the violin, Riley needed to collaborate. He enlisted Rebecca Milton, an undergraduate student in studio art, and Daniel Goodwin, a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, and they began working in The Foundry.

The story of Sean creating his six string violin in The Foundry will be highlighted in January on UT’s homepage. Be on the lookout to learn how he landed on his final violin design, to include designing it to not melt in the car.

You helped jump-start opening the Genaro García collection to the world.

The Benson Latin American collection is arguably the best library devoted to the region of Latin America in the world. The Genaro García collection within the Benson was our first major purchase of treasures from Mexico. It has been attracting world-renowned faculty and recruiting the brightest students to UT since 1921—for almost 100 years. Researchers from every corner of the world come to sift through documents to shed light on Mexico’s history, it’s evolution from a colonial territory of Spain to a modern independent nation.

You helped purchase supplies and employ the student labor needed to digitize this collection. This material has been accessible only in person since 1921—until now. Thanks to you, the Genaro García collection can be viewed by everyone, from the casual observer emerging themselves in Mexican history to the distinguished researcher on the opposite side of the world. Thank you for allowing us to share this rare collection with the world.