Launched in November 2022, Digital Beninisn’t necessarily a new digital project, but it is an important one that continues to shift how we understand and access African cultural heritage, in this case cultural objects from the Kingdom of Benin (present-day Nigeria).
At first glance, it’s an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly interface that showcases more than 5,000 artifacts looted from Benin during a notorious 1897 British military campaign, an enduring symbol of colonial violence and theft. While this alone would make the project a valuable resource, a great strength of the project lies in how it highlights connections: between museum-held objects and their places of origin, between Western classifications and indigenous Edo terminology, between archival documents and the Benin objects themselves. It’s not just a database, but a dynamic tool for recontextualizing history.
Digital Benin connects the global locations of Benin artifacts across 130 institutions in 21 countries, most of which were looted during the colonial period and are now located in Western museums. Each object record includes high-resolution images, metadata, provenance information and translations in both English and Edo. Notably, you can trace how looted items moved from British soldiers in 1897, through art dealers and collectors, and into major museum collections.
Above is a screenshot of the Network Explorer tool, which allows users to explore connections between people, entities, objects and archival documents.
One of the most powerful aspects of the project is the “Ẹyo Otọ” section that highlights the Edo object classification system. Instead of relying on Western museum categories (like “pottery” or “bronze”), Digital Benin introduces a controlled vocabulary based on Edo knowledge systems. For example, you’ll notice distinct categories like Akhẹ Amẹ (water pot) or Akhẹ Osun (Osun shrine pot). These designations reflect the original, indigenous understanding and use of the object.
Object records are organized by the Edo object classification system under the “Ẹyo Otọ” section. Here are all the records for Iyeọkhọkhọ hen figures used on female altars.
The design of the site is equally impressive, with extensive documentation on the project development, data acquisition and management, and the Edo controlled vocabulary. The Italian studio Calibro, known for projects like the open source data visualization tool RAWGraphs and The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, built custom visual tools and interfaces for the site.
Good design intersects with dynamic function in the “Paper Trails” section of the project, which connects the individual Benin objects to archival documents like letters, catalogues, photographs and newspaper clippings that mention them. You can click through the documents, read transcriptions and follow specific objects as they are referenced over time.
The Archival Documents database shows a flyer for a demonstration advocating for the return of the Benin Bronzes. The archival record links to the specific Uhunmwu-Elao, or commemorative head, mentioned in the document.
A unique strength of Digital Benin is its overall approach to this work. The project is led by Nigerian and international scholars, deeply grounded in local knowledge, oral traditions and indigenous frameworks. It models a powerful kind of digital restitution by not just returning information to descendant communities, but empowering them to define how that knowledge is structured and shared. This value is embedded into the project as a whole, shaping everything from the site’s design and data organization to its commitment to centering Edo perspectives and reclaiming cultural authority.
In fall of 2024, UT Libraries assessment team administered a campus wide survey to understand the perceptions, experiences, and needs of users across the campus.
A random sample of undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff were invited to participate in the survey, which was designed on Qualtrics and sent via email.
The results were drawn from 1878 respondents who completed at least half of the survey. The breakdown of respondents included 43% undergraduate students, 18% graduate students, 14% faculty, and 24% staff.
The data from the survey were analyzed using SPSS for the quantitative part and NVivo for the qualitative part (open ended questions). The final results are available to the public through an interactive Tableau dashboard.
Here is an infographic capturing some of the 2024 UTL campus survey highlights.
An Infographic showing 2024 UT Libraries Campus Survey Highlights
We are delighted to report that the overall satisfaction with the libraries has remained consistently high since the last campus survey administered in 2022. The majority of all respondents felt that UT libraries is a welcoming place (88%) and that the staff is friendly and approachable (83%).
The results indicated that quiet (whispers) was the most preferred noise level. UT libraries offers access to multiple quiet study or work spaces across various branches around the campus.
Battle Hall Reading Room
This year, we also asked our participants about the new and evolving spaces within the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL). 42% of respondents who had been to PCL, visited the new Scholars Lab (the digital scholarship center at entryway) since it opened in fall 2023.
The new space is timely, given that survey results showed a growth in the perceived importance of scholarly communication, research data, digital scholarship, GIS, and geospatial data since the 2022 survey administration.
Data Lab in the Scholars Lab
We also asked the participants about their primary reasons for visiting the libraries. The top reason for students to visit the libraries was to access a quiet study/work space. Undergraduate students rated access to study/work space as very important.
The Hall of Noble Words Reading Room
In contrast, faculty and staff, most often visited the libraries to borrow physical material from the libraries’ comprehensive physical collection. Additionally, online library resources were rated as very important for graduate students, faculty and staff.
Respondents were asked to share a time that UT Libraries staff, services, resources or spaces had a positive impact on them.
Here are some impact stories, in their own words:
“It would not be an understatement to say my research has depended almost entirely on the library’s incredible resources and accessibility!” – Graduate student from the College of Liberal Arts.
“I’m able to request research articles from 50 years ago and get a scan sent to me in a week!” – Graduate student from the Cockrell School of Engineering.
“The UT library has offered private rooms for studying which has helped my academic success.” – Undergraduate student from the College of Natural Sciences.
“I’ve pinged subject experts last minute for help and they were very responsive to my needs.” – Staff member form the College of Liberal Arts.
These stories serve as vivid reminders of how central the libraries are to success at UT. We are excited to see the impact of UT Libraries on patrons’ academic and professional growth.
While the feedback was largely positive, the survey also highlighted some areas for improvement. Results indicated that some participants find physical library spaces challenging to navigate. In response, we are actively working on a signage improvement project aimed at improving wayfinding and making it easier for users to find their way through our spaces.
We thank all of the library users that participated in the survey. We value the feedback and appreciate the continued engagement as we work to improve the library experience for everyone.
Everyday Knowledge in Early Meiji Japan from UT Libraries’ Collections
“Illuminating Explorations” – This series of digital exhibits is designed to promote and celebrate UT Libraries collections in small-scale form. The exhibits will highlight unique materials to elevate awareness of a broad range of content. “Illuminating Explorations” will be created and released over time, with the intent of encouraging use of featured and related items, both digital and analog, in support of new inquiries, discoveries, enjoyment and further exploration.
The Braisted Collection
This exhibit highlights a selection of items from the Braisted Collection on Meiji Japan. The Braisted Collection was gifted to the UT Libraries by the late Professor Emeritus of History, Dr. William R. Braisted (1918–2017) in 2000. A Maryland native, Braisted was the son of an American naval officer and spent many of his early years in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and mainland China. He attended the Shanghai American School for part of his high school. Later, he received a BA from Stanford University and eventually an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1950. Braisted started teaching at the University of Texas at Austin in 1942 and retired in 1988,[1] and he was the founder of the East Asian Collections at UT Austin. Impressed by what he saw at the coastal elite institutions, especially the Harvard-Yenching Library, Braisted started advocating for and later became involved in building a working collection for Asian histories at the UT campus. In the 1950s, Braisted persuaded the History Department to provide funds to build the collection, when the University Libraries did not have an independent acquisition budget and relied on departmental funds to purchase materials. The first purchase order for Japanese materials was placed in 1953.[2] Before the first Asian Librarian, Dr. Tamie Tsuchiyama (1914–1984), arrived at UT in 1967, Braisted was instrumental in selecting and building UT’s East Asian collections.
The donation included many pre-20th-century materials, which were likely acquired by Braisted during his Fulbright trip to Japan from 1955 to 1956. At that time, Braisted was interested in researching the intellectual and political histories around the “Japanese Enlightenment” during the Meiji Restoration, and his attention specifically dwelt on a group of intellectual elites known as the “Meiroku club.” In popular historiography, the Meiji Restoration in 1868 marks the beginning of Japan’s “modern” era, when a group of rebellious and reformist Samurai overthrew the Edo Bakufu and “restored” the country to the rule under the Meiji Tennō. However, in their political outlooks, the Meiji political elite championed political, social, and military reforms modelled after the post-Enlightenment West. The Meiroku club, around whom Braisted built this collection, was a leading group of educators, politicians, and scholars who contributed to the reformist discourses during the early Meiji years.
Braisted’s research into the club ultimately culminated in his translation of the entire run of the Meiroku Zasshi 明六雑誌, the magazine edited and published by the group. For this project, he collected works written by the major figures in this intellectual circle, including Katō Hiroyuki 加藤弘之 (1836–1916), Nishimura Shigeki 西村茂樹 (1828–1902), Fukuzawa Yukichi 福沢諭吉 (1835–1901), Nishi Amane 西周 (1829–1897), and Mitsukuri Rinshō 箕作麟祥 (1846–1897).
Beyond works by these luminary figures, the Braisted Collection also included many books that were popular during the era, including textbooks, handbooks, news magazines, compilations of laws, parliamentary papers, etc. Last but not least, Braisted also meticulously collected Japanese scholarly monographs on the history, culture, diplomacy, and politics of the Meiji era.
This Exhibit
The Meiji era was a period of confusing and competing ideologies and thoughts, and many intellectuals shared an urgency and impulse to influence and educate the “masses” while a nationwide school system was being designed and built. This exhibit showcases some of the products of this dynamic moment in Japanese intellectual and cultural history. Many of the books were either produced to educate the general literate populace or to provide practical knowledge for everyday use. Also, books produced in this era appeared in different physical formats and had different appearances, as machine-powered printing technologies were making their way into Japan, while centuries-old woodblock printing still persisted.
Let’s start with the material hybridity of the books in this exhibit. Although post-Enlightenment wisdom from Europe flooded into Japan in the 1860s, industrialized book production did not move that quickly. Most of the books published in this era, as we see in this collection, were continuously made and bound in the traditional wasō 和裝 format and printed by woodblocks. Many continued to receive the iconic yellow cover from the Edo era, though some of those that were rushed to the market, for example, the news magazines, did not. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, industrialized printing became more widely available to Japanese publishers. Moveable type letterpress hence replaced the woodblocks to become the most prevalent way to print. However, many of the books still preserve the physical appearances one would expect to see in a woodblock, such as the frames that surround the texts and the vertical, right-to-left textual arrangement.
Before metal types became widely available in the late nineteenth century, woodblocks remained the primary way that Japanese books were made. As a versatile and flexible medium, woodblock can reproduce many different types of texts and images. An interesting example in this exhibit is the woodblock reprinted Dutch physics textbook, titled in Japanese Kakuchi mondō 格致問答 (Questions and answers in studies of the physical world). The book was published in the Netherlands by letterpress in 1814. Its Japanese publisher, Mitsukuri Rinshō, however, reproduced it by woodblock using his own handwriting.
FIGURE 1 First page in the main body of Kakuchi mondō
During the majority portion of the Edō era, the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to maintain trade relations with Japan. Although they were physically confined on a small island called Dejima outside of Nagasaki, European knowledge, mediated by the Dutch merchants, penetrated into the Edō intellectual scene. A field called rangaku 蘭学 (Dutch Learning) emerged, but such studies were largely confined to medicine and natural studies. Mitsukuri was appointed by the last Shogun to lead the short-lived Bakufu office/school, Bansho shirabejo 蕃書調所, to study and collect Dutch books. The other Dutch book on the language’s syntax and grammar was also published by Mitsukuri in a similar manner.
Last but not least, this exhibit also includes a field manual for farmers from the Edō period, Seiu benran 晴雨便覧 (A convenient companion of sun and rain), dated to 1767. It includes sophisticated illustrations and diagrams informing farmers how to make decisions on agricultural activities. It was a ground-breaking work not only as a primer for understanding weather conditions but also to teach readers how to predict weather, considering both local geography and meteorological phenomena.[3]
FIGURE 2 Page 5a, vol. 1 in Seiu benran
The Meiji intellectuals’ push to educate the Japanese mass was also reflected in their efforts to establish schools across the country. The literacy/vocabulary primer, Tangō zue 単語図会 (Illustrated vocabulary) was published by one of the earliest normal schools established by the reformist Meiji elite. Its compilers were concerned that the Japanese children lacked an authoritative and systematic source of vocabulary of the new era. The vocabulary introduced in it range from everyday items from clothes to books, natural phenomena to new scientific notions. The book was produced using woodblocks and printed in color.
FIGURE 3 Page 6a in Tangō zue
The anthology Meiji bunhan 明治文範 (Model essays of the Meiji era) was compiled for students in Japan’s emerging normal schools in the early twentieth century. Normal schools themselves were complicated institutions. The student body of a normal school was often made up of teenagers and those in their twenties, and they would be assigned to schools at different levels after graduation. The anthology included in this exhibit was aimed at cultivating a baseline literary capability for the country’s new teachers. The essays included traditional literary poetry, an excerpt of the Meiji constitution, and newspaper articles.
[1] Braisted 1947 report, Faculty-Staff Teaching Staff Personal Faculty Files, Biographical Data, Box/Vol/Ser no(s) 4S 77, UT Department of History Records, University of Texas Archive, Austin, TX. A detailed account of Braisted’s early intellectual journey can be found in William R. Braisted, Diplomats in Blue: U.S. Naval Officers in China, 1922-1933, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009), Preface.
[2] Susan Napier, “The Japanese Collection at the University of Texas,” The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, vol. 27, no.3, 49–51.
[3] Yoko Ogasawara 小笠原洋子, “Edo jidai no hitobito no daiki genshō ni taisuru ninshiki ni tsuite: minyō seiu benran saikō江戸時代の人々の大気現象に対する認識について : 『民用晴雨便覧』再考,” Otya no mizu tiri お茶の水地理, v. 38 (June 1997), 1¬–9.
From the University of Texas at Austin to Yale to Berkeley, Dr. David Montejano, B.A. ‘70, is an award-winning historian and professor whose research has taken him to the East, West, and Gulf coasts – and back again. Now retired from higher education, David has returned to his hometown in San Antonio with his wife, Veronica Montejano, M.A. ‘94. David describes his academic journey as a rollercoaster. “I call it my rollercoaster career,” he explains, “because there’s been ups and downs.”
David enrolled at Texas State University in 1966. Dissatisfied with Texas State’s racially divided campus, David transferred to the University of Texas at Austin a year later to complete his bachelor’s degree with a double major in sociology and political science. He felt that a major in sociology would offer answers to the questions he had growing up as a Tejano in San Antonio. A strike for humane working conditions by migrant workers in Starr County, Texas also triggered his interest in his field of research. David joined them in their protest and took part in a 490-mile march from the Rio Grande Valley to Austin.
After graduating, David pursued a graduate degree in sociology at Yale with the intention to further his interest in Mexican American studies. He started his dissertation on the Chicano movement which he continued to be involved in as a student at UT. Halfway through completing his dissertation, David was offered a job by UC Berkeley.
“Berkeley comes knocking at my door,” he recalls, “but [my] advisor says ‘don’t go, you’re not ready.’” Despite the dissertation committee’s warning not to transfer to Berkeley and miss his deadline, David decided to pack his bags and move to the West Coast. “I told [the committee] ‘I am tired of New England weather,’ and went to talk about the cold and overcast skies of New Haven. ‘I’m going to California. I want to be there.’” He ultimately missed his deadline. Berkeley did not rehire him. David then switched gears and transferred to UC Santa Cruz to successfully complete his dissertation. Santa Cruz then chose not to rehire him.
Frustrated with academia, David returned to San Antonio to pursue additional research and participate in local community organizations, but did not stay in Texas for long. He accepted a position at the University of New Mexico. During his time at UNM, he converted his dissertation into a book, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836- 1986, which earned David the 1988 Frederick Jackson Turner Award. Then came a call from The University of Texas at Austin.
In 1989, David accepted a position as professor of history at UT and then as Director of Mexican American Studies. He then met his to-be wife, Veronica Montejano, who received her MA in Art History from UT. David once again returned to Berkeley (to “vindicate” his original dissertation, he says) and taught for another 20 years. From that dissertation sprung two additional books, Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth Century and Quixote’s Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966–1981.
“I enjoyed teaching,” David jokes, “but once I retired, I retired.” David and Veronica spent a few more years in Berkeley while Veronica taught and served as principal of the Oakland Unified School Districts. Now retired from academia, they’ve officially moved back to San Antonio. But David’s work isn’t done just yet. He has a new job: urban gardening.
“I needed a break from the books,” he says. “We bought a few lots in San Antonio that used to be a baseball field. They were overgrown with ‘trash trees,’ mesquite, and hackberries.” The two have been toiling in the hot Texas sun for over a year to clear the shrubbery in an effort to start an urban garden. While they have some time to go until the plots will be ready, they hope to start planting as soon as possible. Even better, they hope to open a farmer’s market in the future. “But we still have a lot to learn about the land,” Veronica says. The pursuit of learning is never over for these two long-time teachers.
Looking back on his time as a student and teacher at UT, David reflects on the importance of on-campus libraries in his research. “As an undergrad, the library was in the tower,” he explains. “You could roam the stacks and smell the books while you were up there.” He describes the libraries as his essential “go-to place” while writing his dissertation. “Having written three books on Texas, I mean, I couldn’t have done that without the Benson or the Briscoe.” He specifically recalls uncovering records of Tejano activists at the Benson, including the personal papers of Eleuterio Escobar, a Laredo-born civil rights activist who advocated to eliminate educational inequality. These resources were invaluable in conducting his research on Mexican American community organization.
This past year, David and Veronica established the Montejano Benson Collection Research Award to support researchers studying materials housed at the Benson Latin American Collection. Thanks to the Ann Hartness Matching Fund, this gift will be that much more helpful for the visiting scholars undertaking research on Mexican American and Latino history. David has already donated many of his papers to the Benson Collection, further solidifying him as a vital figure in the field.
Information regarding the application for the award will be made available in the future. In the meantime, David’s generous contribution will help support groundbreaking research taking place at the Benson and its constant commitment to preservation, visibility, and inclusivity. “I want others to have the same experience I had at the Benson,” David explains. “Many histories have yet to be told.”
David’s advice to researchers who are pursuing Mexican American studies is to “get in there and be curious.” Veronica laughs in agreement. “One of David’s guilty pleasures is watching those shows about gold miners,” she says. “I think it’s completely analogous to his experience in the archives because he would come home and say, ‘well, I didn’t find gold,’ or ‘I found a nugget today!’” She explains that his work is slow and steady, much like chipping away at rock until uncovering a gem inside.
David concurs that any scholar that is interested in this kind of research should always keep looking for those “nuggets.” The two agree that although research requires perseverance, the reward – gold or insight – is what makes the hard work worthwhile. David wishes to instill this passion in future scholars by passing down the torch of research (or, in this case, the mining pickaxe) to the next generation of learners.
