A 30-year climatology (1990-2020) of aerosol optical depth and total column water vapor and ozone over Texas

A 30-year time series (4 Feb 1990 to 4 Feb 2020) of aerosol optical depth of the atmosphere (AOD), total precipitable water (TPW) and total column ozone has been conducted in Central Texas using simple, highly stable instruments. All three parameters in this ongoing measurement series exhibited robust annual cycles. They also responded to many atmospheric events, including the historic volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo (1991), a record El Niño (1998), an unprecedented biomass smoke event (1998) and the La Niña that caused the driest drought in recorded Texas history (2011). Reduced air pollution caused mean AOD to decline from 0.175 to 0.14. The AOD trend measured for 30 years by an LED sun photometer, the first of its kind, parallels the trend from 20 years of measurements by a modified Microtops II. While TPW responded to El Niño-Southern Oscillation conditions, TPW exhibited no trend over the 30 years. The TPW data compare favorably with 4.5 years of simultaneous measurements by a nearby NOAA GPS (r2 = 0.78). The 30 years of ozone measurements compare favorably with those from a series of NASA ozone satellites (r2 = 0.78). In 2016, 194 comparisons of Microtops II and world standard ozone instrument Dobson 83 at the Mauna Loa Observatory agreed within 1.9% (r2 = 0.81). The paper concludes by observing that students and citizen scientists can collect scientifically useful atmospheric data with simple sun photometers that use one or more LEDs as spectrally selective photodiodes.

“Cowboys, Indians, Oil & Cattle…Texas History” (Graham, TX): How Texas destinations associate themselves with the state narrative

Several studies in destination marketing literature have shown that use of the “engaging celebrities” or “associating a place with a celebrity” strategy can be successful to market a place. Yet despite the proven effectiveness of this association strategy, there is not enough research into the idea of associating a destination with other kinds of familiar and admired symbols—such as famous brands, heritage, and narratives. The aim of the current study is to expand the theoretical discussion around the association strategy beyond celebrities and to analyze which techniques marketers have used in order to associate their destinations with a state narrative; this includes examining some of the narrative components such as local brands, symbols, values, events, and sites. This topic has not yet been addressed in either tourism marketing academic or professional literature. Because the state of Texas has one of the most familiar narratives, it makes for a good case study in which to examine how marketers use the state narrative to market their destinations. As a methodology, we used quantitative and mainly qualitative content analysis of 666 tourism ads for Texan cities and towns, published in Texas Travel Guides (2008–2018). The findings show seven techniques that marketers used in order to associate their destinations with the narrative. Using the state of Texas as an example may provide a test case for exploring how marketers associate their place with other US state narratives in promotional tourism.

Out-of-Print Books as e-Books: A Collection Analysis

In recent years, archival institutions have begun to digitally archive or preserve the items in their collections. This way, items are more accessible to those wanting to perform research but not necessarily handle the original documents and are not likely to be permanently damaged. One example of a digital preservation project is the one that forms the basis for this paper- the Oklahoma Historical Society's collection of out-of-print historical books that have been made available as e-books. Created over three years ago, this collection contains 22 books about Oklahoma and Texas history. The original publication dates of the books cover the years 1975 to 1986, and the conversion to e-books covers a period of nine years - 2010 to 2019. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the collection of out-of-print books on Oklahoma and Texas history that have recently been made available as e-books by the Oklahoma History Center.