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The University of New Mexico

NEWS RELEASE



Media Contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627
kwent2@unm.edu

March 1, 2007

UNM Libraries Bring History to Your Computer  

Where do you go when you want to learn what Adolph Bandelier thought and saw as he discovered the Native American ruins south of Los Alamos? It happens to be the Frey Angélico Chávez History Library at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, but there has been no easy way to tell the general public that’s where Bandelier’s journals are kept or what information about him might be available in other libraries in other states. Now information that has been stacked in basement storage rooms throughout the West is slowly being brought together.

The Rocky Mountain Online Archive, which University Libraries put online today, is unlocking history for students and researchers interested in the history of Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.

So far twenty-one libraries in the three states are participating. They are all placing detailed lists of their holdings, and in some cases, actual digital images of photographs and manuscripts online. The project is being coordinated and the web hosting done by University Libraries at the University of New Mexico.

Where can you discover just about anything about the life of “Buffalo” Bill Cody? http://rmoa.unm.edu/ can give you a list of libraries in the three states and the kinds of information they are keeping on one of the most colorful western characters of the early 20 th century. Information that would once have taken scholars months of patient detective work to locate is now available after a half hour on the computer.

“This will allow scholars to make comparisons about big issues like water or land use that previously would have been nearly impossible,” says Mike Kelly, Director of the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico. “It draws together information that has literally been scattered in libraries throughout the West.”

The Rocky Mountain Online Archive now holds the finding aids, which are detailed descriptions of the holdings in more than two thousand collections. It isn’t the West at your fingertips yet, but it is a satisfying glimpse of the future of research online.

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The University of New Mexico is the state's largest university, serving more than 32,000 students. UNM is home to the state's only schools of law, medicine, pharmacy and architecture and operates New Mexico's only academic health center. UNM is noted for comprehensive undergraduate programs and research that benefits the state and the nation.

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