University Library News Release

Date: September 25, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (575) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu

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Rick Hendricks to Discuss Book on New Mexico

Rick Hendricks of the New Mexico State University Library staff will discuss his latest book, New Mexico in 1801: The Priests Report, on October 9 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Museum. The lecture is being held in conjunction with the NMSU Bookstore and admission is free.

Hendricks' book recounts a series of twenty-six reports on the towns and pueblos in the Nuevo Mexico province in 1801. The reports include the current size and condition of the communities, and the priests were asked to suggest crops or industries that might be successfully introduced in New Mexico.

A former editor of the Vargas Project at the University of New Mexico, Rick has worked at the NMSU Library since 1992 on the recently completed Durango Microfilming Project. He has written or collaborated on more than sixteen books and seventy articles on the Spanish colonial period in the American Southwest and Mexico. He is currently writing a biography of a Spanish priest who served in the New Mexico-Mexico border region in the late nineteenth century.

For more information, contact the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum at (575) 522-4100 or the NMSU Bookstore at (575) 646-4431.

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