University Library News Release
Date: October 6, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (505) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
NMSU Library Homecoming Festivities Announced
The NMSU Library announces that a talk by Mexican scholars and two new exhibits of historical photos are scheduled as part of NMSU Homecoming festivities. The event will be held at 3 p.m. on Friday, October 20, in the Milton Gallery on the fourth floor of Branson Library. The talk and exhibits are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
Three visiting professors from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez will present the results of their research in the Library's Archives and Special Collections on southwest and border humanities topics. The scholars are award recipients of the Library's Visiting Mexican Scholar Award program. The program, organized by librarian Molly Molloy, was funded by a grant from NMSU's Southwest and Border Cultures Institute.
The scholars and their research topics are: Consuelo Pequeño Rodriguez, Professor of History, "Intimidad y afecto entre las Amador: el papel de la correspondencia, 1863-1907: Intimacy and affection between the women of the Amador family as expressed in their correspondence, 1863-1907."
Susana Báez Ayala, Professor of Literature, "El Río Grande/Río Bravo en el imaginario literario de los escritores de la frontera norte: The Rio Grande in the literary imagination of border writers Ricardo Aguilar Melantzon, Rosario Sanmiguel, José Manuel Garcia, and others."
Cutberto Arzate Soltero, Professor of Linguistics, "Un acercamiento al léxico del español colonial del siglo XVI y XVII en la region de Paso del Norte (hoy Ciudad Juárez): An approach to the lexicon of colonial Spanish of the Paso del Norte Region as expressed in the 16th and 17th Century documents in the Archivos Históricos del Arzobispado de Durango."
Following the talk, two new exhibitions of photographs from the Library's Hobson-Huntsinger University Archives and the Rio Grande Historical Collections will open at 4 p.m. in the Milton Gallery. "The Photographs of Professor Arthur Goss" features the photographs of a NMSU chemistry professor during the 1890s. Goss had a keen eye for capturing the flavor of life in Las Cruces, on area ranches, on the Mescalero Apache Reservation and along the border.
The exhibit "Flood and Drought" contrasts photos of flood and drought conditions in New Mexico. The "Flood" portion features photographs by Las Cruces photographers Jim Rives and Herbert W. Yeo, both of whom documented the historic flood of August 29 and 30, 1935, and the devastation wrought in its aftermath. Rives operated a studio in Las Cruces in the 1930s and 40s, and photographed many area scenes and people. Yeo moved to Las Cruces in 1908, and was employed as an associate agricultural engineer for the Soil Conservation Service. He called the 1935 flood "the greatest precipitation of record within a twelve-hour period in New Mexico."
The "Drought" portion of the exhibit features photos taken on the Jornada Experimental Range, showing nature in a vastly different mood. The exhibits, curated by Archives staff members Martha Andrews and Dennis Daily, may be viewed throughout NMSU's Fall Semester. For more information on the talk by the Mexican scholars, please call Molly Molloy at (505) 646-6931. For more information on the two photo exhibits, please contact the Library's Archives staff at (505) 646-3839.
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