University Library News Release
Date: March 12, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (505) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
Regional Online Archival Resource Announced
The New Mexico State University Library announces a new regional archival resource. More than two thousand archival and special collections from libraries, archives and cultural institutions in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming are described in The Rocky Mountain Online Archive. Specialized guides, known as finding aids, provide detailed descriptions of unique primary source materials located at twenty different repositories in the three-state area. The Archive is available to the public at http://rmoa.unm.edu.
Now that these materials are online, the regional research potential of these collections has truly been enhanced. The Rocky Mountain Online Archive is the result of the NMSU Library's collaboration with project partners including the University of New Mexico Libraries, Colorado's Collaborative Digitization Project and the University of Wyoming.
Students and scholars can begin their research any number of ways. In addition to browsing by state, users can begin exploring the Rocky Mountain Online Archive by subject area. Within minutes, users can find descriptions of collections related to architecture, frontier and pioneer life, land grant and water rights, wildlife conservation and more.
The New Mexico State University Library is active in creating additional venues through which its collections can be accessed electronically. As a result of its collaboration with the University of New Mexico Libraries, the NMSU Library can offer greater access to its collections, making them available to a wider range of scholars, researchers, students, faculty and the community at large. Finding aids for collections of unpublished materials relating to water resources, farming and ranching, women in the West and much more local and regional history may be viewed.
In addition to the descriptive finding aids created for this project, three institutions in New Mexico have created new digital collections. Those collections, along with many others from Colorado and Wyoming, can be accessed via the Collaborative Digitization Program's Heritage West at http://cdpheritage.org and Digital Collections hosted by the University of New Mexico Libraries at http://econtent.unm.edu.
The Rocky Mountain Online Archive was made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of New Mexico Center for Regional Studies and the University of New Mexico Libraries. For more information, please contact the NMSU Library's Archives and Special Collections Department at (505) 646-3839.
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