Durango Microfilming Project Receives $14,000 Award
Date: 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (575) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
The Rio Grande Historical Collections of the NMSU Library has been awarded $14,000 by the U.S.-
Mexico Fund for Culture for the preparation of a finding aid to improve researcher access to the Durango
Microfilm.
The microfilm of historical ecclesiastical documents from the collection of the Archivos Históricos del
Arzobispado de Durango, Mexico, is a valuable primary source of borderland history from the early 17th to
early 20th centuries, as revealed from the point of view of the most literate men in the area, the priests,
prelates and bishops of the Catholic Church.
According to project director Austin Hoover, a finding aid is “vital to providing the necessary access
demanded of in-depth historical investigation.”
The funding will provide a paleographer qualified to decipher the historical Spanish in which the documents
are written and to complete the finding aid. Hoover will disseminate information on the completed finding
aid at binational conferences and on the Internet.
The U.S.-Mexico Fund for Culture is a joint initiative of Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and the Arts,
the Bancomer Cultural Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. It supports cultural exchange and
collaboration between Mexico and the United States.
Since 1992, the NMSU Library has collaborated with the Archivos Históricos del Arzobispado de
Durango, Mexico, on the Durango Microfilming Project. In addition to funding from the U.S.-Mexico Fund
for Culture, the project has received funding from the state of New Mexico, the Homeland Foundation, the
Burkitt Foundation, and private donations.
For more information, please contact Austin Hoover, director of the Rio Grande Historical Collections, at
646-4727.
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