Museum produces new edition of oral history catalog; Any state resident can recieve a free CD copy
Who: New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
What: New Oral History Catalog Edition
When: Available Now
Where: New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum
Contact: (575) 522-4100
Museum produces new edition of oral history catalog; Any state resident can recieve a free CD copy
The treasured voices of our ancestors are an important resource when it comes to New Mexico history, and the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum has completed a year-long project that will make discovering those voices easier.
The Oral History Program at the museum in Las Cruces announces the publication of the third edition of the Oral History Collections Catalog for New Mexico. The 264-page publication lists all of the particulars for close to 10,000 archived interviews from around the state. Each entry lists the name of the person interviewed, the location the oral history is stored, description of the interview, the geographical coverage, the date range, the name of the interviewer, the format (cassette, reel-to-reel, video, etc.), availability, and research aids.
Through a grant from the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board, the museum is able to provide each library, museum and historical society in the state with a digital copy of the catalog. Also, any New Mexico resident who would like a free copy of the CD version should contact the museum at (575) 522-4100.
“It is our hope that the Oral History Collections Catalog will prompt the additional use of existing interviews or the undertaking of new oral history projects as we approach the centennial of New Mexico statehood in 2012,” said Cameron Saffell, the museum’s curator of history and oral history program director.
The catalog, first published by the New Mexico Heritage Center at NMSU, was last updated in 1994 and included only 96 pages. The new edition expands the institutional descriptions to now include specific collections at each institution. Also included in this edition is a name index featuring more than 6,100, and the inclusion of several collections of New Mexico-related oral histories from repositories outside the state.
The publication of the catalog coincides with the roll-out of the museum’s new Oral History Program website at http://oralhistory.frhm.org. The website includes information on all of the museum’s interviews as well as links to interview questionnaires and materials on how the program is operated. The catalog also is available through the website.