NEWS ARCHIVE
In my English 111 H class, we have been working with Theresa Westbrock to focus on news. An unexpected boon is that Theresa specializes in news and LOVES old news. In one meeting, she showed me this really cool database that we have complete access to through the library's website, News Archives. This database goes back to 1700 and the oldest paper for NM I could find was 1856. Impressive. I did a quick search for Billy the Kid and asked for it to show me news from only ten years before his death in 1881 and a few years after. The results were awesome! Not only does it show you a timeline when newspapers published articles with the phrase "Billy the Kid" in them, but it gives you little summaries from the actual articles. When you click on the link, it shows you an actual copy of the original newspaper article with the key words highlighted for you! Like I said, AWESOME. At the top of the page, you can click the "Browse" tab which will let you search for what papers are available in specific states/regions. You can search by someone's name, by text in the actual articles, etc.
To get there, go to the NMSU Library Article Index and scroll down to "News Archive" then click on "Go There". Enjoy!
The NMSU Library website has some other interesting links that might be useful to us:
Rio Grande Historical Collections acquires, preserves, and makes available for research; records of organizations, personal papers, and other unpublished materials which document the cultural heritage and history of New Mexico and the Southwestern experience.
These are all located in Branson Library.
Archives Photographic Collections
The Rio Grande Historical Collections houses more than 500,000 items in its photographic collections, with materials that cover almost 150 years of image making in New Mexico and the Southwest and pertain to all aspects of the state’s cultural heritage.
Oh--and from what I was told, it is an independent company of people who got together and did this. They took it upon themselves to collect every possible newspaper they could find, scan them all in, and make them all searchable as electronic text. They are currently my research heroes.
ReplyDeleteunbelievable. research studs!
ReplyDelete