History and culture in the digital age

SANTA FE -- I recently had a chance to sit down with University of New Mexico Law School Professor Laura Gomez and Dr. Estevan Rael-Galvez, the New Mexico State Historian. Gomez’s new book, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race, was one point of discussion during the wide-ranging interview. We also discussed New Mexico’s rich history as well as how racial and ethnic tensions play out here. The video comes from KNME’s New Mexico In Focus program, which I co-host.

One point we didn’t have time to talk about is Dr. Rael-Galvez’s Digital History Project, an impressive endeavor he leads through the Office of the State Historian. The ambitious, multi-media project encompasses 19 categories of people, an index of stories taken from a dozen virtual books, information on places broken down into categories such as counties and land grants, in addition to a time chronology that spans an entire millennium of New Mexico history.

In an email to the Independent, Dr. Rael-Galvez wrote the following about where the project currently stands—and what remains to be done:

The N.M. Digital History Project is a project in process and will probably remain so for many years. It will never be complete because of the goal I have in mind. I would like to see everything related to New Mexico history and culture, past and contemporary digitized and uploaded to the site. Because this goal is a large one to say the least, and because history is living and happening every day, this will be in process perhaps forever. Every day, there are new essays, new images, new documents, new everything that is added. Some new design interfaces will probably be up by July. This said, it is up and running and sits like a building that is being built in public view. Already, we probably have hundreds of essays and images and everything in and it is already starting to be used by many teachers, researchers and enthusiasts everywhere.

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