News Releases

CDP@BCR and Libraries Launch Rocky Mountain Online Archive

AURORA, COLO, JULY 3, 2007 — CDP@BCR, University of New Mexico Libraries and the University of Wyoming have partnered to launch a new regional resource — Rocky Mountain Online Archive. This extensive source of digitized information describes more than 2,000 archival and special collections from cultural institutions in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

CDP@BCR, formerly the Collaborative Digitization Program, which in April merged into the Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR), is nationally recognized for its digitization expertise, including training and best practices guidelines. For the Rocky Mountain Online Archive project, the Collaborative Digitization Program, then hosted at the University of Denver, provided training for regional partners in digital imaging and metadata capture and acted as the resource for EAD creation and project management for all nine Colorado libraries.

The Rocky Mountain Online Archives' specialized guides, called finding aids, give detailed descriptions of the unique primary source materials located at 20 different repositories from the three-state area. Students and scholars can begin their research any number of ways. In addition to browsing by state, users can easily begin exploring the Rocky Mountain Online Archive by subject area. Within minutes of accessing the site, users can find descriptions of collections related to architecture, frontier and pioneer life, land grant and water rights, wildlife conservation and more. Now that these materials are online, the regional research potential of these collections has truly been enhanced.

Thanks to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, University of New Mexico Center for Regional Studies, and the University of New Mexico Libraries, the Rocky Mountain Online Archive is now available to the public at rmoa.unm.edu/.

Contact Leigh A. Grinstead, CDP@BCR program coordinator, (lgrinste@bcr.org) for more information.

The Bibliographical Center for Research (BCR) is a nonprofit, multistate library cooperative that has served the library community since its founding in 1935, providing cost-effective library and information services. Today BCR (www.bcr.org/) serves libraries in 42 states, Canada and Guam, many through statewide agreements with state library agencies in 11 western states making all libraries in those states BCR member institutions.