Collaborative Projects and Endeavors

Interested in starting an oral history program of your own? Looking for a partner to help save the stories in your community?

The Museum Oral History Program works with other state agencies, local historical societies, and other endeavors to collect oral histories in communities throughout southwest New Mexico. Many of these will eventually be available in those communities and through the Museum.

We have in the past and continue to work in several collaborative endeavors:

• Cañada Alamosa Project -- part of a larger Museum collaboration, we are providing ongoing assistance and support to Human Systems Research with interviews of longtime residents near the Cañada Alamosa drainage in the Monticello area. www.humansystemsresearch.org
• NMSU's Public History Program -- an ongoing partnership largely directed at assisting local groups and organizations start oral history programs in their communities through workshops jointly offered by the Museum and the Public History Program. web.nmsu.edu/~publhist
• Taiban Community History Project -- through a grant from the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, a contractor interviewed residents of Taiban, N.M., in support of documentation work regarding locally historic structures.
• Cedarvale Community History Project -- the Oral History Program is working with a local landowner to interview early residents of the now-disappeared Cedarvale community regarding farming and education from the homesteading period of the 1920s to the last days of the local school in the 1950s
• New Mexico Historic Preservation Division -- the Museum and the state Historic Preservation Division are in discussions of how oral history work can be incorporated into HPD projects regarding state and national register properties. www.nmhistoricpreservation.org

Each collaborative project is custom tailored to the needs of your group or organization and the Museum. If you are interested in learning more or working with us on your project, please contact the Oral History Program Director at (575) 522-4100.