Quipu
A NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY THE
NEW MEXICO STATE RECORDS CENTER AND ARCHIVES
1205 Camino Carlos Rey, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507
(505) 476-7900 FAX (505) 476-7901
October 2002
In This Issue
Farewell to SRCA Director Elaine Olah
Welcome new SRCA Director Sandra Jaramillo
NMHRAB - A New Generation
New Mexico Archives Week 2002
2002 Humanities Forum Series
Linking to NMAC web site
Five Outstanding Patrons Honored
Magnetic Storage Devices
Contributing Writers
Tom Chavarria is the Electronic Records
Bureau Chief. He attended California State
University in Sacramento and has worked
with the State Records Center and Archives
for more than three years.
Erica Garcia graduated from the
University of New Mexico, where she
received a B.A. degree in Latin American
Studies and Spanish. She is the
Administrator for the New Mexico Historical
Records Advisory Board.
Brian Graney is a Senior Archivist in the
Archives and Historical Services Division.
He studied at St. John's College in Santa Fe
and
at
George
Eastman
House
International Museum of Photography and
Motion Pictures in Rochester, New York.
Felicia Lujan is a native of Santa Fe and
an Archivist with the Archives and
Historical Studies Division. She is also a
contributing writer to Round the Round
House and the Santa Fe New Mexican. Ms.
Lujan has been with the agency for two
years.
John Martinez, a native of Salt Lake City,
earned a B.A. in History from Brigham
Young University and an M.A. in United
States History with a focus on the
Southwest from the University of Texas at
Volume 7.3
Austin. He is the Director
Administrative Law Division.
of
the
Kathy Mattison received an associate’s
degree in accounting from the University of
New Mexico. She previously worked in the
banking industry and has been an an
administrative
assistant
with
the
Commission of Public Records for nearly a
year.
Estevan Rael-Galvez, Ph.D., is
employed in the Archives and Historical
Services Division as the New Mexico State
Historian. He obtained his B.A. from the
University of California at Berkeley and
received his master’s degree and Ph.D in
American Cultures from the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The Journey Begins
By Kathy Mattison
Elaine Olah, State Records Administrator
(Director of the State Records Center and
Archives) will be retiring effective
November 1. When I talked recently with
her, I asked her to share some of her feelings about ending a distinguished 25-year
career.
The whole concept of embarking on a new
journey is very exciting to her. During our
talk, she reflected on past experiences,
such as beginning her work at Northern
New Mexico Rehab. She worked as a
bookkeeper, thinking that her future would
be planned on a day-to-day basis. She was
raising a child with another one on the
way, and her degree was “on hold.” Now,
Ms. Olah is finishing a 25-year career that
has allowed her to best many challenges.
She has had the chance to contribute
greatly to her community, to obtain her
MBA, and to watch her grandchildren grow.
"The wonderful moments of this journey
were well worth the adventure," she said.
Ms. Olah has been with the State Records
Center and Archives for eight years and
feels that these years have been the best
in her career. She has demonstrated great
business sense and good leadership. She
has contributed skills, strategies, and
attributes that have defined her as an outstanding leader. With a clear mission for
guiding SRCA employees, Ms. Olah has
sought to infuse in everyone a sense of the
importance of the job at hand. She has
encouraged learning and dispelled fears
and uncertainty. Recognizing that each of
her employees has individual goals, she
has supported them in their personal and
professional advancement.
Ms. Olah has made many lasting contributions to the agency as its Director, and she
will be sincerely missed. Her employees
wish her heartfelt regards for the future.
Borrowing a quotation, Ms. Olah once
reflected, “It’s not the destination… it’s the
journey."
New State Records Administrator
On September 25, the Commission of
Public Records, following a national search,
selected Ms. Sandra Jaramillo to succeed
Ms. Elaine Olah as State Records
Administrator [Director of the New Mexico
State Records Center and Archives
(SRCA)]. As noted in the preceding article,
Ms. Olah is retiring, effective November 1.
Ms. Jaramillo, originally from Taos County,
is presently the Director of the Archives
and Historical Services Division of the
SRCA. She joined the agency in 1989 as
an archivist and was promoted to Division
Director in 1995. Ms. Jaramillo holds a
Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in
History, from the University of New Mexico.
She became a Certified Archivist in 1992
and is a member of the Academy of
Certified Archivists. She has conducted
extensive research on cross-cultural marriages between New Mexican women and
French and American traders during the
period 1800 to 1846.
Quipu / Volume 7.3 / October 2002
2
Ms. Jaramillo has also served on numerous
boards and commissions promoting the
advancement and preservation of New
Mexico’s history and culture. Most recently she was a consultant for Pleasant
Company and the American Girl Series
publication of Meet Josefina.
According to Ms. Jaramillo, one of the
greatest challenges facing the SRCA and,
indeed, all State agencies, as well as the
archival and records management professions in general, is the identification and
effective management of electronic
records. Ms. Jaramillo noted that electronic records are no different than paper
records or records in other media such as
microfilm. She commented, “Like other
records, electronic records document the
rights of citizens, the actions of governmental officials, and the history of our
state, and they must be managed effectively if they are to be preserved for future
generations.”
NMHRAB - A New Generation
By Erica Garcia
The year 2002 has been called the year of
change, and the New Mexico Historical
Records Advisory Board (NMHRAB) has
undergone tremendous change this fiscal
year. The Board has bid goodbye to some
of its most dedicated and hardworking
members, adjusted its granting cycle, and
made additions to its scholarship program.
Board members Michael Olsen of Las
Vegas and Elvis Fleming of Roswell retired
during the past year. As of the last regular
Board meeting, appointments had expired
for long-term NMHRAB members Robert
Johnson of Albuquerque and Patrick
Beckett of Las Cruces. Also, NMHRAB
Chairperson and Director of the New
Mexico Commission of Public Records,
Elaine Olah, announced her retirement,
effective November 1, 2002.
With a pending change of leadership and
only two current Board members,
Governor Johnson was asked by the Board
to appoint replacements, selected from a
statewide list of potential candidates. As a
result, the Board welcomed five new members at its September 30th meeting. They
are: Shirley Clark, City Clerk from Las
Cruces; Geoffery I. Brown, Director of the
Navajo Nation Museum, from Jamestown;
Carlos Vasquez, Director of Literary Arts
and Culture for the Hispanic Cultural
Center, from Albuquerque; Jolane Culhane,
Ph.D., an Associate Professor of History at
Western New Mexico University in Silver
City; and Seth MacFarlane, Librarian and
Curator of Philmont-Seaton Museum, from
Cimarron. These new members have
demonstrated in their own fields the same
kind of drive and determination that have
made the NMHRAB one of the state's leading advocates for preservation of, and
access to, New Mexico’s historical documents. The two continuing Board members
are Tessie Naranjo, Ph.D., Cultural
Consultant, from Santa Clara Pueblo, and
re-appointed member Lisa Johnston,
Assistant City Clerk from Artesia.
The NMHRAB has changed its grant cycle,
allowing better utilization of funds within
the fiscal year. In the past, the call for
grant proposals took place in November
and funds were awarded in March - late in
the State's fiscal year. Now, the call for proposals is issued in June, with a deadline of
September 1 for submittal of proposals.
This year the newly appointed Board met
to award grants on September 30, 2002.
The adjusted grant cycle will allow the
Board to manage limited funds more
effectively to best help New Mexico’s
repositories care for the documents and
records in their charge. The change also
means there are two concurrent NMHRAB
grant cycles in this calendar year.
There are two new additions to the
NMHRAB's scholarship program -- two
scholarships for in-depth records management and archival training are now available to eligible applicants. One scholarship
is for the 2003 NAGARA Conference and
the other is for the Western Archives
Institute, to be held in Arizona in 2003.
The call for scholarship applications went
out September 1, 2002, with an October 1,
2002 deadline. For more information on
the NMHRAB Grant and Scholarship
Programs,
please
contact
Grant
Administrator Erica Garcia at (505) 4767936.
New Mexico Archives Week 2002:
One Family, One Community
By Brian Graney
From October 6 through October 12, the
New Mexico Commission of Public Records
and the New Mexico Historical Records
Advisory Board will lead archival organizations throughout the state in celebrating
New Mexico Archives Week 2002. In his
proclamation of Archives Week, Governor
Gary Johnson champions archival institutions as “instrumental in collecting, organizing and preserving historical materials
that document the history of the State of
New Mexico and its people,” ensuring and
providing access to information which is
“crucial for understanding the past and for
providing guidance for the future.”
NMSRCA, Abercrombie Family Photograph Collection,
Image #35238
Since 1959, when the newly-adopted
Public Records Act created the Commission
of Public Records and charged it with
establishing a Records Center in Santa Fe,
the agency and its staff have worked to
protect and preserve New Mexico's public
records.
The Archives and Historical
Services Division, the central repository for
New Mexico's permanent records, has also
developed its private collections, including
historical manuscripts, family papers, still
and moving images, genealogical materials, and other resources fostering a deeper and more inclusive understanding of
New Mexico history.
In its collection activities, public programs,
and ongoing services, the Commission of
Public Records and its Archives and
Historical Services Division have remained
committed in their service to the people of
New Mexico through efforts to instill in the
present community a sense of the vitality
of its past. This year’s Archives Week program, One Family, One Community, continues this commitment with a series of
events and activities honoring the vibrant
history of family and community in New
Mexico.
Monday, October 7, 4:00 pm to 6:00
pm: Archives Week will begin with the
festivities of the Opening Reception.
The Commission will host guests of honor
from the Santa Fe Living Treasures program. Begun in 1984 by Mary Lou Cook
(who was declared a Living Treasure in
1989), this program has bestowed special
distinction upon our community’s beloved
elders, those who share the legacy of New
Mexico through their inspiration, hope,
heart, and wisdom. Following the presentation of Governor Johnson’s proclamation,
Quipu / Volume 7.3 / October 2002
the Commission and its guests will enjoy
an afternoon’s entertainment courtesy of
the Children’s Dance and Guitar Program of
the María Benítez Institute for Spanish
Arts. The Institute for Spanish Arts was
founded by internationally acclaimed flamenco dancer María Benítez and her husband, Cecilio, to preserve, strengthen, and
disseminate the artistic heritage of Spain
and Hispanic people. Exhibits from several New Mexico historical repositories that
have received support through the New
Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board’s
grant program will be on display in the
reception area.
Tuesday, October 8, 4:00 pm to 6:00
pm: In the Research Room of the New
Mexico State Records Center and Archives,
patrons, both academic and avocational,
increasingly cross paths over the course of
their work, often mining the same collections and sharing their research and findings. In Documenting Family History,
patrons Henrietta Christmas, José
Esquibel, Emma Rojo, and Susanne
Stamatov will come together to discuss
their research at the State Archives. For
more information about this session,
please see Archivist Felicia Lujan’s article in
this issue.
Wednesday, October 9, 4:00 pm to
6:00 pm: The rewards of introducing
New Mexico’s students to the wealth of
archival primary source materials will be
presented in History in the Classroom.
Archives Bureau Chief Daphne ArnaizDeLeon will highlight the value of archival
records beyond the history class, showing
how these might be integrated more fully
into a modern interdisciplinary curriculum.
Ms. Arnaiz-DeLeon will focus her presentation around the reintroduction into the
New Mexico wilderness of the Mexican
Gray Wolf. Through the 1891-1916 Wild
Animal Bounties recorded with the Eddy
County Clerk and now held within the
Archives’ Eddy County, N.M. Records, she
will explore how threads of this contemporary environmental issue are woven deep
into the social fabric of Eddy County’s communities. She also will be joined by school
instructors, including Kermit Hill of the
Academy of Math and Sciences, to discuss
their classroom work with primary source
records from the Archives.
Thursday, October 10, 5:30 pm to
6:30 pm: The Archives and Historical
Services Division is proud to welcome back
as guest speaker the former State
Historian, Robert J. Torrez. Mr. Torrez, who
held the position of State Historian from
1987 until his retirement in December
2000, will have occasion to reminisce on
familiar ground during his presentation,
Personal Adventures through the
State Archives.
Friday, October 11, 7:30 pm to 9:00
pm: Since 1969, the New Mexico State
Records Center and Archives has remained
dedicated to acquiring, preserving, and
making accessible the unique cinematic
heritage of our region. The result is the
Historic Film Collection, encompassing
everything from the works of silent film
pioneers to the intimate records of family
filmmakers. The agency and the College of
Santa Fe will present New Mexico Movie
Makers, an evening of films from the
Collection. Three of these films, Fermor
Church’s and Ashley Pond III’s Los Alamos
Ranch School and Summer Camp (19291930), Virginia Adams’ San Ildefonso-Buffalo and Cloud Dances (1929), and
Hubert Loy’s Dawson, New Mexico (19371938), have received support for their
preservation through the National Film
Preservation Foundation, which has
deemed them of enduring national significance.
The fourth film, Moctesuma
Esparza’s Agueda Martinez: Our People,
Our Country (1977), was a 1978 nominee
3
Historical Services Division Director (newlyappointed State Records Administrator)
Sandra Jaramillo will be available to situate
your historical documents within the
broader context of New Mexico history.
Also held on this day will be Genealogy
Saturday. Since November 1998, the
second Saturday of each month has been
a forum for José Antonio Esquibel and the
Northern New Mexico Genealogy Group to
share and assist each other in uncovering
family histories in an informal and convivial
environment. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, Genealogy Saturdays are
being temporarily suspended (see: Notice,
page 6). October 12 will be the last session until further notice.
With the exception of Friday’s screening,
all events will be held at the New Mexico
State Library, Archives and Records Center
Building, 1209 Camino Carlos Rey, Santa
Fe. Friday’s screening will be held at The
Screen at the College of Santa Fe, 1600 St.
Michael’s Drive, Santa Fe. For more information, please call 505-476-7948.
State Historian Begins
2002 Humanities Forum Series
By Estévan Rael-Gálvez, Ph.D.
Dr. Estévan Rael-Gálvez, New Mexico’s
State Historian, presented the first of his
2002-2003
Humanities
Forums:
Perspectives in New Mexico History and
Culture, Pueblo Indian History and Culture
on September 24, 2002 at the Museum of
Indian Arts and Culture.
NMSRCA, Frank McNitt Photograph Collection,
Image #5769
for the Academy Award
Documentary, Short Subject.
for
Best
Saturday, October 12, 10:00 am to
2:00 pm: As Archives Week 2002 comes
to a close, the Commission invites you to
share your history by bringing your family
Preserving
Family
treasures
to
Documents. Senior Archivist Valerie Nye
and Jo Anne Martinez-Kilgore of Cariño
Conservation of Books and Paper will be on
hand to advise you on storing your family
documents, photographs, scrapbooks, and
books to be preserved for generations to
come. Bart Durham of De La Peña Books
will offer monetary appraisal of historic
books and documents. State Historian Dr.
Estévan Rael-Gálvez and Archives and
The first in a series of forums, Dr. RaelGalvez’s presentation emphasized Pueblo
Indian history and addressed several
underlying questions. How does the understanding of New Mexico’s history shift
when Pueblo Indian culture and experience
become the primary focus? Beyond the
simple accounts that persist to this day, is
there more to an understanding of conquest and colonization? Does the shift
from Spanish control to the Mexican
Republic and to American control mean the
same for the Pueblos as it does other New
Mexican communities? These and other
questions were addressed at this forum as
Dr. Rael-Gálvez and a panel of distinguished guests examined the various
moments and events that constitute New
Mexican history.
An in-depth lecture and panel discussion
with invited guests followed a viewing of
the award-winning documentary film,
Surviving Columbus: The Story of the
Pueblo People. Panelists for the Pueblo
Indian History and Culture forum included
Quipu / Volume 7.3 / October 2002
4
Dr. Beverly Singer, Tewa/Diné, Santa Clara
Pueblo, Director of the Alfonso Ortiz Center
at the University of New Mexico; Mr. Joe
Sando, Jemez Pueblo, Historian and
Educator; Mr. Petuuche Gilbert, Acoma
Pueblo, Councilman and Historian; and Mr.
Tony Chavarria, Santa Clara Pueblo,
Curator of the Museum of Indian Arts and
Culture.
According to Dr. Rael-Gálvez, the
Humanities Forums—Perspectives in New
Mexico History and Culture— are intended
to accentuate the complex depth of New
Mexico’s history by focusing on various
subjects that are often left out of general
discussions.
“It is about perspective,
about place and people, about how history
is represented, and how it is remembered.
Even more importantly, it is about the
human condition...how the persistence of
tradition and culture is a long story, and
how in that telling, what is revealed is how
various cultures are connected to one
another,” said Dr. Rael-Gálvez. The
Humanities Forums are intended to foster
these discussions with the public, where
New Mexico’s history may eventually be
understood as a contest of stories.
Future forums will examine Hispanic
History and Culture, New Mexico Women’s
History, Navajo Indian History, Labor
History, the History of New Mexico Land
Grants, and Immigration History. The presentations are open to the public. The
next forums in the series are tentatively
scheduled to take place in Las Cruces
(November) and Gallup (March). These
two forums will forefront Hispanic and
Navajo history and culture respectively.
For more information on the Humanities
Forums, please call (505) 476-7948.
Linking to the NMAC Web Site
By John H. Martinez
For about a year, the Commission of Public
Records (CPR) has produced the New
Mexico Administrative Code (NMAC) online. The NMAC is the compilation of current rules issued by State agencies and can
be accessed through the Commission's
web page. It is available to all and free of
charge.
Over the last few months, the CPR has
received questions about the ability of linking to the NMAC web site. Most of those
questions asked if there were any restrictions that limit web designers from linking
directly from their web pages to the NMAC
site. The CPR does not have linking
restrictions to the NMAC; in fact, it encour-
ages linking. The NMAC web site was
designed so that others can link to whatever level of the NMAC site works best for
them. For example, one can link to the
front page; to the list of the 22 titles; or to
an individual title, chapter, or part. Below
are samples of the linking.
[email protected] for more detailed
information on linking to the NMAC site.
For the front page:
http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/nmac
On October 8, 2002, the New Mexico
Commission of Public Records will honor
five outstanding patrons and their research
in State Archival collections. This event will
be held from 4:00 pm-6:00 pm and will
feature presentations from all five patrons
as part of Archives Week 2002, which is
devoted to family and community histories.
The patrons to be be honored during this
special Patron Appreciation Day include
Henrietta Martinez-Christmas, Suzanne
Stamatov, José Antonio Esquibel, Emma
Rojo, and Joanne Legits.
For the list of 22 titles:
http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/nmac/
_titles.htm
For an individual title (Title 1 in this case):
http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/nmac/_title
01/title01.htm
For an individual chapter (Title 1, Chapter
24 in this case):
http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/nmac/title0
1/T01C024.htm
For an individual part - the level where the
rule text resides - there are two copies of
the rule text in different formats, an html
version and a pdf version. As an example,
for Title 1, Chapter 24, Part 10, the
addresses are below.
html version:
http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/nmac/parts
/title01/01.024.0010.htm
pdf version:
http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us/nmac/parts
/title01/01.024.0010.pdf
The CPR requests that web designers
clearly state they are linking to the NMAC
web site so readers will know they are
leaving one site for another.
The NMAC site is updated once a month,
when the new rules, amendments, and
repeals that went into effect the previous
month are added to the web site. The CPR
retains the same web addresses for the
titles, chapters, and parts so that links to
the web site will work even after rules are
amended. That means web designers who
link to the NMAC website will not have to
worry about updating their site with each
amendment.
The CPR hopes web designers, especially
those with State agencies that have rules
in the NMAC, will learn about this convenient service and link directly to the NMAC
web site. A number of agencies already
have done so and seem to find that it is
easier for them to disseminate their regulations. Contact the Administrative Law
Division
at
505-476-7941
or
Five Outstanding Patrons to be
Honored During Archives Week 2002
By Felicia Lujan
Henrietta M. Christmas is a native New
Mexican, currently residing in Boulder,
Colorado. She has done Hispanic
genealogical work for 18 years. Ms.
Christmas is the current President of the
National Society of Hispanic Genealogy and
is a member of several other Hispanic
genealogy organizations. Her research
interest is the history of Northern New
Mexico from 1598 until the present. She
is a graduate of New Mexico State
University, with a major in Spanish language and an emphasis in Latin American
Studies. She is the author of four books on
her family genealogy and maintains a web
page (http://www.trementina.com) documenting her research. Ms. Christmas’ presentation is titled Trementina Then and
Now and focuses on the history of
Trementina. Ms. Christmas makes presentations on early Colonial Southwest genealogy and also contributes regularly to a
variety of genealogical journals. In her
spare time, she enjoys the genealogical
hobby of visiting cemeteries and extracting
headstone information for use in research.
Suzanne Stamatov has a B.A. degree
from John Hopkins University in Baltimore,
Maryland. She also received an M.A.
degree from the University of New Mexico
(UNM) and is currently a Ph.D. candidate
at UNM with a focus in Latin American
History. She expects to finish the work
toward her Ph.D. in the near future. Her
dissertation is titled Families and
Community in Colonial New Mexico, 16941800. Her presentation for Archives Week,
titled Kissing Cousins: Love, Poverty, and
‘Igualdad’ in Colonial New Mexico, will concentrate on marriage between cousins in
colonial New Mexico. Ms. Stamatov has utilized several collections from the New
Quipu / Volume 7.3 / October 2002
Mexico State Archives in her five years of
research with the facility.
José Antonio Esquibel is a genealogical
researcher who has written more than
sixty articles related to Spanish Colonial
genealogy and history. His research focuses on the Spanish and colonial history and
genealogy of New Mexico. He is co-author
of The Spanish Recolonization of New
Mexico: An Account of the Families
Recruited
in
Mexico
City,
1693
(Albuquerque, 1999), which records the
history and genealogy of fifty-six families
that came from Mexico City to Santa Fe in
1694. He is also co-author of The Royal
Road: El Camino Real from Mexico City to
Santa Fe (University of New Mexico Press,
1998). Mr. Esquibel has contributed to
three anthologies on New Mexico history
and has been a research consultant on
UNM's Vargas Project and El Camino Real
Project. Currently, he is working on collaborative history projects with Marc
Simmons, Albert J. Gallegos, and Santero
Charlie Carillo. He maintains a web site
called Beyond Origins of New Mexico
Families (http://pages.prodigy.net/bluemountain1/ beyondorigins.htm). The site is
committed to making new genealogical
information about New Mexican colonial
families available. Mr. Esquibel lives in
Santa Fe and is employed by the New
Mexico Department of Health. He serves as
Chairman of the City of Santa Fe’s Children
and Youth Commission and is also 1st Vice
President of the Historical Society of New
Mexico.
Emma Rojo of California is a direct
descendant of many of the founding families of New Mexico. On her maternal side,
she is researching the following lines:
Baca, Duran y Chaves, Gallegos, Garcia de
Noriega, Griego, Molina, Morales, and
Romero/Robledo. She is also a direct
descendant of at least four of the original
Seboyeta/Cebolleta Land Grantees and has
been working with those records. Ms. Rojo
feels that the the legal documentation
needed to substantiate the sacramental
records that authenticate her New Mexican
ancestry has been provided through the
State Archives.
Joanne Legits retired from the business
world in 1989 and started to research her
family history. Though she was not a
church member, she was asked to volunteer at the Latter-day Saints (LDS) Family
History Library. Her experience with the
LDS library greatly increased her knowledge of its many resources. Working with
the LDS library also gave her some insight
in the pursuit of her own family research.
Ms. Legits then began verifying her
German roots by researching German
church records. As a result of this research,
she published a family book about her
great grandfather, John Kraus. She began
putting together information on another of
her ancestral lines when she was asked by
her son to verify a relationship in his
grandmother’s family, the Senas.
After 12 years of working with the LDS
library, Ms. Legits resigned as a volunteer
in May of 2002. She currently volunteers
on a project to Soundex the 1930 Census
of New Mexico. Work is progressing county by county.
All of these patrons have diligently used
archival collections in their research to document family and community histories.
They will be publicly recognized on
October 8 for their research and continuing
support of the State Archives. Each recipient will deliver a brief presentation on his
or her research and will list all of the
archival collections utilized in the research.
The purpose of Patron Appreciation Day is
to
encourage
enthusiasm
among
researchers for family and community history and to inspire others to utilize the
State Archives.
For more information about this event,
please contact Felicia Lujan by telephone
at (505).476.7917 or via e-mail at :
[email protected].
Magnetic Storage Devices
By Tom Chavarria
Before the electrical computer there were
other computers. A computer, at its simplest, is a thing that computes. The most
elementary devices that allow humans to
compute, to add and subtract, are their
fingers. As humans evolved and became
more sophisticated, objects were used,
and eventually the abacus was invented.
With current computers, the increase in
computational ability has created the need
to store the results, whether the result is a
spreadsheet or your high score in a
favorite game. The current technology for
the storage of data on a computer is the
magnetic hard disk, also known as a hard
drive.
In the late 1950's IBM researchers created
the first modern hard disk. A magnetic
disk is really nothing more than a metal
platter with a thin magnetic layer. On this
magnetic layer information is encoded in
zeros and ones, a binary set, to form a bit.
A bit, short for binary digit, is the smallest
storage unit for digital information. Most
computers in use today use a byte that is
5
comprised of eight bits. Since we are dealing with a binary system, a kilo (that is
1,000 in a decimal system) in a binary system is two to the 10th power, or 1024. A
megabyte is two to the 20th power, and a
gigabyte is two to the 30th power. This
explains some of the marketing hype of
memory and storage capacity. However,
many consumers, and some sales people,
confuse the terms for memory and storage
and will talk about a computer as having
80 gigabytes of memory when they are
actually referring to storage capacity.
Although some computers can have 80
gigabytes of memory, these are usually
beyond the reach of the average consumer.
The average personal computer can usually support up to three gigabytes of memory, but most are sold with an average of
256 or 512 megabytes of memory.
Although the hard disk is the most familiar
storage device to many people, there are
other magnetic storage forms. Most people have seen and used a floppy disk and,
to a lesser extent, magnetic tape. In the
early days of modern consumer computers, cassette tape drives were used by
Commodore to store information; however,
this never caught on as floppy disks were
introduced into the consumer market relatively soon after. Tape is still used today
and most often is employed as a back-up
medium in many computer departments.
However, as a storage media, it still holds
information in an analog format from voice
and video recordings.
For records managers, dealing with magnetic storages devices is relatively simple
since the focus is always on the information. In a real sense, records management
is media blind; it does not matter if the
information is on paper, magnetic tape,
film, rock, or clay – retention requirements
apply to the information, not the medium.
That said, records managers who are grappling with electronic records now have to
address media issues in terms of archival
preservation and access. The other issue
facing records managers in the field of
electronic records is the encoding of the
information and retrieval. If you had
stored some vital information on the creation of a functional time machine on a
cassette tape drive used by Commodore,
how would you access that information
today?
Next issue: Future Challenges for Records
Managers.
Quipu / Volume 7.3 / October 2002
6
NOTICE
Genealogy Saturdays Temporarily
Suspended
Due to budget constraints the Archives and
Historical Services Division has temporarily
halted the opening of the research rooms
for genealogical research from 10:00 am to
2:00 pm on the second Saturday of each
month.
October 12th is the last Saturday the
research rooms will be open until further
notice.
Correction
The article on page 3 of the April edition of
the Quipu, "New Map Finding Aid Available
On-line", was written by Valerie Nye and
not by Daphne S.O. Arnaiz-DeLeon.
Archives and Records Management
Training Schedule
2002
Arrangement and Description
Valerie Nye and Melissa Salazar
This workshop will introduce archival principles
of arrangement and description and specific
strategies for applying these principles to various types of collections (public records, private
papers, images, etc.), with hands-on activities to
reinforce discussions.
November 4, 2002
NMSRCA - Santa Fe, NM
Fee: $25.00
Planning and Implementation for
Digitizing Records
Brian Graney
This workshop will provide participants with
information required to effectively plan and
implement a digital project. Participants will
receive instruction to enable them to survey and
assess their collections in order to ascertain the
appropriateness of digitization.
December 4-5, 2002
NMSRCA - Santa Fe, NM
Fee: $40.00
For additional information, please contact
Kathy Mattison at 476-7902 or
[email protected].
Members of the New Mexico
Commission of Public Records
Stanley Hordes, Ph.D., Chairman
Historian
The Honorable Patricia Madrid
Attorney General
The Honorable Domingo Martinez
State Auditor
The Honorable Rebecca Vigil-Giron
Secretary of State
Steven Beffort
Secretary, General Services Department
Thaddeus Bejnar
State Law Librarian, Supreme Court Law
Library
Thomas Wilson, Ph.D.
Director, Museum of New Mexico
Any questions or comments may be directed to
Sandra Jaramillo, State Records Administrator,
(505) 476-7902. For a copy of this newsletter,
please mail your request to the New Mexico
State Records Center and Archives, 1205
Camino Carlos Rey, Santa Fe, New Mexico 8750,
or call (505) 476-7902.
The Quipu is available on-line at
http://www.nmcpr.state.nm.us.
Printed copies will be mailed
only on request.
To request a printed version, please contact Kathy Mattison at
(505)476-7902 or
Email [email protected]