Witnessing New Mexico - The New Mexico Public Media Digitization Project

This exhibit originally appeared on an external site, we are currently in the process of migrating the contents here. In the meantime, please visit the New Mexico Public Media Collection. Thank you for your patience and apologies for the inconvenience!

For decades, New Mexico public tv and radio stations have produced original programming about the state’s arts, culture, social and political events - creating a one-of-a-kind historical record of the very fabric of life here in the Land of Enchantment. Recorded on a thin piece of plastic coated with oxide particles, the videotape and audiotape containing these programs was stored away in lofts, cabinets and out-of-the-way places. Slowly over time, this fragile history – the magnetic media that contained these programs was in real jeopardy of being lost forever. These tapes exceeded their life expectancy and the technology used to play them was obsolete. A solution arrived just in time. In 2019, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH in Boston, proposed to New Mexico PBS an innovative idea – to digitize, preserve and make available to the public decades of original programming.

Partnering with AAPB, NMPBS was successful in receiving funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to fund the New Mexico Public Media Digitization Project. Two years later, we are proud to present to the public over 8,000 original programs and archival footage in the New Mexico Public Media Collection, which is a result of our digitization project. The collection ranges from the 1970’s up to 2020 and contains a wealth of programs covering the people, communities and events from across New Mexico.