Progress in Preserving the Past:Biblioteca Pública Central Estatal José Ignacio Gallegos Caballero

A library assistant working to preserve the newspapers.

On my first visit to Durango, the archives were located in the main building of the library called José Ignacio Gallegos Caballero.  Eight years ago, the archive center was extremely well kept, but none of the newspapers were digitized.  I slowly made my way through the stacks and stacks of newspapers to be able to finally find the one's I needed.  That was almost a decade ago.

When I visited last year for the first time in about 4 years, there was a new building just to the side of the library.  To my joy and surprise, it was an archive building.  The Director, Maestro Oscar Luna, told me that they had secured funds from the government for the building.  And, they followed through. 

Archive building in center of image.

It's a three story building.  The bottom floor has a place for cultural and art events.  The second floor houses an impressive collection of antique books. (Oscar Luna told me that each month he chooses a book from the collection and presents on it at the university.) And the top floor houses the newspapers.  They are still not digitized, but they are now in possession of an impressive digitizing machine in order to save all these priceless documents.

For such a small archive in Mexico, they are making big progress.  All of this is mostly due to Oscar Luna's dedication to a work (una obra) that he deeply believes in.

The digitizing machine in the Durango library.