About the Library > King Reading Room
Gov. Bruce King Archives
Gov. King donated his personal papers to the UNM School of Law in 2001 to establish an Archive for researchers interested in public policy and New Mexico governmental issues and history. The collection, which consists of more than 900,000 items, is being inventoried and processed by University archivists. In 2008 this work will be completed and the collection will be stored in the UNM Law Library and made available to researchers through the use of an online index.
Access Policies
Tours and appointments to use the collection may be made by calling the Law Library Reference Desk at (505) 277-0935. Research appointments can be made Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 6 pm.
Collection Access
In 2005 the Law School has contracted with the Center for Southwest Research (CSWR) to hire the staff at the UNM Political Archives to inventory, preserve and index the collection. The donation consisted of more than 400 boxes of documents, nearly 2000 photographs and a substantial amount of memorabilia. Conserving and indexing the documents will take up to three years. History doctoral student, Jacobo Baca, serves as the Bruce King Fellow and oversees the processing of the collection. Other students have been hired to assist Mr. Baca, and their work is being directed by Rose Diaz, Research Historian at the Political Archives. Gov. and Mrs. King toured tour the Political Archive in December, 2005, to see first hand the work that is being done. In the Fall of 2005, a 538 sq. ft. document storage room was created in a separate that space donated by the Law School. The room is equipped with conservation quality environmental controls and a dry-pipe reactant fire suppression system. After the documents are processed and delivered to the Law School, they will be made available to researchers. An online index of the documents will also be available. For information about access to the collection, please call the Law Library Reference Desk at (505) 277-0935.
