The Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) is a dynamic forum where information professionals learn, discuss, advocate, and create scholarship on and about government information at all levels of government (local, state, national, international), (https://www.ala.org/rt/godort/about).
In anticipation of GODORT’s 50th anniversary celebration Susanne Caro, NDSU government documents librarian, author and, former NMSL government documents librarian, has created an interactive map that when completed will highlight early government documents from all 50 states. The map is expected to be completed in May of 2022. As of today you can discover a number of states’ earliest documents, including New Mexico’s.
The oldest document found in the New Mexico State Library’s state publications collection is The Journal of the Honorable Council of the Territory of New Mexico from 1851. As per the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 our early territory and state government documents were in English and Spanish demonstrating a unique and inclusive form of ensuring political involvement of all – some provisions still exist for providing multilingual accommodations (see Spanish not Enshrined as NM Official Language). One of our earliest examples of an early Spanish government document in our collection is the Territorio de Nueve Mejico Informe del Tesorero Territorial from 1898. This publication has been digitized and can be found in our digital archive of state publications: https://nmsl-montage.auto-graphics.com/#/item-details/entities_20003-A
Check out the interactive map and explore other state’s early state publication history:
https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/be7f2451ae205ad17d4c1539bd5ee7c3/test/index.html