Increasing Access to the Archivo General de Indias and the Archivo General de México Collections at the Briscoe Center for American History

This capstone project explores the history and provenance of the Archivo General de Indias and the Archivo General de México collections at the Briscoe Center, which contain transcriptions of original materials housed at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain, and the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City, Mexico, respectively. It also examines the contents of the collections, the relationship between the two collections and other Spanish and Mexican-related collections at the Briscoe Center, disparities found in them, and the changes in organization to the collections throughout their time at the Briscoe Center. In exploring such topics, this project seeks to increase the accessibility of the collections to the public and ensure they are discoverable online. The deliverables of the project include a LibGuide, which synthesizes the findings gathered for this project into a multi-part guide to help researchers use the collections, and revision recommendations, for Briscoe Center staff, for transferring the contents of the collections’ existing paper-based documentation into digital finding aids.