AM launches first Spanish-language primary source database, Mexico in History: Colonialism to Revolution, 1500-1929
This essential resource illuminates the country’s past, from Spanish contact with Indigenous communities, through colonial rule, Independence and the National and Reforma periods, and the onset of the Revolution.
Drawn from The Bancroft Library's Latina Americana Collection, one of the world’s foremost repositories for historical and contemporary research on Mexico and Central America, the collection includes rare manuscripts and stunning visual materials, including maps, photographs, illustrations, and graphic art.
Consisting of primarily Spanish-language material, the resource benefits from and dual-language metadata, allowing a breadth of use across disciplines and abilities.
Hosted on AM Quartex, three main technological developments have been made to enhance the discoverability of non-English language materials and support usage of the collection by researchers of all levels. Upgrades to Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) have further increased accuracy of results, changes to relevance weighting of selected metadata fields in the search algorithm give Spanish and English document titles the same search relevancy, and the search functionality recognises special character mistakes such as the omission or incorrect application of diacritics.
Publishing our first collection with content almost exclusively in Spanish presented opportunities for maximising discovery pathways and search capabilities to deliver the best user experience whether in English or Spanish. Translation of metadata and editorial content as well as AM Quartex platform developments have enhanced both HTR transcripts for non-English language material and the relevancy of search results, regardless of a user's preferred search language.
Mexico in History: Colonialism to Revolution, 1500-1929 contains a wealth of material and highlights include Bancroft Collection of Sermons containing a significant collection of sermons ranging from c.1650s-c.1850s, works published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo and chiefly illustrated by José Guadalupe Posada, as well as Mexican Inquisition Records representing a major collection of Inquisitorial trials and other documents covering some of the most significant cases brought before the Inquisition.
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