“¡Viva Mexico!” and Mexican State Gazettes Digitization | In Custodia Legis (original) (raw)

The following post is a joint effort by Jennifer Davis and Betty Lupinacci.

Yesterday, September 15, was the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, and today is September 16th, México’s Independence Day. Everywhere in the United States, and in México, there are festivals for El Grito de Dolores, and it is a mandatory day of rest according to labor law (Artículo 74) in México. You might choose to celebrate as Francisco Macías suggests, or perhaps for the workday, with an agua fresca. To enjoy the holiday Law Library style, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to discuss our digitization of Mexican state gazettes.

Mexican Flag in front of the Mexican Embassy, Washington DC, February 16, 2019 [photo by J. Davis and Rebecca Raupach]

There are 32 Mexican states, and we collect gazettes from as many of the states as we can acquire. We do not acquire sub-national jurisdictions for many countries, but our next-door neighbor and largest trading partner merits that level of collection. Recently, we started to digitize them because we found that Mexican copyright law permits digitization. The official legal gazettes for a few states are already available on the Library’s website: Coahuila de Zaragoza, Colima, and Jalisco.

Screenshot of Mexican states gazettes search on Stacks [taken by Betty Lupinacci]

The official legal gazettes of some Mexican states are available in digital format only in the Law Library; search by the term “Periódico”, or Periódico and the name of the state, to find them.

¡Feliz 16 de Septiembre! And good luck with your research!

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