The Rubén Cobos Collection of Spanish New Mexican Folklore is a sound archive (call number R4000) containing over 2000 pieces, including ballads, poems, prayers, nursery rhymes, riddles, proverbs, stories, personal narratives, songs, instrumental music, and descriptions of social customs, ritual practices, and children's games. The recordings were made between 1944 and 1974 in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

In 2005, Colorado College received a grant from the Colorado Digitization Project to digitize the music in the Cobos Collection. We are happy to announce that as of April 2011 all the music files (about 1000 recordings) are available at URLs like

http://hdl.handle.net/10176/CCcobos1.1

The searchable database is not currently up, but you can use the published catalog of the music collection, Music in the Rubén Cobos Collection of Spanish New Mexican Folklore, edited by Victoria Lindsay Levine and Amanda Chace, available in the Colorado College library and several other U.S. libraries, to find the Cobos number of the piece you want. Plug that number into the URL in place of 1.1 and you should get your piece. For numbers 26.1-57.12, you must plug in only the whole number and then find your piece in a longer sound file (number 27.6 will be the sixth piece in number 27, for example).

Alternatively, if you're in Colorado Springs, you can listen to cassette recordings of the Cobos materials in the Colorado College Music Library or Special Collections in Tutt Library. If you aren't able to visit the library, you can use the published catalog to find information about the recordings and we may be able to provide digital files via email (contact us).

All the recordings, most in Spanish, were made on 358 seven-inch reels with a playing time varying from thirty to sixty minutes. These reels are housed in Special Collections. For the use of researchers, all the music material has been transferred to audiocassettes, which are available at the Albert Seay Library of Music and Art, located on the Colorado College campus. The sound quality of both reels and tapes is uneven.

This collection is meant to be an educational resource for students and scholars. It is not for commercial use. Anyone who wishes to use material from the collection should be aware that the people recorded did not sign consent forms or waivers. At the time of the recording, it was not common practice to obtain such permissions.

If you quote from the collection, you should note the the Cobos number and performer and cite the Cobos Collection, Tutt Library, Colorado College. Reproduction of the audiorecordings requires written permission from Colorado College -- please print our permission-to-publish form, fill it out, and mail or fax it to us.

Did your family participate in the project? If so, please contact us! More information here.