Documents come from his 30 years as a U.S. senator
More than 1,000 boxes worth of documents from Jeff Bingaman’s time in the U.S. Senate will now be archived at the University of New Mexico.
Bingaman, a Democrat who served in the Senate for 30 years, attended a ceremony at Zimmerman Library on Thursday. His papers, spanning his career, will be archived there.
“It is an honor for UNM Libraries to be the repository for Senator Bingaman’s papers. It is important for a research university to collect historic documents to aid scholarly research. This gift will assist us in completing our collection of congressional papers,” President Bob Frank said.
Frank, who was a fellow in Bingaman’s office while a student at UNM many years ago, took a tour of the library archives with Bingaman on Thursday.
The trove of documents includes about 1,100 boxes of papers and many other digital files, which will be made available online. UNM hopes the papers will help visitors understand the country’s political history.
Some of Bingaman’s personal memorabilia will be on display at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, where the senator grew up.
“Silver City area residents will now have new insights into Senator Bingaman’s early years growing up in our community and of his father, who was a professor here and made important contributions to our university. We are honored to receive this donation,” WNMU president Joseph Shepard said.