On March 23-24 the "Truth, Justice, Memory: Documentary Evidence in the Digital Age" conference will take place at El Colegio de México, where the digital platform Repository of Documentation on Disappearances in Mexico (RDDM) will launch.

RDDM is a collaborative initiative between four partner institutions - the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), the Colegio de México (El COLMEX), the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas (IIJ-UNAM) and the Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México (UIA-CDMX). RDDM seeks to gather and safeguard human rights documentation on disappearances in Mexico since the beginning of the War on Drugs in 2006. 

The "Truth, Justice, Memory: Documentary Evidence in the Digital Age" conference will present challenges, opportunities, and technical, legal, ethical, and financial strategies that can strengthen future work documenting human rights violations in Mexico. 

On March 23, Colmex will present the RDDM platform - available to the public at www.rddm.mx. RDDM provides access to more than 6,000 objects that document the crisis of disappearances in Mexico - making the scale of the crisis visible and guaranteeing the long-term preservation, integrity, and accessibility of critical documentation for the purposes of truth, justice and historical memory in accordance with international preservation standards. 

The conference and presentation of the platform will conclude the first phase of this collaborative project. The next phase will focus on including new documentation from other libraries and archives, human rights organizations, journalists, relatives of disappeared persons, and other actors who document disappearances in Mexico. 

The conference program is available at http://bit.ly/ConferenciaRDDM. 

For more information on how to collaborate or contribute to the project, please contact consejorddm@gmail.com and tpadilla@crl.edu. RDDM partners gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.