Panel 10, Tuesday, May 31, 2011, 11:00 am-12:30 pm
Moderator: Melissa Gasparotto, Rutgers University
Presenters: Kumaree Ramtahal, University of the West Indies; Elmelinda Lara, University of the West Indies; Sarah Aponte, City College of New York
Rapporteur: Ellen Jaramillo, Yale University
The first presentation was “Opening Doors to Our Cultural Heritage: the Indian Caribbean Museum of Trinidad and Tobago” by Kumaree Ramtahal, University of the West Indies. Ramtahal began with a brief overview of Trinidad and Tobago’s history and geography. The nearby islands were administered as one colony and achieved independence as one state in 1962. The country enjoys a very unique ethnic mix, where the most dominant ethnic groups in the population are of African and East Indian descent. When slavery was abolished among the British colonies in 1838, plantation economies sought other sources of cheap labor. When attempts to draw Europeans proved unsuccessful, indentured workers from the Indian subcontinent were contracted and on May 30, 1845 the first East Indian immigrants arrived. Between 1845 and 1917, approximately 144,000 East Indians came to Trinidad and Tobago as part of a widespread migration of laborers within the British Empire. Only 29,448 returned to India. By 1871 East Indians formed a quarter of Trinidad’s population, and by 1990 their descendants form the single largest ethnic group in Trinidad and Tobago.
The Indian Caribbean Museum in Carapichaima, Trinidad is dedicated to the preservation and memory of the rich cultural heritage of over one million East Indians who settled in various parts of the Caribbean. It is a unique and specialized non-governmental organization, opened on May 7, 2006. Its collection was assembled through field trips by its administrators, and grows through gifts and donations of artifacts and documents. Its vision is to serve the public, providing an informative and enjoyable visiting experience, organize events such as lectures and workshops, to develop collaboration with other organizations and to forge links with other stakeholders in culture, education and tourism. Its purpose is to collect, restore, preserve, arrange and display artifacts and cultural documents relating to the East Indian diaspora in the Caribbean. There are household, agricultural and musical artifacts, print resources, historical documents, coin and art collections. There is a reference library, and a replica of an East Indian clay house on the museum grounds.
The village in which the Museum is located is a tourist attraction site, with four other cultural sites endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism, Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago celebrates Indian Heritage Month every May and also an official holiday known as Indian Arrival Day, so the number of visitors noticeably increases during that time. In 2008, National Geographic included the Museum in its book Sacred Places of a Lifetime: 500 of the World’s Most Peaceful and Powerful Destinations, which showcases spiritual places and guides travelers who wish to visit them. Rich in social history and cultural heritage, the collection reflects human rights issues, Indian cuisine, religion, education and music. There is anticipated collaboration with a proposed Museum in Kolkata, India (Calcutta) dedicated to its early emigrants in the Diaspora. Plans have been made for creating a botanical garden with some of the rare endangered plants of Indian origin in the museum’s outdoor space, and to erect a permanent screen on a Museum wall for showing historical films and documentaries. Challenges to the Museum include a lack of professional expertise in digitization and preservation, the need to develop finding tools for items in the collection, and because it is a non-profit organization, finances, space, security staffing and collection development.
The second presentation was “Illegal Immigration into Trinidad and Tobago: Human Rights and Justice” by Elmelinda Lara, University of the West Indies. Lara began by showing a map of Trinidad and Tobago and its proximity to North and South America, in order to visualize immigration to Trinidad and Tobago. Her presentation concentrated on immigration patterns during the past five years based on a scan of local newspapers, and highlighted broader social implications and human rights issues.
Immigration to Trinidad and Tobago preceded Columbus, as it was practiced by the native peoples in moving about the Caribbean Islands and establishing trade routes. Today there are patterns of intra-regional migration, migration based on seasonal labor needs, and Trinidad and Tobago have always been a link to Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. It serves as a resting place and a launch pad for migrants; a supplier and receiver of migrants, both legal and illegal; and the country’s multi-ethnic character reflects that. They have had successive waves of settlers reflecting European settlement and expansion, the enforced migration of Africans and voluntary migration of Asians, subsequent migration of Chinese, Syrians, Lebanese and other Caribbean islanders, and finally, migrants from the rest of the world. Some of the reasons for immigration to Trinidad and Tobago have been its relative economic prosperity compared to the uneven economic development in the region, a well-established network of Caribbean immigrants for support, its political stability, and its geographic location between North and South America.
Statistics do not provide an accurate count of illegal immigrants; the numbers in actuality are much higher than that. A large number of Nigerians and other Africans have been entering recently. Africans mainly come through unauthorized ports of entry or if they come legally, overstay their legal stays. They engage in paid employment and are mainly employed by private security agencies. If caught, they are arrested and face detention, but because of the distance, it is difficult to repatriate them quickly, resulting in long periods of incarceration and complaints of poor treatment. Illegal immigrants from other Caribbean countries are by and large employed in both skilled and unskilled jobs in any trade. If caught, they are deported quickly, and because of the proximity, they often return. Among Central and South American illegal immigrants, a significant number of women work in the sex trade, and this human trafficking is a cause of concern to the government. Chinese illegal immigrants also come through unauthorized ports of entry or if they come legally, overstay their stay. There have been reports of collusion with authorities or persons unknown to receive work permits for a fee, and also in human trafficking and criminal activity. Chinese illegal immigrants face deportation but in some instances they are regularized because they don’t depend on the government for employment and they create businesses which are seen as a boon to the economy.
In terms of human rights dimensions, the basic human rights of illegal immigrants are not protected. There are reports of sweat shops, inhumane conditions and habitation, Chinese workers sleeping in restaurants, etc. In the case of Africans, lengthy incarceration prior to repatriation leads to complaints of poor treatment, and they were at one time kept in prisons with common criminals. The government has since established detention centers. In cases of human trafficking, the victims/illegal immigrants aren’t paid for their labor, their passports are confiscated by the traffickers, and they are reluctant to go to the authorities because they are here illegally. The response of the government has been to enact an anti-trafficking in persons law, and to establish a financial intentions unit that tracks and investigates sources of funds used in illegal activities that involve immigrants.
The third presentation was “Preserving and Documenting the Presence of Dominicans in New York during the Early 20th Century” by Sarah Aponte, City College of New York. Dominicans are one of the largest and fastest-growing Latino population groups in the United States. The greatest concentrations are in the New York/New Jersey region. The New York City borough of the Bronx has the largest Dominican population, while Washington Heights/Inwood is the most populous neighborhood.
Dominicans have been coming to the U.S. since 1613 when Juan Rodríguez, a Black or Mulatto from Santo Domingo, was brought to the New York area by a Dutch merchant ship exploring the northeast coast of North America. After landing in New York harbor, Rodríguez was left for a few months while the Dutch crew returned to the Netherlands. He was still there when another Dutch ship arrived in the area which was populated by Native Americans. This makes him the first recorded non-native person residing in the Hudson Bay area, first non-native merchant, first immigrant, first Afro-descendant, first Latino and, of course, the first Dominican to reside in what is today New York. His story was not well-known until the 1990s and today, the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute is conducting further research on Juan Rodríguez. The Institute is also compiling information on Dominican immigration to New York from 1892 to 1924, gleaned through the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation website. This material is helping to reconstruct and contextualize the early Dominican presence in the U.S. So far, ships’ passenger lists obtained from the website have helped to compile a list of 5,191 Dominicans who entered the U.S. through Ellis Island. The main characteristics of these immigrants were: they were mainly of color, between 25-34 years of age upon arrival, could afford 1st or 2nd class tickets, carried more than $50, were able to provide an address where they would stay in New York City, and they were overwhelmingly single (until they married and established families). The highest numbers arrived between 1919 and 1921. According to data analyzed from these lists, many of these immigrants became U.S. citizens and established homes and businesses in the New York area.
At the turn of the 20th century there was a vibrant Hispanic cultural and literary circle in New York City. There were 341 Hispanic periodicals published in New York State before the 1960s, mainly written in Spanish. In 1916, at least 29 journals were on the topic of Latin America, highlighting the growing interest in Latin American affairs at that time. For example, Las Novedades, or Las Novedades: España y los Pueblos Hispanoamericanos, a weekly Spanish language publication in New York City, was also distributed to Spain and throughout Latin America. Founded in 1876, it was Dominican-owned between 1914 and 1918. Its articles covered political, literary, business and cultural issues relating to Latin America and of particular interest to the Dominican community in the U.S. and New York. That many articles were written by Dominicans is of interest today because this was occurring at a time that is not generally recognized as being a period of Dominican presence in the U.S. At a time when the numbers of Dominicans in New York City was presumed to be relatively small, Las Novedades was widely distributed and published much about an active Dominican community in the city. In 1915, the publication announced that the intellectual, essayist, philosopher, philologist and literary critic Pedro Henríquez Ureña, one of the most prominent Dominican writers of all time, had joined its editorial staff. Scholars use the articles he published to trace his political thought regarding the U.S. The headquarters of the journal was also home to a library, bookstore, and printing office offering services to travelers and residents. They even had a department that served as a clearinghouse for questions from Dominicans in the U.S. and New York, and Las Novedades serves as a source that documents the growth of this community since it published the names of persons arriving or departing the city. Aponte says this is a work in progress and she intends to continue recovering works published in Las Novedades written by or about Dominicans and to make them available collectively.
Questions & Comments:
Melissa Gasparotto (Rutgers University) to Lara: The statistics you presented on illegal immigration, are there groups that contest those numbers? Have you seen competing analyses of the numbers of illegal immigrants into Trinidad and Tobago?
Lara: Not just yet because the statistics are recent, covering 2005 to 2009. The ones for 2009-2011 are still in progress (of being compiled).
Mary Jo Zeter (Michigan State University) to Lara: About Chinese immigration, we know the Chinese are investing a lot on infrastructure projects in Africa and Latin America. Are Chinese laborers coming to work on the infrastructure, and overstaying?
Lara: We’ve had successive waves of Chinese immigration since emancipation in the 1920s and 1970s, and we’re seeing another wave of immigration, because we have a Chinese community, albeit a small one. The pattern we’re seeing now is also associated with legal Chinese immigration whereby the Chinese government has worked with ours in contracting short-term Chinese laborers for infrastructure development. What’s happened is that illegal immigrants and also the Chinese criminal element have used that opportunity to illegally enter.
Gasparotto to Ramtahal: You mentioned a few organizations appearing in the educational archives that’s included in the collection, and one was a Canadian organization?
Ramtahal: The Canadian Mission, a Presbyterian-based organization sought to educate the East Indian community, teaching them to read and write in English. They studied Hindi, and published books and hymns in order to convert the East Indians to Presbyterianism. They opened several primary and secondary schools and were instrumental in educating the community.
Gasparotto: Are the Canadian Mission’s documents available outside of Trinidad and Tobago?
Ramtahal: They should be available in their own archives and some are also in the library where I work (University of the West Indies), but the Museum has a lot of their documentation.
Zeter to Ramtahal: Are you in the process of cataloging the Museum’s documents collection?
Ramtahal: I don’t work for the Indian Caribbean Museum. As a new organization they lack a lot of professional expertise in preservation, information technology, etc. that needs development.
Nerea Llamas (University of Michigan) to Ramtahal: You talked about the Museum collaborating with a museum in Kolkata; are there strong ties between these countries?
Ramtahal: They communicate through their High Commissions and network to bring artists on tours through the Caribbean to showcase the culture.
Gasparotto to Aponte: I wasn’t aware until now of the Dominican publications in New York for this time period; besides Novedades, are there more?
Aponte: Yes, we’re still tracing them all, but as far as we know, that was the only Dominican-owned one at that time. We found out that El Diario La Prensa was at one point owned by a Dominican.
Panel 14, May 31, 2011, 2:00 pm-3:30 pm
Moderator: Richard Phillips, University of Florida
Presenter: Carlos Gutiérrez, Cinema Tropical
Rapporteur: David S. Nolen, Mississippi State University
This panel featured a screening of the film Nostalgia por la Luz, directed by Patricio Guzmán. Carlos Gutiérrez from Cinema Tropical presented an introduction to the film itself and answered questions before and after the screening. Gutiérrez began by explaining that Cinema Tropical was founded in 2001 and is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Latin American cinema. As part of this mission, Cinema Tropical is involved in distribution and promotion of films, including activities like publicity campaigns, film festivals, and film series (like the one held at the University of Arizona each year). He introduced this film by mentioning Guzmán’s earlier film, The Battle of Chile. Gutiérrez considers Nostalgia por la Luz to be a film essay on theoretical ideas of memory. It was financed by Guzmán himself. Chris Moore (Sol Productions) asked how to order the film. Gutiérrez answered that it could be ordered through the Icarus Films website. Paloma Celis Carbajal (University of Wisconsin, Madison) asked if Cinema Tropical also covered European cinema as well. Gutiérrez responded that Cinema Tropical only works with films from Latin America, which includes films from Brazil but not from the English-speaking Caribbean.
The film focused on the themes of the preservation and study of the past as represented by images and people associated with the Atacama Desert. Guzmán began by discussing the widespread popular interest in astronomy throughout Chile, and how the region of the Atacama has attracted astronomers from around the world because its environmental and atmospheric conditions provide a uniquely suited place to study the night sky.
In a conversation between the director and an astronomer, Guzmán introduced the idea that astronomers are primarily concerned with the past because they are observing light that has traveled over time from distant places in the universe. He also used this conversation to express the belief that the present is actually the sensory perception of the recent past because there is always a time-lapse effect when observing light.
The film highlighted the connections between archaeologists and astronomers. Both groups attempt to reconstruct the distant past from the evidence they find in the present. The Atacama Desert functions as a gateway to the past for both groups: astronomers take advantage of the unique geography to study the origins of the universe and of mankind, while archaeologists are able to study the remains of past civilizations because of the preservation of artifacts caused by the extremely dry desert conditions.
Guzmán used this theme to note the difficulty of the past for Chile. While astronomers and archaeologists work to uncover the distant past, Guzmán asserted that the recent past in Chile is mostly hidden and least considered.
From that point on, the film shifted to the stories of Chileans impacted by the Pinochet regime’s repression, transposing their stories with the archaeological and astronomical research into the past. One segment of the film told the story of political prisoners learning about astronomy while at Chacabuco, the largest prison camp used by the Pinochet regime. The prisoners initially had the opportunity to observe the stars and study astronomy, but were then banned from doing so by the military because of the fear that escapees would attempt to use the constellations for navigation in the desert. One prisoner explained that the study of astronomy simply gave him and his fellow prisoners a sense of freedom. The film identified these men who survived their experience in the camps as transmitters of history.
Another prisoner, who was an architect, explained how he memorized the details of the layouts of five camps that he was in during his time in captivity. He measured the distances by pacing, and then made drawings at night by candlelight. Each morning, he would tear the drawings into shreds and throw them away. By repeatedly drawing and re-drawing the layout of the camps, he memorized them and then re-drew them while in exile in Denmark. When these camp layouts were published, they provided a shocking testimony of the abuses of the camps. Guzmán stated that this man and his wife embody a significant metaphor for Chile: memory and forgetting. The former prisoner remembered what he suffered in the camps, but his wife forgets more and more as she suffers the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
The film reported that the commission charged with investigating the human rights violations that occurred under the Pinochet regime concluded that approximately 30,000 Chilean citizens were tortured by the government. The commission also estimated that as many as 30,000 other victims did not come forward. Guzmán commented that the survivors are continually terrorized by the presence of those responsible in the general population, unprosecuted and unpunished for their complicity.
In another exchange with one of the astronomers, the question of searching for the past is raised again. This time, the astronomer observed that his search for the past allows him to rest well at night, while the search for the past carried out by the women of Calama likely does not allow the same peace of mind for them. He asserted that Chilean society is comfortable with his searching, but is not comfortable with the searching of the women, who continue to walk through the Atacama Desert in search of the remains of their loved ones or others’ loved ones—victims of the violence carried out by the government against its own citizens.
In a series of emotional interviews, several women recounted their searches for the remains of their own family members and the discoveries of remains of other victims that they have made. Guzmán referenced a whale skeleton that he saw in a museum as a boy and contrasted its place of honor in the museum with the anonymity of the remains of the victims of government violence that remain unburied and without a monument to honor them. The remainder of the film focused on the efforts of these women and others to search for the remains of victims and to commemorate the lives of those who disappeared.
The film concluded with the idea that memory is the key to being able to live in the present. Those without memory cannot live anywhere.
Questions & Comments:
Daisy Domínguez (City College of New York) asked if women were leading the drive to locate those killed by the Pinochet regime and bring people to justice because so many men had been killed. Gutiérrez responded that many Chilean men had been involved in those efforts as well, but the women whose male relatives had been disappeared had really taken the lead publicly.
Paloma Celis Carbajal (University of Wisconsin, Madison) asked how Cinema Tropical works with institutions of higher education on the specifics of screenings (such as logistics, funding, and speaker arrangements). Gutiérrez answered that the specifics are done on a case-by-case basis. He mentioned that the French government has a well-established system for offering reduced prices for films to universities to encourage them to organize film packages for tours. He said that Cinema Tropical is looking for ways to work more with librarians and other university organizations for screenings. Celis Carbajal responded that for many libraries, buying the institutional copy is seen as the best way to facilitate this kind of thing because costs beyond that (such as honorariums for speakers) become an issue due to limited library budgets. Gutiérrez suggested that filmmakers and university officials could work together to alleviate some of those issues, such as creating touring circuits where groups of universities collaborated, as well as bringing in local foreign consulates to help with certain aspects of the planning and expenses.
Panel 2, May 30 2011, 2:00 pm-3:30 pm
Moderator: Holly Ackerman, Duke University
Presenters: Bix Gabriel, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (not present); Pamela Graham, Columbia University; Patrick Stawski, Duke University; Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, Princeton University
Rapporteur: Melissa Guy, Arizona State University
Holly Ackerman presented Bix Gabriel’s paper titled “Remembering Guantanamo: How Can We Build a Public Memory of this Site’s Century-long History?” which focused on the Guantanamo Public Memory Project, an ongoing project of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC).
The Guantanamo Public Memory Project highlights the reality that Guantanamo as a place of detention has a long, complex past. Today, nearly 200 prisoners remain indefinitely detained at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, but prior to 2001, Guantanamo also housed detainees. In 1991, the George H. W. Bush Administration held Haitian refugees fleeing the Aristide regime. In 1994, the U.S. government created camps to house Cuban refugees who had attempted to flee to the United States. The Clinton Administration created Camp X-Ray as a separate facility to house those refugees who “caused trouble” in the camps, which remained open for over a year.
Gabriel found that Guantanamo has had many “ends,” and each time the camps are closed, public memory fades. The Guantanamo Public Memory Project, which began in 2009, seeks to preserve memories of Guantanamo. The ICSC began the project to encourage individuals connected to Guantanamo to tell their stories. The short term goal is to “learn how it has been used and re-used,” to imagine its future, and become involved in determining the outcome of what happens there today. The long term goal is to establish comprehensive documentation about activities, individuals, and policies associated with Guantanamo. The project seeks an “ongoing forum for truth-telling, dialogue, and collective accountability.”
The ICSC is a network of about 250 historic sites of contested history. All sites of conscience are based on the idea that “preserving and interpreting history is as much an act in support of human rights as is waging a campaign for justice.” In 2009, the organization held its first international working group to develop a framework for the Guantanamo Public Memory Project with various stakeholders including historians, librarians, detainees and their lawyers, members of the military, and directors of sites of conscience. Four principles emerged: 1) the entire history of Guantanamo should be included in the project; 2) it must include multiple perspectives; 3) the project should avoid considering Guantanamo a “closed” history; 4) the coalition should be international in scope. Already the coalition has identified more than 1,000 resources (books, archives, films, etc.) on Guantanamo. The creation of a virtual site is also in progress, since the actual camps at Guantanamo are not accessible. Ackerman is a member of the Advisory Board of the project. More information can be found on the ICSC website at: http://www.sitesofconscience.org/activities/guantanamo-public-memory-project
Pamela Graham followed with her presentation titled “The Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research: Collecting, Preserving, and Promoting the Record of Human Rights.” The Center at Columbia was built around the acquisition of the archives of several major human rights organizations beginning with Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights First. The records of these organizations were originally acquired and organized at the University of Colorado, Boulder by Bruce Montgomery in the early 1990s. In 2004, the collections were transferred to Columbia where they have undergone additional processing, arrangement, and description. These particular archives are on deposit at Columbia; the human rights organizations continue to own the records.
In 2005, Columbia founded the Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research to extend the scope of the collections acquired from Colorado, to expand the focus to the library’s general collection, and to develop digital projects. Archival materials are managed by the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library while the Center focuses on programmatic collecting and promotion of materials. Graham runs the Center and collaborates with library staff including subject specialists in global area studies; processing archivists; the oral history research office; web collection curators; technical services; and the digital program division.
Collections include archival primary sources, published scholarly materials in the general collection, and born-digital material. This particular presentation focused on the archival material; a separate presentation in Panel 9 described the Center’s efforts to archive born- digital material on the Web.
Within the archival materials, the records of greatest value are those that document “what advocacy looked like.” Examples from the Amnesty USA collection include: circulars distributed to country groups, records related to disappeared persons in Chile, and correspondence from the Executive Director and Executive boards. Human Rights Watch/Americas Watch records reveal connections among NGOs including the Committee to Protect Journalists (whose records are also housed at Columbia) and also contain news releases, field notes from hot spots, and legal testimony.
Graham concluded her presentation by describing some of the challenges associated with collecting in human rights, including creating the actual archives, since the organizations are focused on advocacy, not records management. Legal and privacy issues are unique with human rights records; balancing those concerns with the desire to make the records accessible to users can be difficult. Preservation issues are always a concern, particularly with regard to born-digital materials and the shift to online production of records.
More information on the Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research can be found at: http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/humanrights.html
Graham’s presentation was followed by that of Patrick Stawski, the Human Rights archivist at Duke University, whose presentation, “History in Action: Connecting Students, Scholars and Community to Human Rights Histories & Practice” focused on human rights archival collections and outreach efforts at Duke. The collections at Duke focus on human rights activism of individuals and NGOs. Their 25 collections are format-neutral and global in scope.
Major Latin American holdings include the records of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and those of Coletta Youngers, a WOLA associate. The WOLA records span the years from 1974 to 2005 and contain information on human rights abuse cases, documentation of the organization’s efforts to lobby U.S. officials for policy change, and evidence of WOLA’s collaboration with local human rights organizations in Latin America.
Duke also houses the Marshall T. Meyer Papers, which document the Argentine rabbi’s role as a human rights activist, religious leader, and scholar from the 1950s through the 1990s. The records also detail his involvement with CONADEP, Argentina’s truth commission, of which he was the only Argentine-born member. A traveling exhibit highlights materials from this collection.
The collection at Duke also contains materials that focus on human rights issues in Latino communities in the United States. The Student Action with Farmworkers records document working conditions of immigrant communities and activism among labor and student groups.
Other collections at Duke include the records of the Center for International Policy and the papers of Patricia Murphy Derian, the first Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs under President Carter.
Outreach for these collections focuses on creating a bridge between students, faculty, the community and records creators and includes, among other things, the WOLA/Duke book award and a documentary film series. More information on the human rights archives at Duke can be found at: http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/human-rights/
Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez completed the panel with his presentation, “From Underground to Open Access: Civil War, Society and Political Transition as Documented by the Archive of the Guatemala News and Information Bureau,” which focused on the transition of records from microfilm to open access digital material. The records of the Guatemala News and Information Bureau (GNIB) have been housed at Princeton since 2002. GNIB was created in 1978 in San Francisco as an activist group that sought to call attention to issues such as labor rights, indigenous rights and movements for peace and justice in Guatemala through informational campaigns, lobbying of U.S. officials, as well as educational and cultural programs.
Princeton had the collection microfilmed in 2004 with Primary Source Media. Nine academic libraries in the United States (including the Center for Research Libraries) own the 112 reels of film. In addition, Princeton donated a complete set to the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica (CIRMA) in Guatemala. Documents range from the 1970s to the present and include records related to the civil war in Guatemala and the peace accords of the 1990s. The microfilm is comprised of four sections: 1) grey literature and ephemera (about 60%); 2) serial runs (141 titles); 3) studies and reports (56 titles); and 4) news clippings (less than 1% of total.)
Princeton is now in the process of creating an open access digital collection of the first section of the GNIB archive. The first section (grey literature and ephemera) will be the only portion digitized due to its research value and unique content. Only the Guatemalan section of the NACLA archive comes closest to matching the richness of the GNIB records, but Princeton’s materials are unique in that they cover the years preceding and immediately following the peace accords. Section one of the GNIB records also complements the records of the National Security Archive project on Guatemala.
The open access digitization project was the result of conversations between the library and Princeton’s program for Latin American Studies about alternative access models for the Latin American political ephemera collection as a whole. In those conversations, five models of access emerged as possibilities:
1) Outsourced microfilming and commercial distribution (already in place)
2) Outsourced digitization, publishing, and distribution
3) Outsourced digitization, internal publishing, and non-commercial distribution
4) Internal digitization, internal publishing, and non-commercial distribution
5) Consortial agreement with costs and responsibilities shared among participating institutions
Ultimately, Princeton decided to substitute the first, already established option with a combination of options three and five: outsourced digitization, internal publishing and non-commercial distribution as part of a consortial agreement. The GNIB archive was chosen as a pilot project because of its research value, the structure of the archive, the types of materials it contained, and its potential to reach wider audiences on a global scale. The ultimate goal is to create a searchable website for section one of the GNIB materials with contents described at the item level and open access to all images.
Partial funding for this ongoing project has been provided by the 2009 Cooperative Digitization of International Research Materials Project, sponsored by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and a four-year TICFIA grant.
Acosta-Rodríguez concluded that the project has been complex and labor intensive, but also worthwhile. He believes that a consortial open access model for digitization is the best way to move forward with similar projects, and he hopes that SALALM and LARRP will be involved in future endeavors.
Questions & Comments:
Paula Covington (Vanderbilt University): “Fernando, who funded this project?” Acosta-Rodríguez responded that funding came from a U.S. Department of Education TICFIA grant: $45,000 with matching funds plus labor from Princeton. James Simon (CRL) confirmed that TICFIA stands for Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Information Access.
May 30, 2011
9:00 am-10:30 am
Welcoming Remarks:
Nerea A. Llamas, SALALM President 2010-2011, University of Michigan
Joseph Holub, SALALM Local Arrangements Co-chair, 2010-2011, University of Pennsylvania
David C. Murray, SALALM Local Arrangements Co-chair, 2010-2011, Temple University
H. Carton Rogers, Vice Provost and Director of Libraries, University of Pennsylvania
Ann Farnworth-Alvear, Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania
Jonathan LeBreton, Senior Associate University Librarian, Temple University Libraries
Keynote Speaker:
Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archive:
Forensic Archivists and Active Archives: Advancing the Cause of Human Rights in Latin America through Archival Investigation
Rapporteur: Gabriella Reznowski, Washington State University
Nerea Llamas opened the session by thanking the sponsors and welcoming special guests to SALALM LVI. Llamas introduced Peter Kornbluh, recognizing his contribution to the preservation of memory in its various forms. Works Kornbluh has authored include: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, The Iran-Contra Scandal: the Declassified History, and The Pinochet File, among others.
Kornbluh began his presentation at the historic Warwick hotel by paying tribute to the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, recalling his boyhood visits to his grandmother’s home on 21st and Walnut Street. He introduced the topic of “Human Rights and Archives,” explaining that every archive has the potential to become a “moving monument” to history. Kornbluh challenged us to take this a step further, to ensure that they are active monuments: “How do we actively and aggressively build and apply archives to rewrite and reshape the present and advance the concept of truth, justice and dignity that is at the heart of the human rights issues we care about?”
Kornbluh’s talk centered on the idea that we can all be “activist archivists,” ensuring that the documents we collect and preserve are used to advance the cause of human rights. This theme is central to the work at the National Security Archive (NSA), where they are committed to freedom of information and human rights issues. Sharing an acronym with the National Security Agency, Kornbluh jokingly explained, “We refer to ourselves as ‘The Archive’ rather than the NSA, which of course is a very secretive organization.” He acknowledged that because the ‘National Security Archive’ has a sinister ring to it, people sometimes confuse the NSA with a secretive, government agency. Kornbluh held up a t-shirt that read: “Documentos o Muerte!” (Documents or Death!). Kornbluh explained this was the assertive, almost revolutionary slogan of his organization.
Kornbluh explained that the NSA is the leading advocate for freedom of information and transparency laws, at home and abroad: “We have our church of the ‘right to know’ and we preach the gospel of the ‘right to know’ around the world.” Kornbluh stated that they take seriously those words that are so ironically and misleadingly engraved in the foyer of the Central Intelligence Agency: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” He continued, saying: “Freedom, true democratic participation, and accountability are all predicated on access to information.” Quoting Justice Louis Brandeis, Kornbluh referred to the philosophy espoused by the NSA: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
Proceeding with his talk, Kornbluh presented a slide of a censored document related to Augusto Pinochet, stating: “This is what gets us going in the morning at the NSA: the censorship of history.” Much of the work of his organization is to uncover and pursue the text under the blacked-out part of such documents, as he asks: “Why do we have to have censorship like this?” Kornbluh further went on to describe the mission of the organization, as it works with key advocacy groups around the world to advance “freedom of information” laws. The NSA is responsible for establishing Sunshine Week in the U.S., also bringing the concept to other countries. His colleague, Kate Hill, was instrumental in drafting Mexico’s “freedom of information” laws, organizing the monitoring agencies that oversee them. Additionally, the NSA runs training programs on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the press, media programs, and reporters. The NSA is currently involved in providing training to the families of human rights victims in Chile, so that they may pursue documentation under the Chilean “freedom of information” laws.
Continuing, Kornbluh explained: “We’ve pushed and advocated for a special designation for the millions of pages of still secret U.S. documents that relate to human rights and oppression, a designation that would facilitate their expeditious declassification.” A slide showed the first pages of the November 23, 1997 proposal put forth by Congressman Tom Lantos, H.R. 26535: “The Human Rights Information Act” presented during the 1st session of the 100th congress. This act would expedite the release of all documents since 1944 that contain information about human rights violations. The CIA and FBI opposed the law, and it failed to pass. While other countries, such as Uruguay, Peru, and Guatemala adopt similar legislation, it is unfortunate that the U.S. is falling behind: “We work in a global arena now in archives, and other countries are adopting ‘freedom of information’ laws that have specific clauses for the expedited declassification of human rights documentation so that governments cannot hide these atrocities.”
Aside from advocating for the freedom of information around the world, the NSA is a repository for declassified documents. As Kornbluh explained, the organization has hundreds of boxes filled with papers, from which it publishes electronic briefing books, such as the forthcoming Fifty Years of Cuba Relations, also making its digital collections available through their website. The NSA has targeted documents related to Latin America, the history of nuclear war, terrorism, presidential decision making, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. NSA staff have made over 40,000 FOIA requests generating the declassification of over 700,000 documents. The organization has also been instrumental in generating the declassification of documents and pushing for collections at presidential libraries to be opened to the public through Mandatory Declassification Review requests. Kornbluh explained that if the NSA drew only on U.S. archives, this would be “informational imperialism.” The organization therefore conducts research in other archives around the world, including Library and Archives Canada, the British National Archives, and the Brazilian National Archives, in addition to an increasing number of archives in Latin America, which have started to yield “impressive and vast numbers of docs on human rights.”
Kornbluh urged the propagation of “investigative librarians” in a field where we generally have a passive, “build it and they will come” orientation toward users: “It is in the building of these archival collections that we all bring the creativity and interests that we have to accumulate groups of unique records.” At the NSA, Kornbluh explained: “We proactively build our collections on Latin America and human rights with very specific usages in mind so, and very specific and clear strategies for the dissemination of the information, so it will have a maximum impact on the cause of human rights, through the media, into the hands of the courts and the families of victims that need them.” Kornbluh described his role as that of a “forensic historian,” the crime scene investigator of human rights atrocities in Latin America where the “autopsy” on human rights crimes is performed by “exhuming” the secret records of the vaults of the organizations like the FBI and CIA.
Another role Kornbluh highlighted is the targeting of key collections of documents related to human rights investigations in order to advance truth, justice, and dignity in Latin America. In order to accomplish this, Kornbluh advocates for the aggressive and special use of the FOIA through familiarity with the types of documents that each agency generates and the variety of reporting addressed by each department. The NSA is familiar with the operations of the State Department, the FBI attachés, the Defense Intelligence attachés, and the types of meetings and minutes that are generated by each group. Another method used to obtain documents is through “discretionary declassification,” pressing presidents and leaders to decree the declassification of relevant documents on key cases in order to advance the cause of human rights.
Kornbluh took the remainder of the time to illustrate some of the agency’s work.
1. Freedom of Information Act work
Much of the agency’s FOIA work is geared toward Truth Commissions related to Latin America. There have been a few cases where the NSA had foreknowledge of the establishment of a Truth Commission. For example, they have already started doing FOIA work in the U.S. related to an upcoming Brazil commission. Another example involves Peru, where the NSA had two years lead time to prepare 200 FOIA requests related to Alberto Fujimori.
Kornbluh showed a Defense Intelligence Agency document confirming that Fujimori gave the order to raid and execute prisoners at a Japanese residency where MRTA guerillas had taken hostages. Fujimori gave the order that no member of the hostage takers was to be taken alive, even if they were to surrender. The document confirms that two members did in fact surrender, were executed, and their bodies arranged in such a way as to appear that their deaths occurred during a “shoot out.” This document was instrumental in Fujimori’s trial, as it illustrates that he was capable of an explicit human rights violation. The NSA played a significant role in the Fujimori trial, giving the judges and prosecuting attorneys 21 documents that were used as evidence in Peru. Further to the Fujimori trial, Kornbluh showed the slide: “Counterterrorism plan: secret annex for extrajudicial assassination,” a document confirming that a secret, extracurricular, extrajudicial assassination program would be set up against those Fujimori considered to be terrorists.
Another FOIA example relates to the Defense Intelligence Agency “Biographic Data Reports” containing lists of where specific Guatemalan commanders were posted. The NSA also obtained “Order of Battle Documents” from which they were able to develop a database of major massacre locations and the corresponding commanding officers related to the atrocities. The database was used in helping the U.N. Truth Commission to establish connections between commanders and massacres. Kornbluh also presented a CIA Intelligence Report used by the U.N. Truth Commission showing that Rios Montt gave specific authorization for “carte-blanche” repression in the indigenous regions of Guatemala. Documents also illuminate the U.S. role in counter-terrorism campaigns, condoning operations that were tantamount to massacres, tortures, and bloodshed.
A slide showed a CIA diagram related to the 1954 coup operations against Arbenz, illustrating “The Conference Room Technique,” or “how to assassinate a room full of Arbenz officials in less than 20 seconds … and blame the communists.” This was found in the appendix to a manual on assassination which detailed every conceivable way to kill a person, including a section on blunt instruments. Kornbluh published the first four documents as “op-art” in the New York Times “op-ed” page, characterizing it as one of the most chilling documents he has ever read that was generated by tax-payer dollars. The declassification of these documents resulted in so much publicity that Clinton felt compelled to apologize for them when he was in Guatemala in 1998. Characterizing the incident, Kornbluh stated: “This is an issue of memory; this is an issue of accountability. Changing the framework of relations, addressing a horrid history, in the hopes of generating changes in the future.”
2. Emerging Latin American archives
Increasingly, in-house documents from Latin America are becoming instrumental to the work conducted by the NSA. Kornbluh showed a slide of a Chilean intelligence report from a DINA operative and bureau chief in Buenos Aires, Enrique Arancibia Clavel. Clavel operated under covert cover as a banker, but coordinated collaboration between the Argentinean Secret Police and the Chilean Secret Police. The document confirms that Clavel had been given a secret report by the Argentine Intelligence Batallion 601 confirming that between 1974 and 1976, 22,000 people died or disappeared due to Argentine military actions. This is still the only official acknowledgment from an internal Argentinean military source that confirms these deaths.
On some occasions, documents are given to NSA members by sources from inside Latin America. Kornbluh presented a slide of the Guatemalan “Death Squad Diary,” a leather-bound log book recording 8 months of efforts by the Guatemalan secret police during 1983. This was literally handed to Kate Doyle in Guatemala, as Kornbluh stated: “Even military sources sometimes have pains of conscience.” Kate Doyle published the article “Looking into the secret archives of Guatemala’s bureaucracy of murder” in Harper’s magazine and the log book became instrumental in prosecuting Guatemalan human rights cases.
Kornbluh cited the most important archival find in recent Latin American history to be the national police files in Guatemala. A photo showed a rat-infested abandoned armaments depot in the middle of Guatemala City, where some 50 million pages of documents were found in rotting bags. The materials were sifted through and are now being used as evidence in human rights trials. Related to this find, Kornbluh presented a slide that honors four police officers involved in the kidnapping and death of Edgar Fernando García, a student leader and trade union activist captured by Guatemalan security forces in 1984. As a result of this document, the officers were sent to trial, found guilty and sentenced to 40 years in prison. The documents illustrate that García’s capture was an organized political abduction orchestrated at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government. The documentary film Granito focuses on this incident, as a group of women, including colleague Kate Doyle, bring cases from Guatemala to the Spanish courts. In the film, Fernando Garcia’s daughter talks about the impact these documents have had on her, as she is able touch and feel them. She herself has become a human rights investigator, sifting through the documents in the archive. Kornbluh explained that the value of his work is driven home when the families of the victims come to the NSA to touch the photos of their loved ones, placing mementos in the archival case containing the documents: “The community has come to this activist archive.”
Another slide related to the “Archivo del Terror,” a major Latin American find in Paraguay. Upon finding this abandoned police station, a human chain was formed to transfer 700,000 documents to a car for transport to the Supreme Court building. Found among the documents was the original set of invitations that brought Paraguay into Operation Condor.
Kornbluh said: “We live in a global world, and one archive is not enough; we now look at many archives to build an investigative story.” To illustrate this, Kornbluh presented a slide with mug shots found by NSA colleague Carlos Osorio in the Mexican Police archives. The photos are of two Argentine secret police agents arrested in Mexico City in January of 1970. Osorio found corroborating documents in Paraguay, Argentina and the United States, to uncover “Operation Mexico,” an Argentine secret police rendition program to find and capture Monteneros living in Mexico City. Through the program, the agents captured “Tucho” Valenzuela, his wife, and two children, telling Valenzuela that he will identify other Monteneros, or risk losing his family. Valenzuela escaped from his captors and brought the story to the Mexican police who then found and arrested the Battalion 601 agents, taking the resulting mug shots. In the spirit of counter-terrorism, the Mexican police return Valenzuela to the two Battalion members and deport everyone back to Argentina. Since the operation had been blown, 14 people held at a detention center were executed to cover up the case, including Valenzuela’s wife. The children were adopted by military families, and finally reunited at the 2010 trial where the commanders were ultimately convicted.
3. Discretionary Declassification
Presenting a slide of the British warrant for Pinochet’s arrest in October of 1998, Kornbluh explained that documents are obtained by pushing presidents and leaders around the world to approve discretionary declassification. Kornbluh recalled the NSA’s ability to pressure the Clinton Administration on discretionary declassification of documents from Chile, resulting in the release of 24,000 items, including an internal diagram of the structure of the Chilean secret police. A slide entitled, “CIA Reports on Repression in Chile Ties Pinochet to Abuses,” shows that General Manuel Contreras took his orders from Augusto Pinochet, and Pinochet alone. Another slide shows Kissinger’s attitude toward Pinochet, when in a September 29, 1975 meeting with Admiral Caravajal, he complains: “I have read the briefing book my staff has prepared for me on this meeting, and it’s nothing but Human Rights.” Although Pinochet was never convicted, Kornbluh feels that these documents ensure that you still have a verdict of history.
Questions & Comments:
David Block (Cornell University) asked the only question: “In the context of your present work, what do you make of Wikileaks?”
Kornbluh replied that Wikileaks is essentially a techno-media organization that accepted almost 700,000 documents from U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning and placed them on a network. What sets Wikileaks apart is the magnitude of the documents, and the use of technology to distribute them. The NSA has a different modus operandi than Wikileaks. For the most part, the NSA does not deal in leaked materials, but rather advocates for transparency with regards to government information. However, Kornbluh recommended that we compare Julian Assange’s reception to that of Bob Woodward: “Nobody is talking about prosecuting Bob Woodward, and nobody should be talking about prosecuting Assange either.”
Panel 19, July 27, 2010, 9:00 am-10:30 am
Moderator: David S. Nolen, Mississippi State University
Presenter: Christopher Moore (Film Maker)
Rapporteur: Sarah A. Buck Kachaluba, Florida State University
This session was a screening of the film Moving Pictures o Los Autos de Caracas. The filmmaker was present and available for additional conversation and questions after the screening, but the screening took up all the time allotted. This film was a sequel to an earlier film, done in 2006, when Moore and two fellow undergraduate students at Trinity College went to Venezuela to interview people with different perspectives on Hugo Chávez. At this time, the country was quite polarized. Moving Pictures o Los Autos de Caracas, filmed in 2010, brought the three back to the same five regions, to reconnect with the same people.
Moving Pictures o Los Autos de Caracas, a title which refers to modes of transportation (and the importance of oil in Venezuela’s history, contemporary society and political-economy) as well as the process of self-identity construction, provides a fascinating look at Venezuela’s recent political and social history. The film’s inclusion of very different viewpoints (provided through interviews and accompanying film footage), culminated in a remarkably balanced perspective.
Those interviewed included individuals at Chávez’s campaign headquarters as well as people representing opposition parties; residents of an Amazonian village, an urban barrio constructed on a hill, and a town on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, that has sunk because of all the holes poked in the lake to extract oil. Each case provided unique insight into the inner-workings of Venezuela’s political-economy and society. For example, the government’s efforts to build a retaining wall and then build houses in a different location to remedy the dislocation of those living in the Maracaibo community were limited because out of 400 homes, only 8 people from the original community were living there. Other homes had been invaded by people with connections to the contractors who built them. Others questioned Chávez’s so-called “Socialist” orientation, arguing that if anything, people are becoming increasingly selfish and privatization is on the rise. For example, one member of another community explained that people used to share all of their food but this was no longer the case. Such personal testimonies were supplemented by interviews with Venezuelan and North American academics who explained, among other things, that Chávez’s administration made top-down decisions intended to serve the interests of the poor, but allowing for all to have a voice in the process was not a priority. In short, this was a compelling and fascinating look at contemporary Venezuela.
Panel 15, June 1, 2011, 9:00 am-10:30 am
Moderator: Marisol Ramos, University of Connecticut
Presenters: Jared Marchildon, Libros Latinos; Gustavo Castaner, International Monetary Fund, Archivists without Borders, Spain; Irene Münster, University of Maryland; Mark Grover, Brigham Young University
Rapporteur: Barbara Alvarez, University of Michigan
The presentations on this panel documented the struggle against political oppression in Mexico, Spain, Argentina and Chile, and described efforts to preserve memories of that oppression.
“ASARO” , the opening talk by Jared Marchildon gave an account of the presenter’s trips to Oaxaca in January and May 2011, where he went to meet the Asemblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca (ASARO) artists and purchase their prints. Delivered in English and Spanish, with strokes of vivid, visual language, the presentation painted the picture of the life of the ASARO collective, its members Lalo, Yeska, Baltasar, Pacheco, Mario Guzmán, and the creative process that happens in their studios and on the streets of Oaxaca, where they use stencils and graffiti art to express their political resistance. As Marchildon explained, the group formed itself in 2006 when a teachers’ protest turned into a general uprising involving one third of the Oaxacan population. A Japanese artist working at the Instituto de Bellas Artes taught the founding members of ASARO techniques of art protest he had learned in Japan and other countries. ASARO prints and graffiti painfully depict the social and political oppression, the poverty, the submissive state of women, the government’s abuse of power, and promote revolutionary ideals and human solidarity. Yeska and his fellow artists descend from the surrounding hills upon the city to imprint their political message upon the walls. They disguise, hide their spray cans and stencils, and evade police to aid la rebellion through unnerving and denouncing images. The other favorite medium of the ASARO collective are woodcut prints. Many of them are exhibited in Mexico and abroad and many are purchased by collectors and art vendors. The ASARO Blogspot page (http://asar-oaxaca.blogspot.com) features exhibits and works of individual artists, as well as publications and videos about the collective.
The following presentation, “Breaking Down the Wall of Silence: The Archives in the Battle for Retrieving Spain’s Historical Memory,” delivered by Gustavo Castaner, addressed the difficulties of recovering the historical memory of Franco’s regime. According to Castaner, Spain is often referred to as a model transition from dictatorship to democracy. In fact, this transition was achieved through an agreement with the dictator’s followers that guaranteed impunity for them and their crimes. The price of this agreement was silence. A look back after 30 years reveals that Franco’s regime, which was sustained for nearly 40 years, was much more dire than other dictatorships. Thousands of victims of Franco’s brutal repression still lie in forgotten mass graves without any recognition.
In 2007, the Law of Historical Memory was passed in Spain. This law condemns Franco’s regime and prescribes the removal of its symbols from public spaces. It recognizes the victims of violence on both sides of the conflict and ensures the assistance of the government in discovery, identification and exhumation of the bodies buried in mass graves. Archives are a crucial tool for the retrieval of the forgotten memory. Franco’s government kept exhaustive records that are vital to the research of this historical period.
Franquistas practiced a total war and dehumanization of the enemy, the same tactics that were used in the Spanish-Moroccan War (1909-26), such as the use of poison gas, mass executions and rape, and attacks on the civil population. The best known case was Badajoz, where Franco’s troops shot some 2,000-4,000 people in the bull-fight ring after taking the city. Francisco Espinosa Maestre documented in his book the bloody advance of ¨the column of death¨ that executed 10% of inhabitants of each village they had entered. The gang rapes were common, and the franquistas promised white women to the Moors fighting on their side.
Franco’s regime used war edicts as legal instruments in the first year of the war. The deaths of victims were recorded in civil registries as “application of the war edict.” In the following years, court martials took over the legal procedures of the repression. Ironically, people were condemned for aiding the rebellion where, in fact, the military were those who rebelled by organizing a coup d’état. The Law of Political Responsibilities, passed in February 1939, allowed the imposition of penalties such as total disqualification, banishment, exile, total or partial loss of assets and loss of nationality. By September of 1941, the regional tribunals initiated 229,549 such cases.
The violence on the Republican side mainly happened because the government lost control. In Madrid and Barcelona, the anarchists and union members got weapons and started their own revenge. It was estimated that the leftists killed some 85,000 people, but it turns out that a lot of victims were counted more than once. The latest studies account for some 130,000 victims of Franco’s regime.
Franco had an obsession about freemasonry and communism. Special military units searched for documents and collected them in a center in Salamanca. In Barcelona they collected 165 tons of records during five-month search. In Salamanca, 400 tons of records of institutions and organizations were gathered and members of the tribunal produced 3 million index cards with information on specific individuals. Many civil servants lost their jobs, and half a million people were in prison at the end of the war.
In conclusion, Castaner noted that since 2000, the Association for Historical Memory fights to recover the historical records and to exhume mass graves. However, the process is difficult because information is very fragmented and dispersed across the country and it is also difficult to manage and understand for non-experts. The Law of Historical Memory is not applied to its full extent. Resources are not there and the government is not very helpful. Amnesty International Spain published a report called Disaster of Archives and the Privatization of Truth. The latest scandal is the publication of the new Diccionario Biográfico Español in which the entry on Franco is written by his past supporter, and calls him “authoritarian,” without any allusion to the fact that he was a repressive dictator.
Irene Münster‘s presentation, “Memorializing Memories,” took the audience to Argentina under the rule of the military junta of 1976-1983. Based on personal memories, her paper gave an account of the fate of some publishers, bookstores, libraries and community organizers that were active during those turbulent times. When the junta took power, Münster was 20 years old and worked at the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano under the leadership of Marshall Meyer, a young American rabbi.
With absolute impunity, the junta organized a systematic plan to persecute and repress thousands of people in more than 300 clandestine detention centers around the country. Fifteen thousand to thirty thousand people disappeared and 70% of the victims were under the age of 35. Fifteen percent were Jews. The junta aimed to subdue all areas of cultural activity and to impose on the population their moral principles and conservative authoritarian ideology. The Ministerio del Interior enforced censorship, took control of publishing houses and destroyed books. Operación Claridad established in academic centers identified subversive books and teachers who used them. Students and professors alike were pressured to report on each other. Many writers went into exile, others spent time in prison and were tortured, and some disappeared. “Dangerous” books and their authors were registered on a black list. Publishers and bookstores suffered from censorship, books were confiscated and burned, and their owners or vendors were detained or disappeared.
EUDEBA, created in 1958, shortly became the biggest publisher of Spanish language books. In 1974 it was taken over by the Peronist party. In 1976, 15 of its titles were banned and taken to the basement. In February 1977, four military trucks loaded some 80,000-90,000 volumes that subsequently were destroyed. In 1978 the police discovered thousands of books, magazines and encyclopedias of Marxism stored in a warehouse. In August 1980 the police burned 1.5 million books on a vacant lot of land. Witnesses were brought to testify that the books were burned and not stolen. The leftist newspaper La Nueva Presencia was attacked with explosives in 1981.
Marshall Meyer started to fight for human rights against the system, the junta and the Jewish establishment. He spoke to the press and to the community. Soon, he and those who worked with him started to receive death threats almost daily. Every Friday, Meyer went to prisons to provide comfort to Jews and non-Jews alike. He was subjected to the same humiliation as the prisoners. However, he brought back documents and letters to families. The papers needed to be hidden in case of inspection by the authorities. The chosen place was the library, between the huge volumes of Jewish law. This collection, hidden for seven years, is now at the Duke University, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.
Most of the human rights organizations worked to denounce violations committed by the military and offer support to victims and their families. The most prominent were Asemblea Permanente de los Derechos Humanos, founded in 1975, and Movimiento Ecuménico por los Derechos Humanos, founded in 1976. Jews were not persecuted because they were Jews; however, a special vicious treatment was given to them while in prison. Their families did not get any support from Jewish organizations or other human rights organization. Therefore, Movimiento Judío por los Derechos Humanos was founded by Meyer.
Community and university libraries received lists of banned authors. The cards were removed from the catalogs, making their works inaccessible. In the province of Córdoba, the police demanded the borrowing records of community library users. Eighty two writers and 27 librarians are among the disappeared. To protect themselves, many people burned their personal libraries. To have a library was already dangerous because you were considered an intellectual which was synonymous with a leftist thinker. Münster concluded that “the memory of terror still lives among us. Argentina is a country living with its ghosts.”
The last presentation also focused on Argentina’s “Dirty War.” Mark Grover‘s talk “Under Threat: Academics Documenting Human Rights Abuses. The Case of Argentine Professor William Sill” recounted the story of Dr. William Sill, Research Professor and Curator of the Paleontology Museum at the National University of San Juan in western Argentina. Sill is mostly known for the establishment of the Ischigualasto Provincial Park that became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but is also recognized as “a defender of human rights”. Sill studied geology at Brigham Young University (BYU) and the National University of Mexico (UNAM). In 1958, he was sent to Argentina by the LDS Church on a religious mission. He returned to the United States in 1961, graduated from BYU in 1963, and entered Harvard to study vertebrate paleontology. Between 1968 and 1970, he held a post-graduate research and teaching position at Yale University. In 1970 he received a National Science Foundation grant to spend a year at the Instituto Miguel Lillo in Tucumán examining and evaluating a collection of fossils from Ischigualasto. In 1971 the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo created a geology department in San Juan and he was offered a full professorship in paleontology. He and his family moved to San Juan in western Argentina. Soon after, Sill became involved in the creation of the Ischigualasto Provincial Park to protect a unique deposit of fossils from the Triassic period.
Grover interviewed Sill in Buenos Aires in 2001 at the time when the later had just received the Argentine Congressional Medal of Honor. During the interview, Sill passed onto Grover a copy of his diary, written between 1976 and 1979, which documented the kidnapping, torture, death or escape of some of his students and friends. As a scientist, Sill kept detailed records of the events, methods of torture, accounts of abuses and affected victims even though writing of such a diary was very risky. He created a special code to encrypt people’s names to protect their identity. The other parts of the dairy recount the story of two students Sill helped to escape from Argentina and a brief exposition of his philosophical and religious views on what was going on.
Sill was distressed by the violence, helplessness and the lack of opposition in certain sectors of society. The political situation had also a devastating effect on the university. Numerous faculty members were dismissed and 65 students disappeared. Many students came to tell him stories of their arrest and torture. Soon he realized he and his family were in danger. They secretly moved first to a farm in the country and later on to Buenos Aires. The soldiers who searched for him were told that the family moved back to the US. They lived concealed in Argentina for another two years, but eventually they had to leave the country. They arrived in Austin, TX where they remained for ten years, teaching for the Mormon Church and in the Department of Geological Studies at the University of Texas. In 1992 Sill returned to San Juan to work as Curator of Paleontology at the university’s museum. In 2002, seriously affected by muscular dystrophy, Sill moved back to Las Vegas to be near two of his children. His papers were donated to BYU in 2003. He became bedridden in 2004 and passed away at the age of 70 on March 15, 2008.
Questions & Comments:
Pamela Graham (Columbia University) alluded to the point that Spain is considered a model of transition from dictatorship to democracy and to the challenge of moving forward the process of recovery of historical memory. She asked Castaner about the effect that memory recovery movements in other countries may have on Spain. Castaner expressed hope that Spain will learn from the example of other countries, such as truth commissions in South Africa, to address this problem. “As long as we have people abandoned in mass graves […], each closure will be a false one.”
Panel 8, May 31, 2011, 9:00 am-10:30 am
Moderator: Meiyolet Méndez, University of Miami
Presenters: Maria R. Estorino, University of Miami; Béatrice Colastin Skokan, University of Miami; Meiyolet Méndez, University of Miami
Rapporteur: Sarah Yoder Leroy, University of Pittsburgh
After Meiyolet Méndez welcomed everyone and introduced the speakers, Maria R. Estorino spoke about building the Cuban Heritage Collection (http://library.miami.edu/chc/) at the University of Miami Libraries. After giving some background on the history of the connection between Cuba and the University of Miami, and the interest in collecting Cuban materials by the University of Miami Libraries over the years, she described the official formation of the Cuban Heritage Collection in 1998, which brought together collections documenting Cuba, the exile experience, and the culture and literature of the Cuban diaspora, which had previously resided in different areas of the libraries. The Cuban Heritage Collection received a grant to build a space for the collections, and in 2003 the Roberto C. Goizueta Pavilion opened. The Cuban Heritage Collection serves the university, the larger academic community, and the general public, and focuses on four main areas: 1) collection development, 2) preservation and access, 3) teaching, learning and research, and 4) outreach. It brings together, preserves, and makes available primary and secondary materials in all formats, including digital resources. It works with faculty to support instruction at the university, and supports research by sponsoring undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowship. In addition, it coordinates events and exhibitions which reach the general public. Some challenges for the future include ongoing assessment of the collections, building more faculty relationships, and working with a changing donor base, as new demographics and associated relationships emerge.
Béatrice Colastin Skokan followed with a presentation on documenting the Haitian diaspora at the University of Miami Libraries. Miami-Dade is a center of Haitian life in the U.S., where Haitians are the second largest non-English speaking group after Hispanics, and the second largest immigrant population after Cubans. They are a marginalized group, and Special Collections at the University of Miami has made efforts to collect primary source materials documenting the social and political life of this group. The current focus is on collecting papers and documents of local activist groups. It also sponsors public events and outreach, such as the special event entitled Documenting the Fringe, which included a reception and discussion on documenting counter-cultural activism. Special Collections holds the Max Rameau papers (1998-2010) which document his activism for the homeless and the poor within the South Florida communities of the African diaspora. Materials are often acquired through donations from community leaders, and developing relationships is a key component in making this possible. Collecting oral histories is another way they are filling content gaps and documenting intangible culture.
Meiyolet Méndez‘s presentation was entitled “Blueprint for a Collaborative Instruction Model: a Multi-Disciplinary Approach”, and she spoke of developing partnerships with librarians working in other departments of the library in order to enhance the work of both. For example, the Cuban Heritage Collection’s desire to increase the use of its archival and digital material, and the Education and Outreach’s aim to incorporate the use of primary documents in information literacy sessions lead to a natural collaboration. Working together, the two librarians could identify classes with a Latin American/Cuban component, and introduce the Cuban Heritage Collection’s digitized primary materials in an instruction session. The blueprint for collaboration is as follows: identify a department in the library you want to know about, contact the librarians there, meet and identify common goals or needs. Reach out according to your strengths and prior relationships. If you are interested in instruction, identify programs or classes where you might work collaboratively. Document your activities. There are also possibilities for non-instructional collaboration, such as events and exhibits, where volunteering and agreeing to do something new are ways to stay aware of activities in other departments.
Questions & Comments:
Peter Bushnell (University of Florida) asked if there was a charge for non-University of Miami users. Special Collections and the Cuban Heritage Collection are open to all.
Gayle Williams (Florida International University) mentioned that it was a shame Lesbia Varona wasn’t in attendance since she would have so much to add.
Marisol Ramos (University of Connecticut) mentioned that she appreciated the presentation because it is so hard to find materials about the Haitian diaspora, and she is excited to find someone doing this. She is trying to collect Haitian ephemera as well. She is also collaborating with archivists at her institution, and wants to promote more collaboration among librarians.
Gerada Holder (National Library and Information System, Trinidad and Tobago) wondered what the collection strengths were with regard to the Caribbean countries. Colastin Skokan indicated that the University of Miami’s strengths are Jamaican and Haitian materials and the Caribbean Documents collection, which includes slave registers from Trinidad and Tobago, significant rare books, and 19th century materials.
Diane Napert (Yale University) asked whether gifts come with restrictions. Estorino said they are working on a standard deed of gifts for personal papers and organizational papers.
Paul Smith (University of California, Los Angeles) asked whether there is an organization in New York creating an archive of Haitian materials, and whether there was any Haitian migration to Quebec. Colastin Skokan answered that the migration distribution is South Florida, New York, Boston, and Quebec. The University of Miami is starting in South Florida, but some oral histories have been conducted with artists in New York as well. The Schomburg Center may be collecting Haitian diaspora material, but she wasn’t sure.
Panel 13, May 31, 2011, 2:00 pm-3:00 pm
Moderator: Adán Griego, Stanford University
Presenters: Melissa Guy, Arizona State University; Felipe Varela, e-libro.com; Lluis Claret, Digitalia; Barbara Casalini, Casalini Libri
Rapporteur: Meagan Lacy, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
These presentations focused on e-book trends from the perspectives of students, academic librarians, and vendors.
Adán Griego opened the panel with a PowerPoint presentation introducing the evolution of the e-book, emphasizing that the availability of e-books in Spanish are not meeting user expectations. Griego cited a study in Library Journal to show that academic libraries are ripe to provide e-books in Spanish. Griego also cited an informal survey (sent out to SALALM libraries) that collected information about which platforms these libraries used (Ebrary, Netlibrary, Digitalia, Alexander Street Press) and whether or not, to the respondents’ knowledge, they provided content in Spanish. These results implied that public libraries are more ready than academic libraries to provide e-books. Anticipating skepticism, Griego stressed that e-books are a solution to space issues in libraries and that future college students, “digital natives,” will expect to have access to e-books. Griego concluded the presentation by listing resources academic librarians can peruse in order to keep current about the e-book market. Resources included: Blog de Libros y bitios (http://jamillan.com/librosybitios/), Libros electronicos (open group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/universoebook), and Javier Celaya (on dosdoce.com).
Melissa Guy continued the panel discussion (see PowerPoint here) describing how the systematic, patron driven acquisitions (PDA) program at Arizona State University (ASU) has affected e-book usage. ASU serves over 70,000 students in the Phoenix metropolitan area, many enrolled in its distance education programs. In order to serve this scattered student body, ASU prefers electronic sources. Due to the recession, however, ASU was unable to purchase anything for its collections between 2008 and 2010. This environment forced ASU libraries to devise a new system.
In 2009, Guy noted, ASU partnered with Coutts because they could provide an immediate, e-preferred approval plan. This plan had three components to accommodate the purchase of electronic books, books in print, and books from university presses. E-books are collected using a three-click model. Records to titles not exceeding $150 and that fit subject parameters are streamed in the catalog and after the third user clicks on the title, that e-book is purchased (so two uses are free). For print books, again records are streamed in the catalog, and titles are purchased automatically (through acquisitions) after the first click. Books from university presses are collected using the more traditional approval plan method (arriving automatically in print). One challenge with this system is deciding when to stop streaming MARC records in the catalog after they have been loaded (i.e. how to remove records to materials not purchased). ASU can buy books from other e-book vendors, but the PDA program runs on the Coutts My iLibrary platform.
At this point, there are 4,700 MARC records for print titles. E-books were loaded in 2009. It took an additional year to get print titles going because of backend issues. Because the plan is e-preferred, ASU has a 90-day hold on print titles. What this means is that when a print title is available, Coutts waits 90 days to see if the title will be made electronic, at which point it will be streamed as an e-title. If there is no e-version after 90 days, the record to the print title is streamed. If a book available in print becomes available as an e-book, the electronic book record replaces the print record, which has caused challenges for acquisitions.
Not surprisingly, social sciences and humanities disciplines dominated print titles, while demand for e-books was led by STEM disciplines. Almost all print books were selected by faculty (45%) and graduate students (40%). In FY2011, ASU spent $100,000 on print titles from University Presses, $152,000 on PDA e-books, and $24,000 on print books (much of these orders were fulfilled by Amazon since Coutts doesn’t have titles in stock).
Another challenge, according to Guy, included assessment as well as implications on area studies and foreign language collection development. Involving subject librarians from the beginning, continuing the approval plan with university presses, and permitting firm orders have all worked to mitigate some problems. When the PDA program was established all of the regular fund codes were eliminated, so subject librarians were drawing from the same pool of money for firm orders. Presently, since less money is spent on PDA, more money is available for firm orders. Also, area studies librarians were the exception; they had their own budget outside of firm order funds, so approval plans with international vendors could remain in place.
Following Guy, Felipe Varela (e-libro.com) opened his presentation by providing updates about changes happening at e-libro. First, ProQuest bought ebrary, and ebrary and e-libro have been working in tandem since 1999. So, ebrary and ProQuest will now distribute e-libro around the world. Ebrary will distribute e-libro in the United States; ProQuest will distribute e-libro throughout the rest of the world. Also, if any libraries subscribe to Academic Complete with ebrary, they can now update to Academic Complete con Español, which includes approximately 3,700 e-libro’s titles. The e-libro’s platform is exactly the same as ebrary so the features (highlighter, dictionary, translator) and the process for searching the text are familiar except that the searches can now be accomplished in Spanish. Students can print twenty pages a session or 40 pages per day – a restriction e-libro grants in order to please publishers and thus sign them. Also, every student can create their own library, which allows them to save their highlighted text and notes for later review. Currently e-libros holds about 45,000 titles including theses, articles, and books. Every year, e-libros is building momentum, and it is getting easier for the company to obtain new titles. For instance, they currently have 86 titles from Fondo (working toward another 200), Instituto Politécnico Nacional, UNAM, and Universidad de Guadalajara. In Spain, they have Siglo XXI. Other titles come from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Grupo Planeta.
Valera further explained that the price for e-libro depends on FTE at the university. Worldwide, e-libro has approximately 500 clients – doing well especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. In the US, they have four clients (all in Florida because Varela lives in Florida). Since e-brary is now distributing e-libros titles, e-libros expects to have more US clients.
Next, Lluis Claret (Digitalia) introduced his products and services. Digitalia was formed five years ago with a mission to provide quality e-content to libraries without disrupting traditional models for selection and acquisitions. The company has concluded that there are basically two purchasing models: subscription and ownership. Subscription works well in Latin America but not the US, where libraries prefer perpetual access. Claret admitted that PDA is a third option but intimated that it is not realistic for publishers who would be forced to do more “commercial stuff.”
Digitalia offers three purchasing models where customers can subscribe, buy, or lease-to-buy. New York Public Library uses this latter model, which allows them “the best of the subscription” as well as some perpetual rights. One feature that sets Digitalia apart from other vendors is that they provide subscriptions to e-books and e-journals. In addition, all titles are accessible by multiple users, and users can print as much as they want. The platform is very similar to myilibrary. Claret emphasized that Digitalia is academic and research focused and is working mostly with academic libraries. Digitalia is committed to acquiring quality academic titles in Latin America and the Caribbean as quickly as possible.
Finally, Barbara Casalini (Casalini Libri) explained how Casalini Libri, founded in 1958 in Italy, is fulfilling its mission to bring publications in the Romance Languages to Academic Libraries worldwide in the digital age. Its digital division started in 2000, and in 2004 they launched Editoria Italiana Online (EIO) and in 2006 Edición Española Online (EEO).
Recently, the EEO platform was launched. To demystify how Casalini Libri operates, Casalini explained the process of acquiring e-content. First, she said that they contact publishers who provide a print-ready PDF of the content. Then, MARC records are created. Finally, they sign the Digital Rights Management contract. The objective is always to develop a collection that is of enduring value to libraries (“long tail” titles). Casalini acknowledged that libraries need to know what content is available electronically in a timely manner.
Next, Casalini demonstrated EEO, mentioning that it holds approximately 500 books from 14 publishers and is growing. Spanish content is provided in the eBook format only (as opposed to being divided into clickable chapters), but features will eventually be enhanced. Currently, the subject content is focused heavily in Social Sciences and Law though subject content is expected to grow.
The new EEO platform was designed to sustain different economic models and meet Web 2.0 expectations. Its interface is available in 5 languages (Spanish, English, Italian, German, and French) and allows for customizable skins (to match institutional theme). From the user end, libraries can choose to either show e-content that it has acquired or show all of the content available, accommodating PDA in a variety of manifestations. Also, the platform was designed with federated searching (SUMMON, PRIMO Central) and usage statistics in mind.
In the future, Casalini Libri aims to acquire more titles from university presses and content that is already available in Open Access and to design a mobile interface. Finally, it is striving to facilitate agreements with CLOCKSS and Portico to promote digital solutions to publishers in Spain and Portugal and to collect more regional content.
Questions & Comments:
Jesús Alonso-Regalado (University at Albany, SUNY) questioned the fairness of pricing models based on FTE since Spanish readers are a minority on university campuses, and he asked the vendors whether or not they charge customers for Open Access content (such as that from CLASCO). Varela responded that FTE is the best solution they currently have to charge customers and that customers pay for a subscription – whether or not some of the individual titles are freely available. (E-libro was deleting free content, but customers complained when titles started to disappear from the database.) Casalini said that Open Access content has no fiscal bearing on the subscription price. Valera added that whenever e-libro signs a publisher, he only obtains what the publisher wants to give. In other words, he does not obtain exclusive rights. So, publishers are able to put their content anywhere else they choose, including through Open Access channels.
Peter Johnson (Hunters Point) asked what consideration the vendors have given to important publications (monographic and serial) that are issued by Think Tanks, NGOs, and branches of the government (at a national, provincial, and city level). Valera said that e-brary has close to half a million titles from NGOs and the like, but e-libro, still concentrating on finding publishers and university presses, is not even close to that number. However, he added that e-libro hopes to gather this kind of content in the future. Claret cited a publication from the government in Valencia that is included in his database and said that it took him three years to negotiate the deal – suggesting that the dearth of these kinds of publications might be traced to the time consuming process associated with obtaining them. Casalini agreed with Claret’s comment, saying his experience resonated with her own.
Patricia Figueroa (Brown University) addressed Casalini, asking whether or not she had plans to merge EIO, EEO, and any other platforms. Casalini clarified that the content is already available from one platform but that the interface is available in five languages.
Melanie Polutta (Library of Congress) asked Guy how they are receiving MARC records for titles they are streaming but haven’t yet been purchased. Guy replied that Coutts supplies those records but that for items obtained through Amazon, additional processing the MARC records is required on the part of ASU Libraries.
Martha Mantilla (University of Pittsburgh) asked the vendors whether or not, when they negotiate with publishers, they obtain exclusive rights. Claret responded that, though they do have some exclusivities, this is not always the case. They are not pushing for exclusivity because it is so difficult to obtain exclusive agreements. In the future, he expects to see that many platforms will have similar content and that it will then be up to the customer to decide which platform she wants to use. Mantilla restated her question, asking whether or not a publisher granting exclusivity to Digitalia could also sell that content to e-libro. Both Claret and Varela said that in the case of an exclusive agreement, no, but that such instances are rare. Now, agreements are almost always non-exclusive.
Miguel Angel Valladares (Dartmouth College) addressed Guy wanting to know whether or not there is a limit to the amount patrons can spend. In response, Guy recommended first that the audience participants interested in PDA go to the Library-Bookdealer-Publisher Relations committee meeting where Holly Ackerman (Duke) is expected to give a talk about PDA at Duke. Then, she explained that at ASU the library has the ability to deactivate this feature at any time. In addition, ASU Libraries set aside a large reserve of funds in case “people went nuts.” As it turns out, people didn’t abuse this feature, and ASU actually had a surplus for firm orders. Valladares followed up, asking whether or not ASU publicized the feature. Guy said that ASU libraries did not publicize PDA at all. Valladares’ also wanted to know how many eBooks titles ASU was able to acquire. Guy said that she would find this information and contact Valladares directly. In jest, Valladares asked Guy if he could use her name with his Coutts representative.
Panel 17, June 1, 2011, 9:00-10:30 am
Moderator: Héctor Morey, Library of Congress
Presenters: Melissa Gasparotto, Rutgers University; Diane Napert, Yale University; Craig Schroer, University of Texas at Austin; Anton du Plessis, Texas A&M University; Alison Hicks, University of Colorado, Boulder
Rapporteur: Brenda Salem, University of Pittsburgh
The presentations on this panel described initiatives that made use of the latest information technology to provide better library service and to enhance access to information.
The first presentation, titled, “Search Engine Optimization for the Research Librarian, or How Librarians Can Beat Spammers at Their Own Game” was given by Melissa Gasparotto, a librarian at Rutgers University. Citing a project on search engine optimization she worked on, Gasparatto demonstrated how assigning appropriate high quality metadata can be placed in online academic works in order to place them higher on the results lists of search engines such as Google. She started out by explaining that Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a set of practices that modify elements of a web page in order for the page to have higher visibility among the results of particular search engine queries. All search engines have guidelines and best practices for SEO in order to make website more readable for both search engines and humans. However, SEO has gotten a bad reputation because it is something that spammers have long taken advantage of by means of inaccurate metadata and link farms to promote low quality content.
Gasparotto acknowledged doubts about whether SEO is appropriate for academia, but asserted that indeed, SEO is something that can be used to academia’s advantage, whether it’s for online journal articles, a database, an institutional repository, or an open access journal. Some of the reasons for the importance of applying good SEO practices in online academic work are the growing importance of open access and the higher probability that such work will be indexed by Google Scholar web crawlers. The practices that apply specifically to making academic works more accessible on the open web through search engines like Google Scholar is known as Academic Search Engine Optimization (ASEO), which is of particular use to librarians.
She continued by describing her project on optimizing her online bibliography of U.S. Lesbian Latina History and Culture. She mentioned that this was a particular good case study because searches for “lesbian latina” often result in links to pornographic sites, which make legitimate academic studies on lesbian Latinas hard to find. The project goals and methodology were based on an article written by Martha Kelehan about her project with two colleagues at SUNY-Binghamton on optimizing the SUNY-Binghamton website. These goals were to 1) increase the bibliography’s page rank for a targeted set of search terms, 2) increase the number of search engine referrals, and 3) increase the number of page views. She outlined the methodology of her project, which included first measuring the natural ranking of the online bibliography, then using analysis tools to select target keywords, optimizing the bibliography using those keywords, and finally measuring the page ranking after the optimization. This took her about six months, noting that SEO is a long-term process. Among the analysis tools she used were Google Trends, Google Insights Keyword Tool, Google Adwords, and Topicmarks. It turns out that the bibliography’s ranking was surprisingly high to begin with for many of the keyword searches she had chosen for the study, so no optimization was needed for half of the target keywords. To optimize the keywords, Gasparotto added some metadata to the site’s HTML code. At the end of her project, the site’s ranking improved significantly for her chosen keyword search strings. Gasparatto concluded her presentation by listing best practices for those wishing to optimize their online academic works, as well as recommended reading on SEO.
The second presentation was titled, “Digging for Treasure: Zarzuelas and Other Gems in the Historical Sound Recording Collection at Yale University” and was given by Diane Napert, a catalog librarian at Yale University. In this presentation, Napert described a grant-funded project that she participated in to catalog the large number of 78 rpm recordings that make part of Yale’s Historical Sound Recording Collection (HSCRC), focusing on their collection of zarzuela recordings. She started out by giving a short history and overview of the HSRC, which is strong in Western classical music, as well as American musical theater and spoken word recordings. She then described the project, which was funded by a $789,000 Mellon grant. The institutions that participated in this project were Yale, Stanford, New York Public Library’s Rogers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, and later Syracuse. In the end, the project contributed over 24,000 records to OCLC, which, she noted, is small compared to the number of 78 rpm recordings that remain uncataloged, but is a significant number nonetheless. In a typical cataloging record, she added access points for people and groups who contributed to the recording and was successful in connecting arias to the correct opera and excerpted songs to the correct musicals. The recordings that were cataloged came from over 360 recording labels, particularly Columbia, Edison, Decca, Gramophone, among others.
Napert gave an overview and history of the zarzuela, which is a lyric-dramatic genre that comes from Spain and originated in the mid to late 1600s. When cataloging zarzuelas, Napert used The Zarzuela Companion, written by Christopher Webber. Napert went on to play several samples of 78 rpm zarzuela recordings. The samples included: 1) a 1906 recording of “Vals del Caballero de Gracia” from La Gran Vía, written by Federico Chueca and sung by baritone Luigi Baldassare, 2) a 1924 recording of “Al Pensar en el Dueño de mis Amores” from Las Hijas del Zebedo, written by Ruperto Chapí and sung by soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, 3) a 1906 recording of “Ven Rodolfo” from El Anillo de Hierro, written by Pedro Miguel Marqués and sung by soprano Carmen Fernández de Lara and 4) a 1905 recording of “Granadinas” from Emigrantes, written by Tomás Barrera. One of the success stories of the project was that the great-granddaughter of famous soprano Paquita Correa was able to hear recordings of her great-grandmother for the first time. The great-granddaughter had been unable to find her recordings in Spain but was made aware of the collection at Yale. Napert played a sample of one of Correa’s recordings, which was “Brindis” from Apolinar Brull y Ayerra’s Ángel Caído.
Napert ended her presentation by mentioning the fairly new Library of Congress’ National Jukebox website (http://www.loc.gov/jukebox), which provides access to many American recordings made between 1901 and 1925. She also showed a screenshot of the HSCR project website, and mentioned that there are some non-zarzuela recordings on the site. She thanked Richard Warren, the curator of the HSRC and Nicole Rodriguez, who is a Library Services assistant at HSRC. She concluded by mentioning other types of Latin American recordings that are part of the HSRC and might be of interest to SALALM members.
The following presentation, titled “Primeros Libros: A Working Model of Institutional Collaboration” was given by Craig Schroer, an electronic resources librarian for the Benson Collection at the University of Texas, Austin and Anton du Plessis, a curator for the Mexican Colonial Collection at Texas A&M University. In the presentation, they described the “Primeros Libros” project, which is a collaboration between their institutions and certain Mexican institutions to digitize the earliest publications in colonial Mexico. Schroer started out by giving an overview of the “Primeros Libros” collection, which is an online digital collection of books printed in Mexico between 1539 and 1601, also known as Mexican incunabula. Representative of the earliest output of the printing press in the New World, these books include doctrinas and vocabularios, as well as mathematical and scientific works. The goal of the project is to acquire at least one copy of the 115 titles of early Mexican publications that are still believed to exist today. Ideally they would like to acquire more than one copy because of the variations found in individual copies, such as marginalia and other owner-specific marks. Currently, they have 41 distinct titles and 65 total copies, but hope to have 84 distinct titles and 174 total copies after completing phase 2 of the project. This is a substantial number considering the relatively small number of items still in existence.
Schroer then gave a brief history of the project, which was begun by Texas A&M University and the University of Texas, Austin. Their website was launched in August 2010 and is maintained by UT Austin. There are various institutions in Mexico, Spain, and the United States that are partners in the project. Schroer stated that the purpose of their presentation was to promote the project and encouraged anyone at an institution that held similar material to consider contributing. Another purpose of the presentation was to give an example of an international and intercultural collaboration between institutions. Technological issues in digitizing, storing, and making available large amounts of data can often be a barrier for many institutions, so Schroer considers this collaboration a sharing of strengths and weaknesses, and a look at how the different partner institutions can contribute. They have addressed the issues of lack of technology and infrastructure in creative ways, such as lending out portable, preservation-quality scanners or having an institution with high-quality scanning capacity digitize another institution’s books. Establishing contacts with institutions also raises awareness of holdings that may not appear on OCLC or any listing at all. Digitizing these books promotes these institutions and raises awareness of the scholarly value of the books themselves. Also, in checking the condition of the books before scanning, curators are alerted to the need for repair of some of these books. Collaboration with certain institutions has helped them to understand the Mexican rare book trade, as well as the political structure among institutions and individuals in Mexico. This has helped them find opportunities and establish connections that would otherwise not have been possible.
They have backup copies of the digitized books stored at institutions such as the Texas Digital Library, the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, and Fresnet. They currently have about 2 TB of information. They are constantly learning new things and finding new applications for the project. Du Plessis then described an unfortunate situation in which a package of CDs of digitized books arrived damaged from Spain, with some of the CDs missing. Schroer concluded the presentation by urging anyone at an institution with material to contribute to contact him or du Plessis.
The final presentation was given by Alison Hicks and was titled “QR Codes en Español: Point of Need Mobile Library Services.” In her presentation, Hicks, who is a Romance Languages librarian at the University of Colorado, Boulder (UCB), described how she has used QR codes to better serve and reach out to students. She started out by stating that she feels that mobile technology is the next big thing in information access. She then asked how many people use a mobile device to connect to the Internet, how many people know what a QR code is, and how many people have actually scanned a QR code. Hicks explained that there is a growing number of people using mobile devices with access to the Internet. Librarians need be aware that these devices are used in different ways than laptops. Two things that need to be kept in mind are that these devices are ubiquitous and that they’re constantly connected to the Internet. Hicks feels that this ubiquity and connectivity allows librarians to provide “point of need” library services and to connect the physical and the virtual. Ultimately, the result would be a larger return on investment. Hicks then showed a clip from the television show CSI that explains QR (quick response) codes, which can be scanned by a mobile phone, which then opens up a specific web page. In order for the mobile phone to convert the code to a web address, a QR code reader application needs to be installed on the phone. There are also many programs for creating QR codes. The codes can link either to a URL, to text, to a digital business card, or they can connect you by phone to a specific phone number.
In the Fall of 2010, QR codes were introduced at UCB’s Norlin Library and in the Spring of 2011, they were introduced at the language departments that Hicks serves. Microsoft Tag was used to create the codes because of its interface, its good statistical functionality, and because other places at the UCB campus used it. Posters with QR codes that linked to maps of the library, tutorials, the catalog, and other help options were placed all around the Norlin Library and dormitories. In the language departments and library stacks, she placed QR codes that linked to her business card so students could contact her for research help. She felt that the results at the library (500 total scans) were successful enough to continue with the initiative. However, the statistics for the language departments weren’t so good (only 8 scans). Among the lessons learned from this project were the importance of educating users on QR codes and having other ways of accessing library information besides QR codes, since not everyone uses them. She concluded by giving tips and advice on implementing QR codes to those who would want to do so at their own institutions.
Questions & Comments:
Gasparotto asked Hicks if there had been any vandalism of QR codes. Hicks replied that there had been no vandalism.
Peter Stern (University of Massachusetts) asked why the QR codes Hicks used were in color. Hicks replied that it was the style of the proprietary Microsoft Tag QR code.
Peter Johnson (Princeton University) asked Schroer and du Plessis how their “Primeros Libros” project differed from a similar endeavor taken by the Gale Cengage company (a digitized collection based on Sabin’s bibliography). Du Plessis responded that “Primeros Libros” is a scholarly project and that participants get to keep the digital files of their holdings. Also, PDF files of the books can be freely downloaded. However, he hadn’t heard of the Sabin project and didn’t know how many of the books in their project are already in the Sabin project. Schroer emphasized that one of the advantages of “Primeros Libros” is that it’s open access and not commercial.
Lawrence Woodward (Government Printing Office) asked Napert what preservation efforts have been made for the 78 rpm records and whether there had been efforts to digitize the recordings. Napert replied that they were placed in acid-free boxes and kept in an appropriate environment. The reason they have not been digitized is that Yale wants to take an inventory of the recordings and determine which are the rarest, and therefore highest, on the priority list to digitize, but has not yet done so. Woodward then suggested to Schroer and DuPlessis that they visit the Rosenberg Library where they have on exhibit copies of some of the earliest books printed in the Western Hemisphere.
Napert asked Hicks to clarify what “QR” stands for.
Peter S. Bushnell (University of Florida) stated, regarding digitizing the 78 rpm recordings, that there may be difficulties regarding copyright and public domain. He also asked Napert how she was able to determine the dates of the recordings. Napert replied that she used certain books and discographies as references and acknowledged that there are difficulties in navigating around copyright.
The panel concluded with the moderator thanking the rapporteur and the presenters.
Panel 5, May 30, 2011, 4:00 pm- 5:30 pm
Moderator: Peter Stern, University of Massachusetts
Presenters: Molly Molloy, New Mexico State University (not present; PowerPoint presented by Peter Stern); Tomás Bocanegra Esqueda, Colegio de México; Suzanne Schadl and Claire-Lise Bénaud, University of New Mexico
Rapporteur: Sócrates Silva, HAPI
The first presentation was “The Shifting Realities of Mexico’s Drug War Death Toll: Will We Ever Know How Many People Have Died?” by Molly Molloy. Molloy was not present but the panel’s moderator, Peter Stern, presented her PowerPoint. The following is a summary of Molloy’s presentation, drafted with her consultation. Molloy argues that the Mexican government is not fighting a “War on Drugs” but rather a war for the control over the huge amounts of money to be made from the drug trade. The number of casualties related to this war and the statistics released by the government are not clear; journalistic and academic sources in Mexico and the United States provide widely varying numbers. Since December 2006 when the government of Felipe Calderón declared “war” on organized crime numbers range from 35,000 to as high as 50,000. Molloy’s presentation looks at and questions these numbers both to critique the actions of the Mexican government and to question the numbers reported by academic resources and the press.
In her presentation, Molloy hones in on data regarding Ciudad Juárez, the epicenter of the violence. When numbers of dead are reported in the media, sources are typically government bodies such as the Fiscalia General del Estado de Chihuahua. Mexican journalists who report on crimes are often at risk. Molloy mentions Armando Rodriguez, a crime reporter for El Diario who was murdered in November 2008. After his death the crime reporting in the paper became less detailed and solely dependent on official police reports. There is little information about where the numbers come from or how the government determines what “a drug-war-related homicide” is. Calderón and his government repeatedly claim that 90 percent of the dead are criminals in the drug trade, despite a claim by the government that 95 percent of deaths in the “drug war” are not investigated.
Molloy also looks at the scholarship and activism concerning the murders of women in Juárez as cases of femicide. The number of women victimized from 1993 to the present has averaged around 9 percent of all murder victims. There is little evidence of gender-related violence. More and more women are becoming involved in illegal activities as maquiladora jobs disappear due to both the economic collapse in the United States and local violence and insecurity. This of course does not mean that their deaths do not matter but rather that all the people of Juárez (women, men, boys and girls) – their lives and their deaths, all of them matter. Molloy whose work was recognized in 2011 with the José Toribio Medina Award provides daily updates on the murder toll in Ciudad Juárez and other border news through her Frontera List.
The second presentation by Tomás Bocanegra Esqueda entitled “Literatura mexicana sobre los derechos humanos: ¿quienes son y dónde publican los especialistas mexicanos?” covered publishing sources on the theme of human rights. Bocanegra first outlined government sources specializing in this material. The Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH) created by the Secretaría de Gobernación and after 1999 fully independent of the government, exists to receive human rights complaints, pursue investigations, attempt conflict resolution, and foster legislative changes across various levels of government. CNDH also offers relevant Masters and Doctoral programs through its Centro Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CENADEH). Through its existence CENADEH has generated promotional literature, annual reports, monographs and a monthly journal, Revista del Centro Nacional de Derechos Humanos. Bocanegra also reviewed literature production by state government bodies, though these tend to publish less due to lack of financial resources and staff.
In addition, non-governmental organizations such as the Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, the Centro de Derechos Humanos “Fray Francisco de Vitoria,” and the Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez all publish materials and research related to human rights and many of these publications can be found online. There are also numerous research institutions within universities, some with a specific focus on such issues as indigenous rights, migration, or international human rights. Bocanegra also looked at houses within the trade publishing industry that have edited and published human rights materials. By outlining these various publishing sources, Bocanegra hopes for more effective dissemination of Mexican human rights materials.
The last presentation “ASARO: Claiming Space in Digital Objects and Social Networks” by Suzanne Schadl and Claire-Lise Bénaud looked at the work of the Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca (ASARO), a collective of young artists that emerged as an appendage to protests originating from the 2006 National Teacher’s Union strike in Oaxaca. During the protracted uprising, state and commercial media were hostile to the protestors. In turn, street art flourished as artists clandestinely painted and printed their resistance on city walls. Schadl and Bénaud make the case that the work of ASARO is part of a Mexican tradition of graphic art collectives producing work in the service of social justice such as that of the Taller de Grafíca Popular and harking back to the legacy of printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. According to Schadl, this art tells a story that isn’t the official story. While ASARO’s art often portrays conditions in Oaxaca (such as the print Skull Helicopter which uses calavera representations of a family and a hovering calavera helicopter to depict a raid which would trigger a reminder of the uprising), the art also looks beyond local conditions, for example in art that deals with the violence in Ciudad Juárez.
One of the concerns Schadl and Bénaud bring up is that this ephemeral work, much of it being published through the ASARO blog, is not being documented properly. While ASARO may be center stage in 21st century Mexican graphic arts, academic library and archive projects aimed at archiving born digital artifacts of their work linger in the peripheries. A perusal of the blog reveals striking similarities with newspaper publications like La Patria Ilustrada and Gaceta Callejera, where Posada published, printed, and circulated his graphic production. Schadl and Bénaud argue that savvy digitally focused archival projects designed to save the work of Mexican graphic arts collectives must emerge in order to retain for posterity the creativity and voices of politically and socially active artists’ collectives in contemporary Mexico.
Categories
Tags
Adán Griego Affiliated Group Report/Minutes Alma Ortega Angela Carreño archives Argentina art Chile Committee Report Daisy V. Domínguez David Block David Dressing David S. Nolen digitization documentaries Duke University Elmelinda Lara Executive Board Meeting Minutes Felipe Varela Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez Human Rights John Wright Marisol Ramos Martha Mantilla Meiyolet Mendez Melissa Gasparotto Melissa Guy Mexico Nerea Llamas Pamela Graham Paula Covington Peter Johnson Peter S. Bushnell Peter Stern Philip S. MacLeod rapporteur reports Richard Phillips Roberto C. Delgadillo SALALM56 Sarah Buck Kachaluba Suzanne M. Schadl Sócrates Silva Teresa Chapa University of Miami University of Texas
