In past years, when the Antiquarian Book Fair comes to San Francisco, the rainy weather has been a welcome incentive to spend a weekend indoors discovering the rare, unique, exotic and colorful. This time, a Spring-like sunny morning welcomed the 200 exhibitors from as far away as England. With names like “Cook Book Lady,” and “Vagabond Books,” [...]

The 2011 book fair cycle for Iberoamerica probably started with Havana, whose book festival celebrated its 20th anniversary in February and is often attended by SALALM librarians and book dealers. This year Teresa Chapa (North Carolina) and Eudora Loh (UCLA) were present and went to a satellite book fair in Matanzas, where they also visited Editorial Vigía (home [...]

Even before landing in Guadalajara for the 25th annual Feria Internacional del Libro (FIL) SALALM  was already present via virtual spaces.  On November 16th SALALM’s Webinar Pilot Project Working Group led a online orientation for new FIL attendees for more than  40 virtual participants.  A follow-up session was held in Guadalajara (Sunday November 26) with participation from [...]

More than 150 Spanish information professionals attended the panel discussion ¨Nuevas tecnologías y redes sociales en la labor de los profesionales de la información,¨ organized by Madrid´s SEDIC group (http://www.sedic.es/queessedic.asp) . Several SALALAM members shared their experiences in reaching out to library users both inside and outside library walls ( http://www.sedic.es/nuevas-tecnologias-redes-sociales-oct011.asp). The panel was very well received with [...]

A dozen SALALM members attended ALA’s annual conference in New Orleans this past June. The group’s presence was felt at an ideally located booth, which had a definite local flair with beads and other colorful adornments. The stand was ready for visitors on Friday (6/24) and closed on Monday (6/27). The day before (6/23) SALALM [...]

This morning at the opening ceremony for SALALM’s 56th annual conference Molly Molloy, librarian at New Mexico State University, was honored with the 2011 José Toribio Medina Award . The award recognizes Molly’s outstanding work with the Frontera-List. Victor Federico Torres, chair of the committee, noted that the list “has been hailed as the most comprehensive, up-to-date source of narco-related violence on [...]

Here in in the land of Facebook, Google and Twitter hardly a day goes by without a constant mention of ebooks, social networks or a super-wired generation awaiting the next digital technology. So, when I tried to explain to some friends that I was attending a fair for the book arts and another one for [...]

Some of the very productive discussion that have taken place at SALALM have already been posted by others, but I wanted to share with us all the remarks from SALALM’s president at yesterday’s opening session. “Good morning, bienvenidos, bemvindo, welcome to the 55th meeting of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials [...]

After a constant “vaiven” of back to back activities, the 2nd day of SALALM’s internal meetings seemed less hectic but with just as intense discussions on a variety of topics. The “libreros” gathering provided a forum for SALALM’s vendors to address issues like the constant reduction of library budgets (will it ever end?) and how [...]

More than 180 SALALM members (librarians,vendors and visitors) have gathered at Providence for the group’s annual meeting which started on Thursday (July 22nd) and is being hosted by Brown University. SALALM’s professional activities started with two pre-conferences: 1) An eclectic group of 22 SALAMistas enjoyed a unique experience: studying rare books dating back to the [...]

Sunday, April 19th. Not too much traffic on Avenida del Libertador yet. It is, after all, barely past noon on a Sunday. “ Lindo dia ,” I say to the taxi driver, “ es un domingo peronista ,” he replies. When I ask why, he proceeds to tell me how politicians used to gather after a typical Sunday “ asado” and some [...]

Image (http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/category/calling-all-anarchists/) I had almost forgotten about it until a friend asked if I had plans to go to the Anarchist Book Fair . I replied, half jokingly, that the last I time I had been to one, it was an unusually warm day and the not so pleasant smell of body odor, combined with all the [...]

Apple’s iPad was unveiled about 2 weeks before the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Fair . The latter event might almost look anachronistic at a time when e-readers seem to be the “ último alarido de la moda….tecnológica ,” certainly with more potent/newer technologies to come. And yet, for the avid collector/bibliophile, the bi-annual event held in the City by [...]

I had just left the Larousse stand, immersed in nostalgia at seeing the red dictionary I remember from high school. I had memorized many of the Latin phrases in the “pink section” and wrote them on the back of my general biology exam.I got an “F” and the teacher called me in to say that if [...]

Saturday, October 3rd Even before I entered my hotel, off Madrid’s Gran Via I noticed a bookstore right across the street and another one 2 doors down. Plus, the famous Casa del Libro is only 2 blocks away. I was surprised I did not venture into [...]

Sunday, August 9th I had planned to attend Bogota’ Book Fair as it was being held at the same time as a conference on Iberoamerican University Presses , where I had managed to get myself invited as a “ponente.” As I waited to board my flight in Los Angeles, I looked over the reading materials I had [...]

>After the Townhall Meeting we had one more coffee break to enjoy. We were reminded (and invited) to return for the Executive Board Meeting where important matters are always discussed, often times it lasts as long as the LAMP meetings of the first night! But, I managed to escape (unnoticed) and wonder off to visit [...]

The opening reception for SALALM’s annual conference in Berlin saw about 15-20 attendees from the previous meeting in 1986 also held in Berlin. Some things have not changed much since then: the LAMP meeting lasted more than 2 hours. But other changes have taken place: there was no forum to discuss emerging technologies and now [...]

July 3, 2009 Roberto Delgadillo (UC Davis) and I enjoyed a Berlin city tour from a low budget and quite entertaining group. The double decker bus had no air conditioning and when we were caught by an unexpected “chubasco” in front of the Branderburg Gate, the lower deck started to leak! But the tour guide [...]

I joined Facebook sometime in early 2008 and by July I had become more than just a novice user and saw its potential beyond “friending” those I already knew and accepting the “friendships” of those with whom I was having my first amicable meeting through their request to join their network of friends. In experimenting with [...]