Meet the 2011 SALALM Scholarship Winners!
- Lisa Cruces, masters student in Information Science at The University of Texas at Austin
Lisa Cruces has been a scholar and professional specializing in Latin American materials for the last 7 years. Her specific interests include archival enterprise, special collections and non-textual materials relevant to the Latin American sphere. After completing dual B.A. degrees in History and Latin American Studies at Texas State University-San Marcos in 2009, Lisa began her Masters of Science in Information Science at The University of Texas at Austin, concentrating in archival studies and librarianship.
Before beginning her graduate studies, Lisa conducted work in public history, exhibits, and libraries, with the shared goal of increasing scholarship and access to Spanish-language materials. Past work includes cataloging sueltas at the Harry Ransom Center Research Library and assisting the UT-Library System
with digitization projects.
Along with her previous work involving Mexico and El Salvador, Lisa traveled and conducted independent research in 2010 and 2011 on archival enterprise, preservation, and librarianship in Panama. She presented her poster, “A Case Study of Archives in Central America: El Archivo Nacional de Panamá” at the 2011 Annual Meetings of the Society of Southwest Archivists and the Society of
American Archivists.
Her most recent activities at the University of Texas include archival work, digital exhibits, and translation with the Benson Latin American Collection and the Human Rights Documentation Initiative.
- Timothy Thompson, dual-degree master’s student in library science (MLS) and Latin American and Caribbean studies (MA) at Indiana University.
Timothy Thompson is a dual-degree master’s student in library science and Latin American and Caribbean studies at Indiana University. In his application essay, Tim highlighted his keen interest in both digital libraries and Brazilian studies, two areas that have gone hand in hand with his professional development as a librarian: within his MLS degree, he is also pursuing a digital libraries specialization, and his first two years of study at Indiana University were funded by consecutive Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships in Portuguese.
He has worked closely with Luis A. González, Indiana University’s Librarian for Latin American, Iberian, Latino, and Chicano-Riqueño Studies, under whose supervision he completed an internship centered on digital collection development. Using open-source reference management software, he helped implement a complete redesign of González’s Researching Brazil, an online gateway that provides a searchable index of Brazilian scholarly journals.
In 2010, Tim received a Boren Fellowship to spend the following year in Brazil. During the first half of 2011, he continued his study of advanced Portuguese and took language courses at the University of Brasília, where he also completed a graduate-level course in Information Architecture. Concurrently, he enrolled in an independent readings course supervised by González and wrote a review essay of 12 recent books related to library and information science in Brazil.
In April, he was selected to receive the 2011 Rovelstad Scholarship in International Librarianship, awarded annually by the Council on Library and Information Resources to sponsor travel to the IFLA World Library and Information Congress, held this year in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, he was able to network and share his research interests with information professionals from throughout Ibero-America and the Caribbean.
During the latter half of the year, he conducted fieldwork for his master’s capstone project, which he will conclude during the upcoming semester. His research focuses on the contribution that digital libraries can make as educational resources supporting human development. He is undertaking an analysis of 13 major digital library initiatives in Brazil and has carried out a series of semi-structured interviews with project managers.
“The goal of my research is to determine the extent to which human development has formed part of the rationale for creating digital libraries in Brazil,” says Thompson. “My research is guided by the conviction that the expansion of digital information services can play a role in bridging the gap between libraries and local communities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.”
With Cavan McCarthy (Louisiana State University, retired), he is currently co-authoring a chapter on Brazil for the second of a two-volume IFLA publication titled Libraries in the Early 21st Century: An International Perspective, scheduled for publication in early 2012.
