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.

Tags: archivists, awards/honors, Brazil, digitization projects, El Salvador, Indiana University, Luis A. González, Mexico, publications, SALALM Scholarship, SALALM Scholarship winners, scholarships, University of Texas at Austin
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Latin American Posters Collection at Princeton

Please visit http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0025 to search Princeton’s extensive and growing collection of Latin American posters. The posters included in this digital project were created by a wide variety of social activists, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, political parties, and other types of organizations across Latin America, in order to publicize their views, positions, agendas, policies, events, and services. Even though posters produced in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela are the most abundant among the more than two thousand currently available on the site, almost every country in the region is represented. In terms of topics, some of the best represented are human rights, elections, gender issues, indigenous issues, labor, ecology and environmental issues, development, public health, and education. The Latin American Posters Collection is a component of the larger collection of Latin American ephemera that Princeton University Library has developed since the 1970s. Feel free to contact me with any comments or questions about the collection.

Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez
Princeton University

Tags: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, ephemera, Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, institutional news, Mexico, posters, Princeton University, Venezuela
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The Library of Congress Celebrates Mexico

James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, unveiled the first phase of the online exhibit “Distant Neighbors: The U.S. and the Mexican Revolution” in the Hispanic Reading Room on May 23, 2011.  H.E. Arturo Sarukhan, Ambassador of Mexico to the U.S., greeted the assembled audience.

Georgette Dorn, Chief of the Hispanic Division, then moderated a panel featuring three specialists in Mexico who gave presentations on Mexico’s 1810 and 1910 revolutions. Barbara Tenenbaum (Hispanic Division) described “Finding the Mexican Revolution at the Library of Congress,”  Roberto Breña (El Colegio de Mexico) spoke about “The Mexican Independence Process in the Atlantic Context,” and John Tutino (Georgetown University) addressed “National Commemorations, Scholarly Debates, and Public Conversations.”

Carlos González Manterola, coordinator of the 10-volume monographic series 20/10 Memorias de la revoluciones en México presented the work to the Library and discussed the project.

The online exhibit is being prepared by Barbara Tenenbaum, Everette Larson (Head of the Hispanic Reading Room), and Juan Manuel Pérez (Reference Specialist).

Georgette Dorn
Library of Congress

Tags: exhibits, Georgette Dorn, institutional news, Library of Congress, Mexico
Category News |

“Celebrating Mexico” Catalog Wins Leab Award

Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources’ Department of Special Collections and the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley are among seven institutions that will be honored for outstanding exhibition publications at the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans this June.

The print catalogue Celebrating Mexico: The Grito de Dolores and the Mexican Revolution, 1810|1910|2010, a collaboration between Stanford University Libraries and the Bancroft, is the winner in Division Two of the 2011 Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab “American Book Prices Current” Exhibition Awards. Awards were announced in the April 26th edition of ALA News. The catalog is available for sale from Stanford (http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubs/orderform_new.html) and from the Bancroft Library.

“This volume celebrating the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution is also an implicit celebration of inter-institutional collaboration,” said Molly Schwartzburg, chair of the RBMS Exhibition Awards committee and Cline Curator of Literature at the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center. “Documenting concurrent exhibitions mounted at the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, it reveals to audiences the complementary resources of these institutions through twin checklists and essays by library staff and faculty at both universities. Bilingual text—in English and Spanish—makes the volume accessible to a wide audience, and a careful integration of text, images and the checklist offers readers a fully unified reading experience. Richly illustrated with extensive commentary, the volume serves not just to document the exhibitions but to provide an excellent introduction to the Mexican Revolution more generally. The use of historic typefaces and colorful section dividers throughout the volume confirms the volume’s welcoming, celebratory success.”

The full press release is posted here.

Adan Griego curated the 2010 exhibition at Stanford’s Green Library. Becky Fischbach designed and produced the exhibition and catalogue. Theresa Salazar and Jack von Euw curated the exhibition at the Bancroft Library. Adan Griego and Randal Brandt from the Bancroft will represent their respective libraries in accepting the award certificate on Sunday, June 26, during the RBMS Membership Meeting and Information Exchange.

Elizabeth Fischbach
Stanford University

Tags: Adán Griego, awards/honors, exhibits, institutional news, Mexico, Stanford University, Theresa Salazar, UCLA
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Donation to Amigos

Letter of thanks from Amigos president, Mr. Isaac Vivas Escobedo.

 

SALALM librarians donated more than 170 books to Mexico’s library network Amigos: Red de Instituciones Mexicanas para la Cooperación Bibliotecaria (http://ciria.udlap.mx/amigos/) as part of SALALMistas’ annual participation at Guadalajara’s 2010 Feria Internacional del Libro. The project was coordinated in cooperation with the Benjamin Franklin Library of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. Micaela Chavez Villa, Director of the Colegio de México Library and Amigos member, coordinated the book distribution among Amigos member institutions.

Adán Griego
Stanford University

Tags: Adán Griego, donations, Mexico
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