Registration deadline MAY 18!
Please remember to register for our Trinidad conference by May 18th!
Lynn Shirey
Posts Tagged ‘SALALM57’
Trinidad & Tobago Visit
I just returned from a quick visit to Port of Spain. The hotel is wonderful, with views of the mountains and city on all sides. Best of all, the Trinidadians (“Trinis”) are great hosts. It promises to be another great conference, and we are in very good hands.
I visited NALIS (the National Library), in downtown Port of Spain, where the Host Reception will be held on Monday, June 17th. The University of the West Indies campus and library are located in St. Augustine, a few miles outside of the city, and tours of the Alma Jordan Library will be offered. I visited the West Indiana collection and the Eric Williams special collection, and it’s worth a trip!
Weather: rain, clouds, sun, hot– fairly unpredictable! So come prepared. You won’t be cold!
Lynn Shirey
Harvard University
Provisional Conference Schedule Posted
Please see the nearly final SALALM conference program on the conference site under Program!
Minor adjustments will be made between now and time of printing.
Lynn Shirey
Presidenta
Sign up for the May 16 Webinar: Collecting for Latin America & Spain
- Adán Griego, Curator for Iberoamerican and Mexican American Collections at Stanford University
The Latino population in our country is growing and, with it, the demand for culturally relevant information. Library users in academic and public libraries want more materials about Latin American and Latino issues – especially from the perspective of those cultures. At the same time, libraries are facing difficult economic challenges, resulting in staff shortages and the necessity for some librarians to assume new roles and collect in subject areas and languages that are unfamiliar to them.
This 90-minute webinar will address these concerns by providing tangible selection tools for collecting materials in Latin American and Latino Studies and Spanish Literature. Other discussion topics will include publishing trends and strategies for effectively using these resources regardless of Spanish-speaking ability. Tailored to the non-specialist and new professional, this webinar is a must-see for anyone who wants to build her knowledge and confidence about collecting materials in these disciplines.
The session will be hosted by Adán Griego, Curator for Iberoamerican and Mexican American Collections at Stanford. Having held this position since 1996, Adán is always looking for those unique or rare items (photos, manuscripts, posters, books) that will enhance collections. A former president of SALALM, Adán is also a REFORMA life-time member and is active in ALA. This webinar is co-sponsored by SALALM and the ALA International Relations Office.
Preliminary Conference Schedule Now Available
A preliminary schedule for SALALM LVII to be hosted by the University of the West Indies in Port of Spain, Trinidad, has now been posted. View it here: http://salalm.org/Conf/program/
Conference Schedule News
Some of you know that I had planned to visit Trinidad last week, and hoped to report back with fresh conference news. Unfortunately, my flight (Boston-New York) was cancelled and I never made it! I hope to reschedule very soon.
Meanwhile, preparations for our conference are well advanced, and I’d like to share the following scheduling information with you. Almost all committee meetings will take place on Saturday, June 16, with the exception of the second meetings of the Executive Board and Finance. Panels will run from Sunday through midday on Tuesday, and E-SALALM, Town Hall, Business and Executive Board 2 will take place in the afternoon. We don’t expect to end until about 5:30 on Tuesday, so please plan on attending the entire day if you are on the Board.
As you know, SALALM will take place over 4 days this year, instead of the traditional 5. This change was made to address concerns about the cost of attending SALALM in recent years, and as an experiment in a (somewhat) new format. In order to accommodate this shorter timeframe I have asked the following groups and committees to meet either virtually or off-schedule (at meals, for example): LANE, MOLLAS, LASER and CALAFIA; Nominating, Medina and Cuban Bibliography. Official Publications is not meeting this year due to lack of membership in recent years; and Gifts and Exchange is being considered for permanent cancellation due to lack of activity.
In addition, I have eliminated the following Substantive Committee meetings this year: Acquisitions, Access and Bibliography, and Library Operations and Services. These meetings have (in recent years at least) served only to collect reports from their respective subcommittees. Those reports can be submitted privately to the Chairs, who then report to the Executive Board. So please note: chairs of Library/Bookdealer/Publisher Relations, Serials, and Marginalized Peoples should submit reports to the Chair of Acquisitions before the end of the meeting; Chairs of Cuban Bibliography and Electronic Resources should report to the Chair of Access and Bibliography; and Chairs of Audio-Visual, Bibliographic Instruction, Cataloging, and Reference should report to the Chair of Library Operations and Services.
The Libreros’ Reception will be held on Sunday evening; and the Host Reception at UWI on Monday evening.
Changes have been made on our website (thanks Melissa and Daisy!) so that the conference website is now linked to from the photograph of the UWI Trinidad on the main page. I hope that this will improve visibility. Please check the page for schedule updates, which will be posted regularly.
Lynn Shirey
Harvard University
Photographic Project Featured on NYT and SALALM57
Pablo Delano and Dario Euraque will speak about their work documenting Honduras’ cultures at SALALM 57.
Lynn M. Shirey
Harvard University
Presidential Message August 2011
I would like to congratulate our colleagues for organizing an interesting, efficient and enjoyable conference in Philadelphia this past May. The theme “Preserving Memory: Documenting and Archiving Latin American Human Rights” was timely and of interest to us all. Many excellent presentations were held, thanks to the work of our past president Nerea Llamas. Many thanks as well to our excellent hosts, Joe Holub and David Murray of the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University libraries and our very generous sponsors.
Several important issues were expressed this year at the two Executive Board meetings, the Business meeting and at Town Hall. Executive Board Member-at-Large Sean Knowlton (Columbia University) presented a list of proposals compiled by Patricia Figueroa (Brown University) that represent concerns voiced by SALALM members in recent years:
- that SALALM change its name to reflect the reality of the work we accomplish; i.e. a name that is more general in nature and by default more inclusive
- that the SALALM conference be limited to 3 days instead of 5
- that we eliminate panels and themes from our meeting so that we can devote more time to our committees, regional meetings and vendors
- that we meet and celebrate SALALM in conjunction with LASA, mimicking the arrangement that MELA and MESA have for their yearly congresses. This arrangement would provide an outlet for SALALM members who must present a paper in order to receive funding to attend. The conference need not take place at the same hotel as LASA, but rather the same city and dates.
While some of these concerns have surfaced at various moments in our organization’s history, the present economic crisis has brought them to the fore once again. We are faced with a shrinking membership; our institutions provide less professional development funding than in the past; and conference costs are rising.
In order to address these proposals, I have named an ad-hoc Membership Survey Committee to collect information, opinions and ideas relating to the above issues. Members include Anne Barnhart (chair), David Block, Mary Jo Zeter, John Wright and Patricia Figueroa. Please respond thoughtfully to their survey which will be sent out in early fall.
A second committee will work concurrently with the Survey Committee to investigate the consequences, cost and feasibility of a name change for the organization. Ideas for new names or new meanings for our existing acronym will be explored. Should the membership agree on the desirability of a name change (via the survey process), the work of this committee will provide helpful information. The SALALM Name Change Committee includes Sócrates Silva, Melissa Gasparotto, Stephanie Miles and Sean Knowlton.
Treasurer Peter T. Johnson put forward a related proposal geared toward increasing membership in our organization. An initial SALALM scholarship of $1,000 will be awarded to a student enrolled in an MLS program (in the U.S.) who intends to work in the field of Latin American Studies, and who will join our organization.
In response to some of the concerns expressed above, I plan to experiment with the format of next year’s SALALM meeting. We will we return to a slightly more economical 4-day schedule; at the same time, I would like to create more time and space to work with each other and with our vendors, who are an integral part of our organization. I plan on repeating a version of the successful Libreros Workshop which was held in Philadelphia and organized by John Wright, Ellen Jaramillo and Stephanie Miles. Based on the feedback I heard, it provided a necessary forum for communicating information about the technological changes we face in our professions. Although I will continue to organize panels, workshops and committee meetings, there will be fewer of them. I encourage committees and affiliated groups who meet or work outside of our annual meeting to consider foregoing a meeting at SALALM if at all possible.
And last but not least, for those of you who have not yet heard, SALALM LVII will be held in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T!), from June 16-19, 2012. Our hosts will be the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago and the Library Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) and meetings will be held at the Hilton Trinidad & Conference Centre, Port of Spain. Our theme will be “Popular Culture: Arts and Social Change in Latin America.” I hope that we will be able to attract colleagues from across the Caribbean as well as from South America. A call for papers and will be released soon, and I look forward to receiving your ideas and contributions!
Lynn Shirey
Harvard University
