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SALALMIstas at ALA-New Orleans 2011

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 and other library groups/associations participated in the 2011 Spectrum Institute Professional Options Fair organized by ALA's Diversity Office and sponsored by OCLC Inclusion Initiative. The event hosted more than 100 current MLS students from Library Schools all over the country. Hortensia Calvo and I talked to about 20 of these Spectrum Scholars who saw the words "Latin America" at our table.

Our collective presence at the exhibit hall made possible a visit to the aisle hosting several library schools. Hortensia and I met several of the representatives and gave them informational handouts about SALALM, ALZAR and ISIS. Some knew we existed, and for others we were a new group on their radar screen. SALALM members at institutions with MLIS program are encouraged to ensure not only that our informational materials are visible to students but to "insinuate" ourselves as Latin American Studies Librarianship ambassadors to any job fair events for information professionals.

The conference also provided opportunities to learn about new products. Hortensia, Sean Knwolton and I were at a presentation where Oxford Bibliographies Online showcased their upcoming Latin American Studies file. I asked about pricing models and noted that the traditional formula of all campus FTE was not applicable for a product that would have a much more reduced number of users. A few days earlier I had expressed that same concern to another vendor of Spanish language ebooks. This issue was also raised at an ebook panel at Philadelphia's SALALM conference. Vendors appear to understand that a different pricing model is needed and it's really up to us to come up with a well documented alternative.

Thanks to all those who volunteered: Myra Appel, Roberto Delgadillo, Tony Harvell, Deb Raftus, John Wright, Sean Knowlton, Denise Stuempfle, Cecilia Sercán, and Michael Scott. Very special thanks to Hortensia Calvo and Carol Avila from SALALM's Executive Secretariat who covered much of the three days of the exhibit.

Pecha Kucha

Thanks to everyone for attending Pecha Kucha! The room was packed and the presenters were fabulous. I'll add the presentations as I get them.
See you next year!

Jesus Alonso Regalado

Librarian with a Latte: Reaching Out to Students Beyond the Library’s Walls

View more presentations from Jesus Alonso-Regalado

Holly Ackerman

Gabriella Reznowski
Beyond the Stone

Brenda Salem
FRBR Presentation

Adrian Johnson
Becoming Part of Your Students' Community

Meagan Lacy

The Missing Link on Prezi

Suzanne Schadl

Copy of Hash Tags, Drupals, and Energy Dialog archiving in Twitter on Prezi

Molly Molloy Awarded the 2011 José Toribio Medina Award

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 the U.S.-Mexico Border" and used widely by congressional staff, US and Mexican human rights groups and many other Border observers. Torres added, "this electronic resource fills a much needed information gap on a subject of both scholarly research and binational concerns."

Molly Molloy is well known, not only as a librarian committed to her immediate user constituency but also as human rights activist on Border issues. Her work has been featured by the Wall Street Journal, In These Times, and National Public Radio.


¡Felicidades! Un honor muy merecido.


Photo:
http://newscenter.nmsu.edu/news/article/7508/files/Molly_Molloy_1294902000.jpg

Latin American Posters Collection at Princeton University Library

http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0025

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 in 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.

From Bogota

The 24th Feria International del Libro de Bogotá is now in full swing. The first two days are reserved for professionals—editors, distributors, and, for the past three years, librarians. This post records a view of the first day of the Fair.

Bogotá offers the standard suite of events—book signings, author talks, workshops—along with the publishers’ exhibits. This year’s meeting added a new twist. The inaugural session provided a platform for what may be the early stage of rapprochement between Colombia and Ecuador, whose relations have been strained since Colombia’s cross-border raid into FARC installations just inside the Ecuadorian border three years ago. Perhaps historians will see the inaugural session of the Feria as bibliographic diplomacy, in a nod to the ping pong diplomacy which launched a change in US-Chinese relations in the 1970s.

Presidents (each referred to the other as “excelentisimo presidente”) Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia offered remarks appropriate for the stage they shared. Correa spoke first, following a glossy, up-beat video production, “Ecuador Está Viva.” His remarks stressed the shared history of what was once one republic, at one point encouraging Colombians to think of his country as their “sur” and Ecuadorians to consider Colombia their “norte.” The loudest applause followed his remarks on economic development that emphasizes ecological preservation.

If Correa stressed convergence, Santos spoke much more to culture. He used the podium to stress to this largely Colombian audience that his administration had tripled the cultural outlays of his predecessor. He also mentioned his proposal for additional economic stimulus aimed at book production. Santos thanked Correa for bringing works of Ecuadorian literature to his attention and promised to read his counterpart’s Ecuador: de Banana Republic a no República, officially released at the Fair. While Santos did not ignore Correa’s overtures to seek commonalities, the nub of his message was “lectura=libertad,” stressing the importance of education as a tide that raises all boats.

OK, but no one thought much of the ping pong matches at the time.

A Shared Passion

Nettie Lee Benson should have met the Mexican writer Carlos Monsiváis. Maybe she did; I don’t know. But a visit to the Museo del Estanquillo in Mexico City makes it clear that they shared a sense of esthetics and documentation that shaped important aspects of their lives.

Monsiváis’ voracious collecting appetite included all types of Mexican materials. The current exhibit at the Estanquillo, like so many in Mexico these days, recalls events of 1910, but in this case the great celebration sponsored by the Diaz regime, rather than the Revolution that would soon chase Don Porfirio from power. And visiting it inspires a sense of déjà vu in anyone familiar with Nettie Lee’s legacy and the objects now on display in the Benson Collection’s Reading Room. Vitrine after vitrine at the museum hold programs from the celebration, including events as varied as the return of martyred revolutionary hero Jose de Morelos’ uniform by the Spanish ambassador—who knew they had it a century on?—and the better known convening of the International Congress of Americanists in Mexico City and Teotihuacan. Monsiváis collected large and small— life-sized bronze busts, folio albums commemorating the Diaz regime’s accomplishments, invitations issued to the dozens of official events, menus from banquets, commemorative cigar wrappers, telegrammed regrets (the Bulgarians couldn’t make it).

If Carlos and Nettie Lee were acquainted, he must have been pleased to learn that her library was to be honored with the Medalla de 1808, presented the week of his death in Mexico City. And even if they never met, Nettie Lee would surely have known of their kindred passions.