19th International Book Fair, Habana, Cuba, February 11-21, 2010

Getting the license and authorization letter to travel to Cuba through Brown University was a smooth process. The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown offers a study abroad program at Casa de las Americas in La Habana and a number of students and faculty members have already set the path for Cuban travel. I received Title VI funding for the trip and was advised to request my visa and plane ticket through Common Ground Education and Travel. My port of departure from the United States was Miami where I boarded a 50 minute charter flight to La Habana.

Prior to leaving for Cuba I had made arrangements to stay at a casa particular in El Vedado. This private bed and breakfast was run by Caridad Vera and her husband Elio Rodriguez Peréz. I was so happy with their services and friendship that I created a free Webpage through Yola for them: http://casavera.yolasite.com.

I arrived in La Habana on Monday February 15th in the afternoon. Changing my Euros to Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) at the José Martí International Airport was rather easy; however I failed to also acquire a few pesos in moneda nacional which travelers need for riding the municipal bus system and purchasing a few token items. It’s recommended that you do not change US dollars to CUCs. Not only is the US dollar worth less than the CUC but there is an additional 10% bank charge for the US currency.

The next day, I was able to visit the Feria International del Libro thanks to the kindness of a stranger. Not having any moneda nacional on me as I was boarding the special bus to the Fortaleza of San Carlos de la Cabaña, I had to ask the lady standing behind me for change. She quickly offered to pay for my bus ticket and for the entrance to the fair grounds. All I had to do is keep my mouth shut since foreigners have to pay a special price. I would have gladly paid the price for extranjeros but at the time following her advice seemed like the fastest way to get to my destination. Once we got through the doors my new companion paid to have our bags put away in a locker (you cannot enter the exhibits halls with handbags) and showed me around the various rooms where the publisher and bookdealer stands were located. Unfortunately, I soon realized that most books were sold in moneda nacional and I didn’t have the heart to ask my friend for change and, through her boundless generosity, have her pay for Brown’s burgeoning Cuban book collection. I just looked around with the intention of returning the following day.

I didn’t find any materials at the fair that I couldn’t purchase through my regular bookdealer. When you purchase books in Cuba you must keep in mind that you will need special permission to take out of the country books, journals and maps published before a certain date. The Biblioteca Nacional and the Instituto del Libro will assess the materials and process the paperwork for you.

On Wednesday I visited the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) with Martha Mantilla. I knew a few people from the ICAIC thanks to a Cuban panel and film series that was organized last year by the Providence Latin American Film Festival (PLAFF), an annual event co-sponsored by Brown University. Unfortunately we missed the Festival de jovenes realizadores cubanos that was due to start the following week.

That afternoon I walked along the Malecón to Casa de las Americas to visit its library and bookstore. The staff was friendly and very helpful. The gentleman managing the bookstore even created a list of Cuban films I should purchase for Brown’s collection.

On Thursday, I visited the Biblioteca Nacional and La Habana Vieja were one may find small bookshops and street book vendors. In the afternoon I strolled down to the famous Heladeria Coppelia where locals and tourists alike may purchase tasty ice cream for a few pesos. Given the limited sitting space and the large crowds people are forced to share tables, a civil way to make new friends in a foreign land. I sat with a young couple attending university. They spoke about the reality of the job market for young Cubans, salaries and the varying levels of job satisfaction. Having spoken about the world financial crisis they paid for my almond ice cream. I was rather mortified, especially since I now had many pesos in moneda nacional in my pocket, but they would not have it any other way. We later exchanged e-mails.

Friday was my last full day in Cuba and I decided to visit film director and theoretician Fernando Birri (Santa Fe, Argentina, 1925) at the Escuela de Cine y Televisión de Tres Mundos (EICTV) in San Antonio de los Baños, near La Habana. Don Fernando, who donated his personal archive to Brown University two years ago, co-founded the EICTV with Colombian novelist and Nobel Prize recipient Gabriel García Márquez in 1986. Since its foundation, Birri travels to Cuba every year and stays at the school for about a month to see its progress and talk to faculty members and students. The EICTV not only offers an impressive program in film and television but is self-sustainable through agriculture.

I left Cuba on Saturday afternoon. My book fair companion made sure to meet me at the airport to say goodbye. Not once did she accept repayment for all the pesos I owed her and only reluctantly accepted my gifts of Argentinean chocolates and Panamanian cookies.

Traveling to Cuba was a unique and culturally enriching experience.

Public Libraries in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia

Back in February I got the chance to visit a few public libraries in Bogota and Medellin. Below you'll find a brief description of each place and a link to the full story, including photographs.

• Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia
  Colombia's Nacional Library and Legal Deposit.
  http://www.bilinguallibrarian.com/2010/02/19/biblioteca-nacional-de-colombia/
  

• Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango
  Probably Colombia's most famous library. The library is owned by the Banco de la República de Colombia, but its doors are open to everyone.
  http://www.bilinguallibrarian.com/2010/02/19/biblioteca-luis-angel-arango/
  
  

• BiblioRed: Red Capital de Bibliotecas Públicas
  Bogota's public library systems. I visited the Biblioteca Pública Parque El Tunal, and the Biblioteca Pública Virgilio Barco.
  http://www.bilinguallibrarian.com/2010/02/20/bibliored-red-capital-de-bibliotecas-publicas/
  

• Paradero Para Libros Para Parques
  Small public library stands, usually found in parks. There are 47 in Bogota, and 100 across the country.
  http://www.bilinguallibrarian.com/2010/02/21/paradero-para-libros-para-parques/
  

• Parque Biblioteca España – Santo Domingo Savio
  Medellin's most famous library. The library is located in Santo Domingo Savio, formally one of the most dangerous part of the city. The library has also won a number architectural of awards.
  http://www.bilinguallibrarian.com/2010/02/26/parque-biblioteca-espana-santo-domingo-savio/
  

Surprising Visit to an Anarchist Book Fair

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 blooming trees and flowers at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, was just a bit too much for my allergies. I remember asking a true “lefty” friend if the annals of anarchy (I don’t think principles, or rules would be appropriate) commented on questionable hygiene as true anarchy. She gave me a “give me a F…ing break!” kind of look.

I decided going early (before the un-air conditioned warehouse by the park would hit above 70 degrees) would pre-empt worries about odors of any kind. So I called a Middle Eastern friend who boasts of his rugged adventures in India and claims he is always ready and willing to try new things in America.

I no longer have that 20-something “aventurero” spirit, the same one of my junior year abraod when I embarked for Spain with barely enough money to last only a few months. I spent a year there, the best of my limited West Texas existence!

The anarchist tide was in our favor, parking only a block away. We could already see a few [mostly white] young people sporting the attire de rigeur: overly worn black outfits, multicolored hair styles coupled with body piercings and tatooes. I was starting to feel that my dark green pants and blue shirt were not quite the uniform to fit in, especially the jacket….but more on that later.

At one of the first tables I found posters supporting the Zapatista and Nicaraguan revolutions. A few tables down there were others in support of immigrant rights, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the United Farm Workers.... I was starting to feel at home. Then I recognized some of the posters from an earlier show at San Francisco’s Galeria de la Raza: Dignidad Rebelde: Art in Action.


Some of the more established publishers like AK Press seem to have an extensive presence of Latin American titles. The stand of PM Press had a glossy catalog (80 pages) with titles from a collective of publishers with revealing names like: Big Noise Tactical Media, Found in Translation, Switchblade, Spectacular Fiction, Reach & Teach, Trade Root and the Green Arcade.

One of the titles will be familiar to those of us at the 2009 Guadalajara Book Fair, Diario de Oaxaca. It's a sketchbook journal by American graphic artist Peter Kuper's two years spent in Oaxaca at the same time that teachers's strike led to a seven month siege in 2006-2007.

Those same tragic events in what up to then had been a picturesque and bucolic Oaxaca were also the subject of a 19 page pamphlet (Broke Barricades: the Oaxaca Rebellion in Victorry, Defeat and Beyond) published in Palo Alto by the group Collective Reinventions. Who said there was no anarquist activity in the same town that's home to the Hoover Institution?

By chance, I happened to have the office’s Pcard, but I doubted any anarchist vendor would even consider it. Sure enough, I noticed a sign indicating “we accept checks and credit cards.!” I mentioned this to two other librarians I encountered there and we were all a bit surprised. I guess there is some truth to that old saying "if you cannot beat the enemy, join them."


In the past I have seen pamphlets by the Flores Magon brothers, considered to be intellectual precursors of the Mexican Revolution. A copy of their publication Regeneración in its original format is hard to find these days. That's probably more for the antiquarian book fair that comes to town in February of 2011. Those of you in New York can check at next month's fair and tell us what other treasures (anarquist or antiquarian) you found.

I stayed longer than expected and more than once lost sight of my Middle Eastern friend. He loved the whole experience, even argued with a young exponent of anarchist thought who finally admitted to him, “I am just here for the day….”

I must have been one of the few people with an outfit not really made for an early Spring anarchist gathering. A faux leather jacket does not quite cut it....but I had a great time....and happy to report no allergic reactions.

Antiquarians in the Age of E-everything (e-books, e-readers)

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 the Bay on even numbered years, was a “gran deleite visual” not easily reproduced in hand portable devices.

Some items seemed out of reach, no doubt: Bruce Weber’s O Rio de Janerio ranged from $1,800 for a signed edition to a mere $500 for the most affordable. I had gathered enough strength (and credit) to buy that one, but it was gone when I went back the second day!

Weber’s ventures into Iberoamericana may be lesser known than the highly seductive and charged images of sexually ambiguous men and women, but it's there, like the photo of the Chavela Vargas for her live 1994 concert in Madrid, after she had been (re)discovered by the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.

You had to look closely to find other rare Iberoamericana, and after browsing casually the first day, I went back (obsessed?) for a second round with lots of notes, not taken in any “dispositivo electrónico,” but done the old fashion way: with pencil and paper. This is not to say that laptops and cell phones were not present at the fair. Indeed they were, and they provided a good “pasatiempo” to many a dealer as there appeared to be fewer customers than in previous years.

Hidden among the many boxes of vintage postcards was a real treasure of images from the Mexican Revolution, some of which have a library presence at Yale or Texas A&M. (Did I miss other libraries?) The one I found of a woman soldier went beyond the iconic image of the “soldadera.” Here she was, surrounded by other "revolucionarios." Some one had written the words “mujer valiente” right next to the image on a horse, proudly posing for the camera, with her pistol, rifle on hand and “carrillera” ready for the next battle. I could not help thinking of the famous song that has cemented the fame of these “adelitas.”


And yes, in the age of the GPS, the antiquarian map goes beyond left and right turns to give us an ethnographic layout of a region, in this case mid 19^th century Mexico. Even a booth with travel posters gave a peek into the exotic art of going to far away and distant places. There’s always a surprise, like the one showcasing a Buenos Aires Book Fair from the 1940s with no tango motifs and certainly no Evita!

A ring of my cell phone told me it was time to get some lunch. Once I finish with my (un)traditional taco with no chiles and no onions, I go home to update my Facebook status so all my 450+ friends can hear about my antiquarian adventure!

Images above:
1) Borges Poem

2) Spanish Civil War Poster

3) Si Adelita se fuera con otro

4) Air France Travel Poster

Language Learning 2.0

In 2007, the Modern Language Association (MLA) suggested a radical shakeup of modern language provision. Horrified at the lack of language skills and the two-tiered language and literature divide in foreign language departments, the MLA proposed that foreign language programs should evolve into a more relevant and integrated language, literature and culture curriculum.

The conclusions that the MLA came to were directly reflected in much of the theory behind CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning), a student centered, technology rich learning concept that aims to provide learners with an authentic context in which to practice language skills. The MLA's propositions were also reflected in the new scholarship of teaching and learning that uses web 2.0 as a bridge to make the process of learning more adaptive, more significant and more relevant to students today. Consequently, the new language learning 2.0 encompasses technology enhanced learning with a focus on real life situations and scenarios.

What are these language learning 2.0 tools that are being used to integrate culture and language in a realistic way into the classroom? I will cover a few tools here, before exploring how we can support the successful integration of these resources in Spanish and Portuguese departments.

The first category of tools involves web 2.0 as place- the creation of a online, collaborative classroom or interactive learning community that facilitates student immersion in the language and culture. Blogs and wikis have been used with certain success, but cool kids today are looking at Ning, a tool used to create a group space or social network. Functioning as an online classroom, Ning (which is available in many languages) gives students the opportunity to participate in a Spanish context outside the classroom, as well as making it easy for students to create and explore language through a variety of different media formats, (for example, video, audio, images and texts.)

The second category is formed by digital narrative tools. These are web based, interactive tools used to create online stories and research projects such as webquests, digital stories and videos. Students have to research and role play a story or an event in the language or add images, captions and music to narrate an online event. For extensive projects, iMovie from Apple provides a professional tool, while Jing from Camtasia is a fantastic, free and easy to use screen capturing tool (which has lots of applications in libraries too). Photostory from Microsoft memoryminer and even slide show software are tools used for digital storytelling as they provide easy ways for students to upload images, captions and narration. Audio programs such as Voicethread or Audacity allow students to add voice recordings and comments to images. These tools allow students to explore and engage creatively with the stories, events and culture of a country through the language they are learning.

What can librarians do to support these learning activities? For a start, many of these activities need original, primary sources in the target language or culture, such as images, video clips and music. Excellent sources of cultural objects are found in library databases such as Artstor and Naxos Music as well as more specific web resources, such as the videos from Jesús Alonso Regalado's guide, Pandora online music or the Europeana digital library, to name a few. Additionally, as many students or even instructors have little idea about where to find these types of resources, particularly in a foreign language, a review of online search techniques can be very useful to students. Finally, students and researchers should be reminded of basic copyright rules when they are using these primary sources in their classes, particularly if they are looking to publish student projects.

Language learning 2.0 is creative and collaborative with a growing community. Websites such as Language Box hosts examples of successful uses of technology in the classroom and is a great way to keep up with the field.

Alison Hicks
University of Colorado, Boulder
alison.hicks @ colorado.edu

Presidential message

I would like to use this space to tell about some of the discussions that took place in late November during the Fall meeting of the Latin America Northeast Libraries Consortium (LANE), hosted by Angela Carreño of the New York University Libraries. The meeting was noticeably different from previous ones because the group had previously agreed to dedicate most of the time to discussing new models and possibilities for cooperative collection development among the members.

During the day-long discussion, we learned about how small groups of libraries within LANE (Brown and Dartmouth, Columbia and Cornell, and BorrowDirect consortium members, for example) are currently exploring and even starting to implement new models of cooperation. We also took time to map the collecting areas within each institution that have or are likely to be adversely affected by budget cuts. The idea was that by identifying those areas and sharing the information, the consortium would be better prepared to coordinate future decisions about collection development priorities and directions.

We also discussed the impact that electronic books might have on our Latin American and Iberian collections, and how could those fit into new models ofcooperative collection development. It was fascinating to hear how some libraries are beginning to incorporate e-book collections in different ways. Some, for example, are encouraging and financially supporting emerging ventures in this area, hoping that their support will be an incentive for the development of better digital products in the near future. Other libraries are proceeding more cautiously and are concerned about costs aswell as about the effect that the trend might have on the future quality of their collections. Interestingly, what did not seem to be possible to answer at this point in time was whether e-books would represent a replacement or a supplement of print.

Additionally, we learned about the 'Cloud Library' pilot project currently being conducted by New York University and OCLC Research. The objective of the project is to explore the cost-effectiveness of sourcing a significant proportion of NYU's local collection through the combination of large scale digital repositories and off site, shared print repositories. We also heard about the impact that the recent study released by Ithaka S+R, "What to Withdraw? Print Collections Management in the Wake of Digitization" (available at http://bibpurl.oclc.org/web/37738) ishaving in some libraries.

I describe the nature of these discussions to the broader SALALM community because the topics are tremendously relevant to the 2010 conference theme and I would like to encourage members to propose papers, presentations and/or workshops that relate to them. Something that became immediately apparent during our discussions was that more data and analysis are necessary to implement new cooperative collection development models that can both, sustain future research and teaching, and preserve the scholarly record. If SALALM, through its committees and its individual members can help to generate some of the data and the analysis that is relevant to Latin American Studies scholarship, the organization would possibly be making a very important contribution to the field.

Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez
Princeton University Library

Salalmistas/Lanistas in London

Patricia Figueroa (Brown University) visits colleagues Geoff West (left) and Aquiles Alencar-Brayner (right) at the British Library on January 12, 2010 (following a monumental snow fall throughout the UK).