>> Kaleena Black:
Hello everyone.
I'm Kaleena Black and
I work in the Learning
and Innovation Office at
the Library of Congress.
Welcome to today's
Online Office Hours
from the Library of Congress.
Today we're going to be
exploring and learning
about the Hispanic Division.
This even will be
recorded and any questions
or other participant
contributions may be made
publicly available as part
of the library's archive.
We're really glad that you're
with us today joining
us live or by recording.
If this is your first
time joining us, welcome.
And, if you've been with
us before, welcome back.
These office hours are meant
to be short and informal.
We're going to get started
with a 20 minute presentation
and then we're going to
open it up for Q and A
and just open conversation.
And, you'll have a chance
to talk to each other
and our presenters via the chat.
So just want to get started,
get you familiar using the chat.
So Catalina, if you can
go to the next slide.
It'd be great if everyone,
if you could, just, you know,
let us know your first name,
where you're joining us from,
and what, what you
teach, your grade levels,
that'd be really helpful.
As I mentioned, today's
episode is focused
on the Hispanic Division
at the Library of Congress.
And, we're really glad that
we're joined by Catalina Gomez,
and Talia Guzman-Gonzalez.
They're both reference
librarians
in the Hispanic Division.
If you have questions
or comments
at any point during
our presentation,
feel free to post
them in the chat box.
We'll also be posting
links as Catalina
and Talia are presenting.
And, we can answer
questions in the chat.
And, of course, we're
happy to post questions
to our presenters during
that Q and A. So with that,
I'm really glad to pass
things over to our presenters.
>> Catalina Gomez:
Thank you Kaleena.
Hello everyone.
It's wonderful to be
here today together
with my colleague Talia.
We're both reference librarians
in the Hispanic Division.
We are, sorry I'm trying
to forward the slides
and it's a little slow.
We are, we are really excited
to be part of this Office Hours.
So we thank the Learning
and Innovation Office
for inviting us.
We are always very excited to
cater a lot of our services
and collections to teachers,
K through 12 students.
So it's a wonderful
opportunity to share everything
that we have available,
you know,
in the digital environment
for our patrons.
So one of the first
things we always
like to say is not many people
out there know the Library
of Congress is really a
universal, a universal library.
Its international
collections are vast.
And, they're extremely
expensive.
And, we have more than
have of our collections are
in foreign languages at
the Library of Congress.
So this is something that a
lot of our patrons on site
and from every, from everywhere,
it's like a, it's something
that people don't really
know about the library.
It's, we have four
area studies divisions.
So we have an Asian
Division, a European Division,
a Hispanic Division, which is
our Division, and AMED which is,
which covers the Near East
African and Hebraic studies.
And, these division are in
charge of curating, amassing,
and you know providing
resources that connect you just
to the vast collections from
all these parts of the world.
These collections are from these
parts of the world but also
about these parts of the world.
So there are, you know,
multiple languages.
And, you know, we have the
great pleasure for working
for the Hispanic Division.
You will also here see
the term Luso-Hispanic.
Luso covers also the
Portuguese heritage, you know,
of which are basically Portugal
and Brazil are part
of our purview.
So we are in charge
of collections
from the Iberian Peninsula, the
Iberian Peninsula is comprised
of Spain and Portugal, and then
Latin American, the Caribbean.
And, then we also work
with a lot of collections
and resources related
to the Hispanic population
in the United States.
So we, we also serve
those collections and we,
a lot of our work is
related to the, you know,
really significant Hispanic
influence in the United States.
So as I said, the
Hispanic Division is one
of the four areas of the Reading
Room, Reading Room and Division.
And, this image here
is of our reading room.
And, we the history of this
reading room is really,
really fascinating.
This is the first international
center that was found
under the Library of Congress.
It was thanks to Archer
Huntington who was a Hispanist.
You know, he was a huge fan
of Hispanic studies also
of literature and
many of things.
The Huntington family
have founded
and supported many institutions
throughout the country.
But, in 1920, in 1927 he gave
an endowment for the curation
and amassment to
amass collections,
Hispanic collections at
the Library of Congress.
And, this sort of recognition of
the Hispanic Society of America
which is in New York City.
So basically, our organization
because sort of a, you could say
like a big arm of that.
And, in 1939 our
reading room as founded.
He, together with Congress,
you know provided the funds
to build this reading room.
And, we love our reading room.
It's pretty architecturally
a marvelous place created
by the architectural
Paul Philippe Cret
who is also the architect
of the Shakespeare Library
across the street from
the Library of Congress.
And I know that we are here
talking about digital resources.
So when you get a chance, you
can come to our Reading Room.
But we are, you know, a lot
of what we're about is also,
you know, historic space and
our history of our division
which is very much tied
to the Reading Room.
A little bit more
about our space,
we have these early famous
murals our foyer entrance
of the reading room
that were painted
by 20th century Brazilian
painter Candido Portinari.
And, he did those in 1941, so 3,
2 years after the founding
of the Reading room.
It's comprised on
four large panels
which depict pre-iconic imagery
of the conquest, the Spanish
and Portuguese conquest
in the Americas.
This image you see
is one of our panels,
it's title Teaching
of the Indians.
You see the Jesuits, providing,
you know, providing the teaching
of the Indians and
during the conquest.
So our physical space
is very important.
Our, you know, we
serve our patrons
and the Hispanic Division
in the Hispanic Reading Room
with reference services.
We help them find
anything they need to find
from our vast collections.
I forgot to mention that
our Hispanic collection
at the library are larger
than 10 million items
of all kinds of, you know, from,
you know, from books to films
to manuscripts, maps,
audio material.
We have a, you know,
our collections are
pretty, pretty vast.
So we are in charge of
basically, you know,
helping the patrons
who come to the library
to find whatever
he or she can find.
But of course we, you know,
today and in the digital era,
we are very much about
providing resources that,
that patrons can
access from wherever.
So basically our digital
projects is a huge focus
and priority for us right now.
And, I'm going to
talk about sort
of two very important
historic projects
that our division has
worked on for many,
many years that have made it
to the digital environment
and that we are very
proud to now share
in a very robust way digitally.
The first one is the
Handbook, the Handbook
of Latin American Studies.
So the Handbook of Latin
American Studies is an
annotative bibliography of
multiple disciplines related
to Latin American studies.
It began in 1939, 1942 and
it was basically, you know,
a printed volume of, you
know, annotations, scholars,
specialized in various
disciplines related
to Latin America,
would view publications
and provide bibliographic
annotations and result
in something published since
the early 1940s to today.
So it's a bound volume.
Every year there's a
volume that comes out.
One year is a social
science volume
and the the next year
is a humanities volume.
And, so they alternate.
But, Handbook of Latin American
Studies [inaudible] the infancy
of the internet, also migrated
all of, all of the contents
of this massive database
into the online environment.
And, here we have a URL for
the, you know, where, you know,
physically the Handbook
search engine
where patrons can basically
search the entire, well,
the entirety of the handbook.
When I say entirety, entirety,
we'd further like to explain
that they're, that this website,
as you see, is annotations
from the 1970s forward are
searchable in this one.
And there is another
version of this website
that has everything
prior to the 1970s.
Our colleagues in the
division are obviously working
to have everything
in one, in physically
in this iteration
of the handbook.
But, we will provide
the link to the other,
to the earlier annotations.
But, the one you're
seeing on the screen
at the moment is
our main Handbook
of Latin American
Studies search,
search engine and database.
Here's an example of
one of the annotations.
So this is a book,
in Spanish, you know,
related to human rights
and peace building.
And, if you see below
the box, below the box
where you see the icon,
Help Me Find It there,
you see the field
title ASOP Annotation.
And this is basically
the little review
that the scholars provide.
And, so what's fascinating
about the handbook is
that it is a bibliography
that, it's basically reviewed
by experts in these fields and
they provide a little, you know,
mini summary and a review
of what the book is about.
But, this is an extremely
useful aspect of this resource.
The second project that I'm
mentioning in is the Archive
of Hispanic Literature on Tape.
Which, this year year we're
going to change the name
of the selection to the PALABRA
Archive that's for those of you
who don't know what palabra
means, palabra means word.
And, it's because it's a
literary audio archive.
And, basically we're
changing the name
because the original name,
you know, alludes to tape
to the analogue of the
contents of the collection.
But, we are now, you
know, in the digital era.
And so you know, referencing
tape is a little bit outdated.
So we are launching the new
name the PALABRA Archive.
And, this is a collection
of audio recordings of poets
and writers from the
countries that we represent
in our division, reading from
their work and beginning 1943.
And, we have close to, now close
to, close to 800 recordings
of poets and writers
from all of the region.
And, it's, you know, it's a
pretty unique literary treasure.
We have nine Nobel Laureates,
we have Garcia Marquez,
Pablo Neruda, Gabriela
Mistral, you know, really,
really important prominent
figures of our literature
in the Hispanic world, and
as well, as the, you know,
the Luso, Luso region,
so Portugal and Brazil.
And, we also record writers,
again, American writers
that are of Hispanic descent.
So we also have a lot
of recordings of here
in the United States of, you
know, poets and writers in,
a lot of the Hispanic areas
of the country, you know,
heavily Hispanic states like
California, Texas, New Mexico.
We have a lot of
writers from these parts
of the country as well.
Here below you see the
link to the material
that is available online.
So right now we have
about 250 recordings
of the entire archive
available for online streaming.
So every year we upload 15
new recordings during Hispanic
Heritage Month.
So every year we continue to
make more and more materials
from this selection available
for users all over the world.
And, here's an example of
what the page looks like.
This is just one of
the recording pages,
Garcia Marquez and, if
you, and then you click
on the Play button and you
can hear the entire recording.
The page also provides many
bibliographic, the bibliography,
I'm sorry, not bibliography,
the biographies
of the poets and writers.
And, so here's an example of,
again Garcia Marquez's
biography.
It's a pretty short bio, you
know, like a Wikipedia bio.
But, they are providing a few
of the most important
highlights of their careers.
And, we have this in
English and Spanish.
And, for writers that are
from Brazil and Portugal,
we also have some in Portuguese.
I'll say though that we
have poets and writers,
some biographies up, we are
working to complete some,
you know, to load
the rest of the bios.
But, many of the
poets and writers
that are online have
links to their biography.
And, with this I turn it over
to my, to my colleague Talia.
And, I thank you all
for your attention.
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez:
Hi good afternoon.
Thank so much Catalina.
I always love seeing the
photographs of the reading room
and those Portinari murals.
And, I miss the division
and miss the library
so much it's incredible.
Well, thank you to
everyone for being here.
Now I am going to talk
a little bit about how
to search resources using
different entry points
to the library's collections.
When we welcome users to
the Hispanic Reading Room
or even online, right, the first
thing we do is to teach them how
to navigate the LC
online catalog.
This page is the main access
to the library's collections.
And, it includes
specialized catalogs and tools
such as a handbook, which
Catalina just mentioned,
the Handbook for Latin
American Studies.
The Electronic Resources
Catalog,
of which I will talk
in a little bit.
And, also links to other highly
consulted visual collections
such as our Prints and
Photographs Online Collection,
which I will show you in a bit.
And, also Primo Central.
Primo Central is one of the
resources that will search
across many of the
library's journal articles
and eBook databases as well as
some other open access content.
And, it is especially useful
for cross topic searching.
Although access to most content
will be limited to onsite due
to licensing and other
copyright restrictions.
There is some really
useful open access content.
So I recommend all of you to
check it out when you are trying
to navigate and use
our collection.
Please note, also in
this image we have here,
the Ask a Librarian service
feature on the left hand side,
anytime you have
a question related
to the Luso Hispanic Collection,
please reach out to us.
You can fill out the form here.
Those questions come
to the reference staff
in the Hispanic Division.
And, we are there
ready to assist you
with anything you may need.
Okay. Next slide.
So Catalina, when
you're reading,
I'm ready for the next slide.
>> Catalina Gomez: Sorry.
I'm pressing it's
just really slow.
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez: Okay.
>> Catalina Gomez: I don't
know what's happening.
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez:
No, oh here we,
well I may start talking and
we'll see the slide in a big.
So just like we have
an online catalog
that searches the
library's analog and most
of the digital collections,
we also have a catalog
that's dedicated
to the electronic resources that
the library provides access to.
So there we have access to
thousands of subscriptions
and free databases that can
be accessed from anywhere.
They are convenient
classified by topics,
reading room favorites
and resources guides.
So you can see the
different categories there.
Unfortunately, the
picture that I have here,
I cut the image right
at the fold,
if I may use an analog term
for digital environment.
So I didn't take
the whole image.
When you scroll down, you will
see that, under Resource Type,
the first link takes you
to all three resources.
And, there are nearly 700
databases covering all topics
and many languages.
And you will find a lot of
good Hispanic, Luso-Hispanic,
Latin American, Caribbean,
Spain,
Portugal materials
related there.
I point this out because I know
many of you will not be able
to visit us at the
library for a long time.
So I want to make
sure that you know
where you can find resources
that you can use right now.
So at the top of the page, you
will see that there's a section
for eBooks and eJournals.
And, you will find some free
available content in those.
And, the section on
websites may be useful
since you can do
a search by topic.
It is very limited and many,
most resources are there,
of course, but you can
find some good information
to use in your classes.
I also want to point out,
at the right hand side,
the Hispanic Reading Room
Favorites which provides access
to databases including
content from the Caribbean,
Latin America, Portugal,
Spain and Latinx communities,
which are the areas that we
cover in the Reading Room.
So next slide please, Catalina.
So now we have seen now to
search in two places, right,
the LC Online Catalog and
also the LC Electronic
Resources Catalog.
And, there's one
more entry point
to the Luso-Hispanic collection.
And, this is access you
need from the Library
of Congress's main
page, so loc.gov.
This is the landing
page for the library
where you will find general
information about the library,
its events, exhibitions,
trending topics,
and will also point you to
other resources like catalogs,
digital collections,
resources for teachers,
I know many of you know
that, the Copyright Office,
and general information
about the library operations.
One thing that is useful
about this here is that,
at the top right hand side, have
highlighted it, you will see
that there's a search box
where you can do a quick
search using key words.
In this case, I have
chosen Hispanic, right,
because Hispanic Heritage Month
is coming up and many of you,
and even us at the library
will be looking for, you know,
images and newspapers and things
that we can include
in our presentation.
So let's do a quick
search for Hispanic.
And, you can see the image
on the right hand side,
it returns about more than
10,000 items available online
and nearly 20,000 of all items.
Right? But be aware that this
is not an exhaustive search.
The Luso-Hispanic collection
at the Library contains
nearing 30 million items.
So using the LC catalog
is always the best way
to search our collection.
But if you want to see what's
available online immediately,
this is a good resource to use.
What is most useful about this
page is how you can filter
by format, date, language,
location, contributor,
part of the library where the,
where it tells subject
and access condition.
Please know that some available,
some items that are available
online are only available
in the LC campus.
But, the majority of items
that you'll see doing a search
in this page, luckily,
are available anywhere.
So this is a good place to
look for digitized material.
I find this a very useful
tool to look up for images
and digitized books and things
that can be appropriated
into presentations for example.
So I used it a lot
for some of the images
that we used here today.
So next slide please.
So you can use this, this
everything search, right,
to also find videos of
events found at the library.
And these can be events
hosted and co-hosted
by the Hispanic Division, by
the Hispanic Cultural Society
of the library or by
some of our partners,
[inaudible] for example the
American Folklore Center has
amazing concerts that they've
sponsored throughout Hispanic
Heritage Month and many of
those concerts are here.
So you'll find events like
book talks, concerts, readings.
And, a lot of very special
material is included
in these videos.
Events are an excellent
resources to experience the work
of national and international
creators and how they engage
with our library's collections.
Unfortunately, it is a bit
tricky how to get to the videos.
So I have sketched out how you
can refine your search to get
to this content specifically
and hopefully it's useful.
And, if it isn't, you have
my email address at the end
or Ask a Librarian and you
can send us your questions.
So next slide please.
So like Catalina
mentioned at the beginning,
the Luso-Hispanic collection
at the library is
multilingual and multi-format.
And, it is housed across
the library's General
and Special Collections.
There's, these right
here are only some
of the one I personally
use the most.
I have mentioned the Prints
and Photographs Collection.
But, there is also a good
number of digitized maps
from the Caribbean, Latin
America, Spain, and Portugal
in the Geography
and Map Division.
The Jay Kislak Collection is
housed both in Geography and Map
and Rare Book in Special
Collection Division.
And, it's a unique
collection that includes more
than 3,000 rare books, maps,
manuscripts, history documents,
artifacts, and works
of art related
to the early American history
and the cultures of Florida,
Caribbean, and Central America.
Also related to this collection,
for example is the Hans P
and Hanni Kraus Collection
with early books, manuscripts
and maps related
to the explorations
of Sir Francis Drake.
So there re many good resources
and primary resources even
that are available
right there for you
to start using in your classes.
Next slide please.
So a lot of this wonderful
content that I have,
that I briefly sketched
out and presented here
to you is included
in the Hispanic Division
Country Guides series.
Each guide is curated
by a reference librarian
in the Hispanic Division and
includes general information
about each of the
countries we cover and links
to more specialized content.
So far we have about five guides
published that can be found
in that address on the top
of the slide, guides.loc.gov.
And, we are seriously and
very enthusiastically working
on the creation of one
country guide for each country.
So we hope to have them soon.
These are wonderful resources
to include in your syllabi
and to share with students
when doing research
on that specific country.
We are also working
on [inaudible]
which cover specific topics
related to Luso-Hispanic world,
like the Guide of about
[inaudible] economy
curated [inaudible].
Catalina, for example is
working on a very ambitious
and wonderful guide of
the PALABRA archives
which will be coming soon
hopefully before Hispanic
Heritage Month.
[Audio skips] because
every [inaudible].
You should sign up
to read these updates
about our collections
and services.
And, more on that shortly.
But, here you have some of
the guides, examples of guides
that we have in our collection.
So next slide please.
So I just wanted to reiterate
that you can find these research
guides in the guides.loc.gov.
And, there are three ways
of finding Hispanic
content for example.
You can do a general search
by alphabetical order.
You can search by subject.
And, when you search by subject,
you'll see topics including
reference to the Hispanic topics
but not necessarily
curated by experts
in the Luso-Hispanic collection.
For that, you would go to
the Research Center and look
for division specific guides.
And, there you will see all the
guides curated by specialists
from the Hispanic Division.
And, this is where you'll
find our country guides
and also the schematic guides
like [inaudible] economy
that I just showed before.
Next slide please.
So how do you use
these in your classroom
when there are a million ways
on how you can incorporate all
this content in your classroom?
Right? I mean the possibilities
for teaching are endless.
I have included here
just a couple of examples
of different collections
that pertain
to the Luso-Hispanic world that
you can use in your classroom,
that you can share with
friends, that you can use
if you're learning on your own.
Right? So if you want to study,
for example, Spanish paleography
or the evolution of
the Spanish language,
just head over to the
Herencia Centuries
of Spanish Legal Documents
Transcription Campaign.
This is a collection
that includes covenants
of judicial contests between
people, noble men and civil
and religious institutions
in Spain; Reales Cedulas.
And, the majority of these
materials were printed using
hand set type on handmade paper.
Though it is also,
it also includes
handwritten manuscripts.
This is a collection
from the Law Library,
that includes papers pertaining
law, statutes, and instructions,
and decrees of Spanish kings.
It is a fantastic collection to
use in classrooms for, you know,
where students are learning how
to read and write, you know,
in cursive for example.
We have Chronicling America
that maybe many of you know.
It's a collection of digitized
newspapers from 1789 to 1963,
mostly from the U.S. but
it also includes many,
some Caribbean newspapers
from Puerto Rico for examples.
And, you can find
incredible information
about Hispanic communities in
the U.S. as well searching,
you know, by keywords in the
search box in this collection.
I think it's a wonderful
primary resource
and we have made really
good presentations
with this resource.
The PALABARA Archive, that
Catalina just mentioned,
is a great resource
for listening comprehension
exercises for learning more
about literature, about
Luso-Hispanic writers.
And, then we also
have specialized blogs
that cover many of the topics
that we work on of the,
in the Hispanic Division.
One of them is the Four
Corners of the World.
And, you can subscribe to it
on Facebook or you can look it
up in our library page.
The Four Corners publishes blogs
written by reference librarians
in different area
study divisions,
like Catalina mentioned before.
So there's one there about Luisa
Capetillo a Puerto Rican Change
Maker, written by yours truly.
So I hope you go head
over and read it.
And, we also have the
Teaching with the Library
of Congress blog that
many of you probably know.
And, we have one post
by the wonderful Hispanic
Division Junior Fellow
from 2019 Jaime Conlan
who created a lesson plan
comparing primary sources
depicting border spaces.
For this she used resources
from recent photographs
and Chronicling America.
So these are just a few ideas
of what you can do, right,
with this rich collection
in your classes.
But, of course, we would
be more than happy to talk
with you right now and later on
through either send us an email
or in Ask a Librarian.
So I think that's it for me.
And, we're open for questions.
Thank you all.
>> Kaleena Black: Okay
thank you both so much
for that wonderful overview
and reintroducing us
to some resources but also
teaching us about new resources
about these regions
that you both work with.
And, if anyone has any
questions, please feel free
to post them in the chat box.
Or if you have any
comments or thoughts
about how you can see some
of these resources being
useful either in your classroom
or for others, please feel
free to share those as well.
Thank you so much
Catalina and Talia.
While we're waiting for some
questions I just have some
for you.
I wondered, so Catalina,
I understand
that you're the,
you're the curator.
You work most closely
with the AHLOT,
the new to the PALABRA
Collection.
And, I wondered if you have a
favorite item or maybe a couple
of favorite items that
you like the most.
>> Catalina Gomez: Oh that's
always a very hard question.
Well, I mean, there are
so many amazing recordings
in the archives.
But, I would say one of
my favorites is, you know,
and it's sort of, I
don't know, I don't want
to say the word cliche
but it's example
of giving the most famous poet
of our region Pablo Neruda,
I just, I really, really love
how he reads for our recording,
it's, you know, I
don't know if you all
out there have listened
to his voice.
But, you know, he
reads one poem,
one book long poem called
the Heights of Macchu Picchu.
And so, yeah, it's almost
like you're in a trance
because he reads in
a very slow manner.
And, it's just very beautiful.
I mean there are many,
many recordings that I,
that I recommend that I enjoy.
Another one of my
favorites is, you know,
he's not a very well
known writer.
In fact he wasn't known
mainly for literature.
But, he was a philologist,
philologist and scholar
of Nahuatl, the Nahuatl is one
of the indigenous languages
in Central America of the,
mainly the Aztec,
the Aztec world.
And, his name, he was a
priest, Jesuit Priest,
Angel Maria Garibay
was his name.
He was, those of you who
know about Nahuatl studies,
he was the who sort of mentored
Miguel Leon-Portilla who is one
of the eminent, most eminent
figures in Nahuatl studies.
But, that recording
to me is very special
because he reads some of the
original Nahuatl poems from,
you know, very ancient poems
from the Nahuatl peoples.
And, he translated
them into Spanish.
And, he reads these very short
beautiful poems about nature.
One is about a butterfly,
one is about a flower.
And, he translates
them into Spanish.
And it's, to me, it's one of
the most beautiful recordings.
He also has here really amazing
reflections about, you know,
the, you know, what he feels
Mexican culture represents.
And, it's just a very wonderful,
he offers very wonderful
reflections
on culture and language.
I love that recording very much.
But, there are so many
wonderful recordings.
Cortazar who is a very famous
short story [inaudible] writer,
novelist and short story
writer from Argentina.
[Inaudible] he is one
of the most well known
writers in Latin America.
His recording is also great.
That one's more of an
interview format done
by the former curator of
the archives, [inaudible],
and it's a wonderful
interview, very lively,
has a lot of humor in it.
And, I mean, really too, just
to hear these writer's voices
and their, you know, you can
hear them breathing and talking
and reflecting and reading
their own poems and writers.
It's very exciting to just spend
that time with that specific,
you know, they're all really
great redocrings though.
>> Kaleena Black: [Inaudible]
reading a poet's work is
one thing.
But, I agree being able to
hear their voice can be really
powerful as well.
Before we move on,
there was a question.
The question is are
there materials
about Hispanic children's
authors.
There's an example
here [inaudible]
and the participant says I like
to give cultural background
about children authors
to my students.
So any children's authors
who are represented
in your collections?
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez:
I would say, I can,
I can take that,
I can take that.
So children's literature,
although it has not been
a primary focus, right,
over a collection, it wasn't
I should say for some time.
We have always collected
like prize winning authors
from across the Americas.
And, we have recently, we
have more recently been more
intentional about collecting
Hispanic children's authors
and materials in
our, that are part,
especially of the Latinx
experience here in the library.
So we have those.
We have, we have several
historic children's books
in our collection.
And, I just want to give a brief
example of this, because we have
so many things and you never
know what you're going to find.
But, one time we had, we had
a person, we had a reader come
to our division every day
for maybe a couple of hours.
And, she would read this
children's book in Spanish.
It was like a young adult novel
published probably in the 1940s.
And, she would come,
read maybe ten pages,
and then her husband
would come pick her up,
and they would leave.
And, she did that
for about a week.
And, then at the end when
she turned in the book to me,
I asked her what
she was reading.
And, she's like oh
this is a book I read
when I was a child in Cuba.
And, after the revolution,
I left and I had
to leave all my books behind.
So to me that was very special
that this woman found a
children's book, right,
that she prized so much and
that she had to leave behind
and that she could find
it in our collections.
So that's just an example
of the best and the breadth
of the Luso-Hispanic collections
at the Library of Congress,
we have many historic books.
We do definitely have
some children's books.
We are working towards
building a better
and more inclusive collection
and diverse collection.
And, we can certainly
work with teachers
in providing more information
and background and context
for many of these authors.
>> Catalina Gomez:
I can add something
on this, on this as well.
So every year we have an event
called the Americas Award.
It's an award that is
coordinated by the Consortium
of Latin American Studies
Programs at Tulane University.
The library always
partners in this event.
And, Talia showed a wonderful
way to find events videos.
So if you, if you, let
me type it in the chat,
if you search Americas Award,
you will be able to
see these videos.
And, each year their
children's book
and young adult book
is awarded a prize.
But, if you also check
the Consortium's website,
you can also see all of the
finalists children's books
that make it to, you know,
that are reviewed by the jury.
And, anyway, that's a, it's
a wonderful reference to find
out about really good quality
and just fabulous
children's content.
And, I'm typing the name of
the video work, the work.
Sorry [inaudible] sorry.
>> Kaleena Black:
[Inaudible] both of you.
So I know that you are
both reference librarians.
And, I wonder if you
could both A share a bit
about what your work
entails in addition
to these public outreach events?
And, then also talk a bit, if
you would, about, you know,
your career paths to
the library and a bit
about your professional
backgrounds.
So we can start with Talia.
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez:
Yes I'm here.
So I started in the library in
2015, after being a Professor
of Spanish and Portuguese at
the University of Maryland.
I decided four years
into my teaching career
that my interest were
too wide to be limited
to maybe just one
topic or one subject
and to just teaching
in that manner.
And, when you're a librarian
you continue to be teaching
in one way or another.
We hold many reference sessions
and we welcome many
classes to the division.
So I transitioned to the
library in 2015 like I said.
I received my masters
in library sciences
from the University of Maryland.
And, I immediately
had the fortune
of becoming the Recommending
Officer for Brazil and Portugal,
which are the two countries
that I specialized in academics
because that's my training.
So we do, Catalina and I both
offer reference services to,
online and onsite
in both Spanish
and Portuguese and English.
And, we also do a lot of
outreach events not only
with academic institutions
across the DC regions
but also with embassies.
Catalina has done a lot of
wonderful work in that regard.
And, also of course the
writing reference to Congress
and working with Congress
members who represent regions
across the U.S. with
large populations
of Hispanic and Latinx
community.
It's, we host many, many
events in the library.
And, that's also the work
of reference librarians
like ourselves.
And, recently we have tried
to push a series of events
that connect users not only
with the creators of content
but also turns our visitors
into creators themselves.
So last year we hosted a
series of events called Create
and Connect where
creators like [inaudible]
or graphic artist Marta
Perez-Garcia or the publisher
from Home House Press would
come to the library and talk
about their work and talk about
their work and their collection
and then the public would
participate, right, in the event
where we would create
a piece of art or piece
of literature with this creator.
So those are the type
of relationships that we
like to foster as reference
librarians besides, of course,
offering the more
traditional reference service
that we also love to do, to do.
>> Catalina Gomez: And,
I started at the library
[inaudible] as an intern.
So I began, we had a program
in [inaudible] called
the Huntington
Fellowship Internship.
And, we have program
in the Hispanic Division
called the Huntington
Fellowship Internship.
And, I became an intern and
then I worked for almost a year
for the Handbook of
Latin American Studies.
And, then I was helping
with administrative
and programmatic work
for, you know, help make,
helping our chief with all of
the management of the division.
And, then 2015 I became a
reference librarian the same
year that Talia came
to join our team.
And, yeah, basically
everything that Talia mentioned,
mentioned are you know the
main things that we work on.
And, I spend a lot
of time, you know,
working to record more writers
for the PALABRA Archive.
We, last year we
actually started working
with other partners
around the country.
We were adding some
new recordings
in indigenous languages,
working on expanding the archive
by making it more diverse
and more representational
of the diversity
of the Americas.
So you know, there's
always so much to do
with these collections
and better, you know,
there's always a lot of work
we can do to connect our users
to the wonderful
collections that we have.
And, about my background,
I come from the arts.
So I studied visual arts
and Latin American studies
and have a masters
in visual culture
from the University
of Barcelona.
And, I that's something, you
know, kind of a surprising turn
that I ended up at a library.
But, I always knew that
I wanted to work either
for a Latin museum or a
library or cultural institution.
And, there's probably no
better cultural institution
than the Library of Congress.
So it's a great pleasure
to be part of the library.
>> This is Dana, I'm taking
over for Kaleena for a minute
because she's still needed.
Does anybody else have
any other questions
for our two outstanding
presenters.
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez:
Dana does this [inaudible].
>> Kaleena Black:
I'm sorry about that.
I had a little network
connections.
>> Talia Guzman-Gonzalez:
That's fine.
This is Talia.
Before we, while we wait for
questions, I wanted to mention,
and I don't know how Catalina
might miss saying this,
because we're both
the proud producer
of podcast called La Biblioteca
which we have one season,
we're working on a second
season that should come
up in the next couple of months.
With all the problems
we have had this spring,
but the season is coming up.
But, in that podcast
we feature recordings
from the wonderful
archives, PALABRA Archives.
And, we invite speakers who
are scholars or creators
or who know these recordings,
not only the recordings
but who know these authors
well to speak very, you know,
conversational manner
about these [inaudible].
So I don't see a link here to
the podcast, but we're going
to put it before we share this
slide so you can listen to them.
It's called La Biblioteca
podcast.
And, you can find it, the
linkage right there, Leanne,
the wonderful Leanne just put it
there for everyone to listen to.
They're short pieces.
But, they are wonderful
resources if you have time to,
not time, but if you
want to learn more
about authors included
in our archives.
>> Kaleena Black: Okay.
Thank you so much Talia,
thank you Dana for chiming in.
I had a little network
glitch but I come back.
Thank you so much everyone
for joining us and thanks most
of all Catalina and Talia
for joining us today
and sharing your expertise
and more about division
and the collections
that you work with.
As everyone can see, their
contact information is
on the screen and also
links to the mailing list,
the blog they mentioned,
and Facebook.
And, as I posted in
the chat, the slides
and the recording session will
be posted on our website soon.
So please check back there.
And, thank you so much
for being with us today.
If you can, please
join us next week.
I will be joined by
specialists from the Prints
and Photograph Division as well
as the Swan Fellowship Fellow.
We'll be talking about
the comic art collections
at the Library of Congress.
So I hope that you
can join us then.
And, again thank you
for joining us today.
Thanks again to our presenters.
And we'll see you all very soon.