Launched in November 2022, Digital Beninisn’t necessarily a new digital project, but it is an important one that continues to shift how we understand and access African cultural heritage, in this case cultural objects from the Kingdom of Benin (present-day Nigeria).
At first glance, it’s an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly interface that showcases more than 5,000 artifacts looted from Benin during a notorious 1897 British military campaign, an enduring symbol of colonial violence and theft. While this alone would make the project a valuable resource, a great strength of the project lies in how it highlights connections: between museum-held objects and their places of origin, between Western classifications and indigenous Edo terminology, between archival documents and the Benin objects themselves. It’s not just a database, but a dynamic tool for recontextualizing history.
Digital Benin connects the global locations of Benin artifacts across 130 institutions in 21 countries, most of which were looted during the colonial period and are now located in Western museums. Each object record includes high-resolution images, metadata, provenance information and translations in both English and Edo. Notably, you can trace how looted items moved from British soldiers in 1897, through art dealers and collectors, and into major museum collections.
Above is a screenshot of the Network Explorer tool, which allows users to explore connections between people, entities, objects and archival documents.
One of the most powerful aspects of the project is the “Ẹyo Otọ” section that highlights the Edo object classification system. Instead of relying on Western museum categories (like “pottery” or “bronze”), Digital Benin introduces a controlled vocabulary based on Edo knowledge systems. For example, you’ll notice distinct categories like Akhẹ Amẹ (water pot) or Akhẹ Osun (Osun shrine pot). These designations reflect the original, indigenous understanding and use of the object.
Object records are organized by the Edo object classification system under the “Ẹyo Otọ” section. Here are all the records for Iyeọkhọkhọ hen figures used on female altars.
The design of the site is equally impressive, with extensive documentation on the project development, data acquisition and management, and the Edo controlled vocabulary. The Italian studio Calibro, known for projects like the open source data visualization tool RAWGraphs and The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, built custom visual tools and interfaces for the site.
Good design intersects with dynamic function in the “Paper Trails” section of the project, which connects the individual Benin objects to archival documents like letters, catalogues, photographs and newspaper clippings that mention them. You can click through the documents, read transcriptions and follow specific objects as they are referenced over time.
The Archival Documents database shows a flyer for a demonstration advocating for the return of the Benin Bronzes. The archival record links to the specific Uhunmwu-Elao, or commemorative head, mentioned in the document.
A unique strength of Digital Benin is its overall approach to this work. The project is led by Nigerian and international scholars, deeply grounded in local knowledge, oral traditions and indigenous frameworks. It models a powerful kind of digital restitution by not just returning information to descendant communities, but empowering them to define how that knowledge is structured and shared. This value is embedded into the project as a whole, shaping everything from the site’s design and data organization to its commitment to centering Edo perspectives and reclaiming cultural authority.
In fall of 2024, UT Libraries assessment team administered a campus wide survey to understand the perceptions, experiences, and needs of users across the campus.
A random sample of undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff were invited to participate in the survey, which was designed on Qualtrics and sent via email.
The results were drawn from 1878 respondents who completed at least half of the survey. The breakdown of respondents included 43% undergraduate students, 18% graduate students, 14% faculty, and 24% staff.
The data from the survey were analyzed using SPSS for the quantitative part and NVivo for the qualitative part (open ended questions). The final results are available to the public through an interactive Tableau dashboard.
Here is an infographic capturing some of the 2024 UTL campus survey highlights.
An Infographic showing 2024 UT Libraries Campus Survey Highlights
We are delighted to report that the overall satisfaction with the libraries has remained consistently high since the last campus survey administered in 2022. The majority of all respondents felt that UT libraries is a welcoming place (88%) and that the staff is friendly and approachable (83%).
The results indicated that quiet (whispers) was the most preferred noise level. UT libraries offers access to multiple quiet study or work spaces across various branches around the campus.
Battle Hall Reading Room
This year, we also asked our participants about the new and evolving spaces within the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL). 42% of respondents who had been to PCL, visited the new Scholars Lab (the digital scholarship center at entryway) since it opened in fall 2023.
The new space is timely, given that survey results showed a growth in the perceived importance of scholarly communication, research data, digital scholarship, GIS, and geospatial data since the 2022 survey administration.
Data Lab in the Scholars Lab
We also asked the participants about their primary reasons for visiting the libraries. The top reason for students to visit the libraries was to access a quiet study/work space. Undergraduate students rated access to study/work space as very important.
The Hall of Noble Words Reading Room
In contrast, faculty and staff, most often visited the libraries to borrow physical material from the libraries’ comprehensive physical collection. Additionally, online library resources were rated as very important for graduate students, faculty and staff.
Respondents were asked to share a time that UT Libraries staff, services, resources or spaces had a positive impact on them.
Here are some impact stories, in their own words:
“It would not be an understatement to say my research has depended almost entirely on the library’s incredible resources and accessibility!” – Graduate student from the College of Liberal Arts.
“I’m able to request research articles from 50 years ago and get a scan sent to me in a week!” – Graduate student from the Cockrell School of Engineering.
“The UT library has offered private rooms for studying which has helped my academic success.” – Undergraduate student from the College of Natural Sciences.
“I’ve pinged subject experts last minute for help and they were very responsive to my needs.” – Staff member form the College of Liberal Arts.
These stories serve as vivid reminders of how central the libraries are to success at UT. We are excited to see the impact of UT Libraries on patrons’ academic and professional growth.
While the feedback was largely positive, the survey also highlighted some areas for improvement. Results indicated that some participants find physical library spaces challenging to navigate. In response, we are actively working on a signage improvement project aimed at improving wayfinding and making it easier for users to find their way through our spaces.
We thank all of the library users that participated in the survey. We value the feedback and appreciate the continued engagement as we work to improve the library experience for everyone.
Everyday Knowledge in Early Meiji Japan from UT Libraries’ Collections
“Illuminating Explorations” – This series of digital exhibits is designed to promote and celebrate UT Libraries collections in small-scale form. The exhibits will highlight unique materials to elevate awareness of a broad range of content. “Illuminating Explorations” will be created and released over time, with the intent of encouraging use of featured and related items, both digital and analog, in support of new inquiries, discoveries, enjoyment and further exploration.
The Braisted Collection
This exhibit highlights a selection of items from the Braisted Collection on Meiji Japan. The Braisted Collection was gifted to the UT Libraries by the late Professor Emeritus of History, Dr. William R. Braisted (1918–2017) in 2000. A Maryland native, Braisted was the son of an American naval officer and spent many of his early years in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and mainland China. He attended the Shanghai American School for part of his high school. Later, he received a BA from Stanford University and eventually an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1950. Braisted started teaching at the University of Texas at Austin in 1942 and retired in 1988,[1] and he was the founder of the East Asian Collections at UT Austin. Impressed by what he saw at the coastal elite institutions, especially the Harvard-Yenching Library, Braisted started advocating for and later became involved in building a working collection for Asian histories at the UT campus. In the 1950s, Braisted persuaded the History Department to provide funds to build the collection, when the University Libraries did not have an independent acquisition budget and relied on departmental funds to purchase materials. The first purchase order for Japanese materials was placed in 1953.[2] Before the first Asian Librarian, Dr. Tamie Tsuchiyama (1914–1984), arrived at UT in 1967, Braisted was instrumental in selecting and building UT’s East Asian collections.
The donation included many pre-20th-century materials, which were likely acquired by Braisted during his Fulbright trip to Japan from 1955 to 1956. At that time, Braisted was interested in researching the intellectual and political histories around the “Japanese Enlightenment” during the Meiji Restoration, and his attention specifically dwelt on a group of intellectual elites known as the “Meiroku club.” In popular historiography, the Meiji Restoration in 1868 marks the beginning of Japan’s “modern” era, when a group of rebellious and reformist Samurai overthrew the Edo Bakufu and “restored” the country to the rule under the Meiji Tennō. However, in their political outlooks, the Meiji political elite championed political, social, and military reforms modelled after the post-Enlightenment West. The Meiroku club, around whom Braisted built this collection, was a leading group of educators, politicians, and scholars who contributed to the reformist discourses during the early Meiji years.
Braisted’s research into the club ultimately culminated in his translation of the entire run of the Meiroku Zasshi 明六雑誌, the magazine edited and published by the group. For this project, he collected works written by the major figures in this intellectual circle, including Katō Hiroyuki 加藤弘之 (1836–1916), Nishimura Shigeki 西村茂樹 (1828–1902), Fukuzawa Yukichi 福沢諭吉 (1835–1901), Nishi Amane 西周 (1829–1897), and Mitsukuri Rinshō 箕作麟祥 (1846–1897).
Beyond works by these luminary figures, the Braisted Collection also included many books that were popular during the era, including textbooks, handbooks, news magazines, compilations of laws, parliamentary papers, etc. Last but not least, Braisted also meticulously collected Japanese scholarly monographs on the history, culture, diplomacy, and politics of the Meiji era.
This Exhibit
The Meiji era was a period of confusing and competing ideologies and thoughts, and many intellectuals shared an urgency and impulse to influence and educate the “masses” while a nationwide school system was being designed and built. This exhibit showcases some of the products of this dynamic moment in Japanese intellectual and cultural history. Many of the books were either produced to educate the general literate populace or to provide practical knowledge for everyday use. Also, books produced in this era appeared in different physical formats and had different appearances, as machine-powered printing technologies were making their way into Japan, while centuries-old woodblock printing still persisted.
Let’s start with the material hybridity of the books in this exhibit. Although post-Enlightenment wisdom from Europe flooded into Japan in the 1860s, industrialized book production did not move that quickly. Most of the books published in this era, as we see in this collection, were continuously made and bound in the traditional wasō 和裝 format and printed by woodblocks. Many continued to receive the iconic yellow cover from the Edo era, though some of those that were rushed to the market, for example, the news magazines, did not. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, industrialized printing became more widely available to Japanese publishers. Moveable type letterpress hence replaced the woodblocks to become the most prevalent way to print. However, many of the books still preserve the physical appearances one would expect to see in a woodblock, such as the frames that surround the texts and the vertical, right-to-left textual arrangement.
Before metal types became widely available in the late nineteenth century, woodblocks remained the primary way that Japanese books were made. As a versatile and flexible medium, woodblock can reproduce many different types of texts and images. An interesting example in this exhibit is the woodblock reprinted Dutch physics textbook, titled in Japanese Kakuchi mondō 格致問答 (Questions and answers in studies of the physical world). The book was published in the Netherlands by letterpress in 1814. Its Japanese publisher, Mitsukuri Rinshō, however, reproduced it by woodblock using his own handwriting.
FIGURE 1 First page in the main body of Kakuchi mondō
During the majority portion of the Edō era, the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to maintain trade relations with Japan. Although they were physically confined on a small island called Dejima outside of Nagasaki, European knowledge, mediated by the Dutch merchants, penetrated into the Edō intellectual scene. A field called rangaku 蘭学 (Dutch Learning) emerged, but such studies were largely confined to medicine and natural studies. Mitsukuri was appointed by the last Shogun to lead the short-lived Bakufu office/school, Bansho shirabejo 蕃書調所, to study and collect Dutch books. The other Dutch book on the language’s syntax and grammar was also published by Mitsukuri in a similar manner.
Last but not least, this exhibit also includes a field manual for farmers from the Edō period, Seiu benran 晴雨便覧 (A convenient companion of sun and rain), dated to 1767. It includes sophisticated illustrations and diagrams informing farmers how to make decisions on agricultural activities. It was a ground-breaking work not only as a primer for understanding weather conditions but also to teach readers how to predict weather, considering both local geography and meteorological phenomena.[3]
FIGURE 2 Page 5a, vol. 1 in Seiu benran
The Meiji intellectuals’ push to educate the Japanese mass was also reflected in their efforts to establish schools across the country. The literacy/vocabulary primer, Tangō zue 単語図会 (Illustrated vocabulary) was published by one of the earliest normal schools established by the reformist Meiji elite. Its compilers were concerned that the Japanese children lacked an authoritative and systematic source of vocabulary of the new era. The vocabulary introduced in it range from everyday items from clothes to books, natural phenomena to new scientific notions. The book was produced using woodblocks and printed in color.
FIGURE 3 Page 6a in Tangō zue
The anthology Meiji bunhan 明治文範 (Model essays of the Meiji era) was compiled for students in Japan’s emerging normal schools in the early twentieth century. Normal schools themselves were complicated institutions. The student body of a normal school was often made up of teenagers and those in their twenties, and they would be assigned to schools at different levels after graduation. The anthology included in this exhibit was aimed at cultivating a baseline literary capability for the country’s new teachers. The essays included traditional literary poetry, an excerpt of the Meiji constitution, and newspaper articles.
[1] Braisted 1947 report, Faculty-Staff Teaching Staff Personal Faculty Files, Biographical Data, Box/Vol/Ser no(s) 4S 77, UT Department of History Records, University of Texas Archive, Austin, TX. A detailed account of Braisted’s early intellectual journey can be found in William R. Braisted, Diplomats in Blue: U.S. Naval Officers in China, 1922-1933, (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009), Preface.
[2] Susan Napier, “The Japanese Collection at the University of Texas,” The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas at Austin, vol. 27, no.3, 49–51.
[3] Yoko Ogasawara 小笠原洋子, “Edo jidai no hitobito no daiki genshō ni taisuru ninshiki ni tsuite: minyō seiu benran saikō江戸時代の人々の大気現象に対する認識について : 『民用晴雨便覧』再考,” Otya no mizu tiri お茶の水地理, v. 38 (June 1997), 1¬–9.
From the University of Texas at Austin to Yale to Berkeley, Dr. David Montejano, B.A. ‘70, is an award-winning historian and professor whose research has taken him to the East, West, and Gulf coasts – and back again. Now retired from higher education, David has returned to his hometown in San Antonio with his wife, Veronica Montejano, M.A. ‘94. David describes his academic journey as a rollercoaster. “I call it my rollercoaster career,” he explains, “because there’s been ups and downs.”
David enrolled at Texas State University in 1966. Dissatisfied with Texas State’s racially divided campus, David transferred to the University of Texas at Austin a year later to complete his bachelor’s degree with a double major in sociology and political science. He felt that a major in sociology would offer answers to the questions he had growing up as a Tejano in San Antonio. A strike for humane working conditions by migrant workers in Starr County, Texas also triggered his interest in his field of research. David joined them in their protest and took part in a 490-mile march from the Rio Grande Valley to Austin.
After graduating, David pursued a graduate degree in sociology at Yale with the intention to further his interest in Mexican American studies. He started his dissertation on the Chicano movement which he continued to be involved in as a student at UT. Halfway through completing his dissertation, David was offered a job by UC Berkeley.
“Berkeley comes knocking at my door,” he recalls, “but [my] advisor says ‘don’t go, you’re not ready.’” Despite the dissertation committee’s warning not to transfer to Berkeley and miss his deadline, David decided to pack his bags and move to the West Coast. “I told [the committee] ‘I am tired of New England weather,’ and went to talk about the cold and overcast skies of New Haven. ‘I’m going to California. I want to be there.’” He ultimately missed his deadline. Berkeley did not rehire him. David then switched gears and transferred to UC Santa Cruz to successfully complete his dissertation. Santa Cruz then chose not to rehire him.
Frustrated with academia, David returned to San Antonio to pursue additional research and participate in local community organizations, but did not stay in Texas for long. He accepted a position at the University of New Mexico. During his time at UNM, he converted his dissertation into a book, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836- 1986, which earned David the 1988 Frederick Jackson Turner Award. Then came a call from The University of Texas at Austin.
In 1989, David accepted a position as professor of history at UT and then as Director of Mexican American Studies. He then met his to-be wife, Veronica Montejano, who received her MA in Art History from UT. David once again returned to Berkeley (to “vindicate” his original dissertation, he says) and taught for another 20 years. From that dissertation sprung two additional books, Chicano Politics and Society in the Late Twentieth Century and Quixote’s Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966–1981.
“I enjoyed teaching,” David jokes, “but once I retired, I retired.” David and Veronica spent a few more years in Berkeley while Veronica taught and served as principal of the Oakland Unified School Districts. Now retired from academia, they’ve officially moved back to San Antonio. But David’s work isn’t done just yet. He has a new job: urban gardening.
“I needed a break from the books,” he says. “We bought a few lots in San Antonio that used to be a baseball field. They were overgrown with ‘trash trees,’ mesquite, and hackberries.” The two have been toiling in the hot Texas sun for over a year to clear the shrubbery in an effort to start an urban garden. While they have some time to go until the plots will be ready, they hope to start planting as soon as possible. Even better, they hope to open a farmer’s market in the future. “But we still have a lot to learn about the land,” Veronica says. The pursuit of learning is never over for these two long-time teachers.
Looking back on his time as a student and teacher at UT, David reflects on the importance of on-campus libraries in his research. “As an undergrad, the library was in the tower,” he explains. “You could roam the stacks and smell the books while you were up there.” He describes the libraries as his essential “go-to place” while writing his dissertation. “Having written three books on Texas, I mean, I couldn’t have done that without the Benson or the Briscoe.” He specifically recalls uncovering records of Tejano activists at the Benson, including the personal papers of Eleuterio Escobar, a Laredo-born civil rights activist who advocated to eliminate educational inequality. These resources were invaluable in conducting his research on Mexican American community organization.
This past year, David and Veronica established the Montejano Benson Collection Research Award to support researchers studying materials housed at the Benson Latin American Collection. Thanks to the Ann Hartness Matching Fund, this gift will be that much more helpful for the visiting scholars undertaking research on Mexican American and Latino history. David has already donated many of his papers to the Benson Collection, further solidifying him as a vital figure in the field.
Information regarding the application for the award will be made available in the future. In the meantime, David’s generous contribution will help support groundbreaking research taking place at the Benson and its constant commitment to preservation, visibility, and inclusivity. “I want others to have the same experience I had at the Benson,” David explains. “Many histories have yet to be told.”
David’s advice to researchers who are pursuing Mexican American studies is to “get in there and be curious.” Veronica laughs in agreement. “One of David’s guilty pleasures is watching those shows about gold miners,” she says. “I think it’s completely analogous to his experience in the archives because he would come home and say, ‘well, I didn’t find gold,’ or ‘I found a nugget today!’” She explains that his work is slow and steady, much like chipping away at rock until uncovering a gem inside.
David concurs that any scholar that is interested in this kind of research should always keep looking for those “nuggets.” The two agree that although research requires perseverance, the reward – gold or insight – is what makes the hard work worthwhile. David wishes to instill this passion in future scholars by passing down the torch of research (or, in this case, the mining pickaxe) to the next generation of learners.
On April 14, the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection welcomed acclaimed author Cristina Rivera Garza for an evening of reflection, conversation, and celebration marking the acquisition of her literary archive. Rivera Garza – Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Liliana’s Invincible Summer” and a MacArthur Genius Fellow.
The event drew a full house to honor the arrival of Rivera Garza’s papers and the stories they preserve. Attendees had an opportunity to view a curated selection from Rivera Garza’s archive, which includes manuscripts, letters and documents related to her writing and the life of her sister, Liliana, whose murder and legacy are the focus of “Liliana’s Invincible Summer,” Rivera Garza’s prize-winning memoir.
Rivera Garza opened the evening with a brief talk about the process that led to the placement of her papers at the Benson. She recalled the moment, following the completion of her memoir Liliana’s Invincible Summer, when she realized she lacked the tools to properly preserve Liliana’s letters, notes, books and other ephemera. Conversations with Benson staff helped her transition from caring for the materials privately to entrusting them to an institutional home.
She dedicated her remarks to her late father, Antonio Rivera, who recently passed away. Tracing his extraordinary life – from his Indigenous roots and refugee migration during a historic drought to earning a PhD in agricultural sciences in Sweden – she honored his devotion to memory and preservation. Antonio, like Liliana, saved everything: letters, photographs, telegrams and even short stories. Rivera Garza credited him with instilling the values of legacy and documentation that ultimately inspired her literary work.
Rivera Garza described archives as sacred, transformative spaces where “the living and the dead interact,” likening them to cemeteries that enable spiritual communion and emotional resurrection. She recounted the profound experience of opening the boxes of Liliana’s belongings, which included handwritten notes, origami-folded letters and scribbles in book margins – tangible remnants that allowed her to reconstruct her sister’s story and, in doing so, become a writer.
She closed her remarks with a call to action, framing archives as instruments of “restorative justice.” Though they may not always bring perpetrators to court, archives preserve truth, resist forgetting and bear witness to gender violence and femicide. In an era of disinformation, she argued, archives remain steadfast between oblivion and collective memory. Her parting wish: “Let archives do their breathing, and allow them to revive ourselves.”
The evening continued with a dialogue between the author and Dr. Celeste González de Bustamante, director of the Center for Global Media at the Moody College of Communications. The conversation explored the author’s writing process, the decision to withhold Liliana’s image from the English-language cover and the role of feminist mobilizations in shaping a new vocabulary for justice. Rivera Garza shared that much of “Liliana’s Invincible Summer” was informed by telephone conversations – intimate, unrecorded calls during the pandemic – with Liliana’s friends, whose memories form the emotional scaffolding of the book.
The discussion touched on broader issues of gender violence and femicide in Mexico and beyond. With an impunity rate for femicide exceeding 95% in Mexico, Rivera Garza described her writing as a way to confront silence, institutional erasure and the bureaucratic labyrinth faced by those seeking justice. She discussed the language born of feminist movements that made her book possible and necessary – a language that gives voice to victims rather than perpetrators.
With themes spanning grief, justice, family history and the evolving role of archives in a digital age, the evening served as a powerful reminder of the significance of preserving stories – especially those often left untold. Rivera Garza’s archive joins the Benson’s vast literary collections, ensuring that her words, and Liliana’s, will continue to inspire, provoke and bear witness for generations to come.
This March, five University of Texas Libraries staff members joined the vibrant and growing community of creators and scholars at the annual BIPOC PoP Symposium, an event that brings together writers, artists, gamers, students and academics to celebrate and build community around popular culture.
Sponsored by UT’s College of Liberal Arts and organized by staff from the campus’s own Latinx Pop Lab, BIPOC PoP offers UT Libraries a valuable opportunity to engage with creators and audiences whose work reflects the diversity of voices in contemporary storytelling. This year marked the second consecutive invitation for the Libraries to host a table in the exhibition hall.
Librarians Tina Tran, Gina Bastone, Adriana Cásarez, Yi Shan and Ana Rico shared a selection of graphic novels and comics from the Libraries’ collections – including paperback comics, zines, large-format art books, and young adult titles. These materials showcased the depth and variety of the Libraries’ long-standing commitment to collecting comics and graphic novels, particularly in the Perry-Castañeda Library’s popular and well-used collection.
Visitors expressed surprise and excitement upon learning about the comics collection at PCL, with many students vowing to stop by the library soon. Faculty members discussed potential class visits, underscoring the value of the collection as a teaching tool. A highlight of the event was meeting acclaimed comics creator John Jennings, who graciously signed the Libraries’ copy of After the Rain, which is now available in the collection (view in the catalog).
Libraries staff also made connections with local artists and small publishers, with an eye toward expanding the Libraries’ holdings of zines and independently produced comics in the near future.
As always, BIPOC PoP was a joyful celebration of creativity, community, and shared enthusiasm for the stories that shape our cultural landscape. TheLibraries is grateful to the Latinx Pop Lab and the Department of English for the invitation, and we look forward to returning next year.
The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is pleased to announce the acquisition of literary and family archives of Colombian writer Andrés Caicedo. This collection joins other important regional literary collections of writers such as César Vallejo, Augusto Roa Bastos, and Julio Cortázar, increasing the importance of the Benson as a destination for students, faculty, and researchers from the United States, Latin America, and beyond.
Title page of “El Atravesado.” Benson Latin American Collection.
Within a decade of the publication of 100 Years of Solitude, which propelled Gabriel García Márquez and Colombia to the forefront of the Latin American literary scene, a 21-year-old Caicedo was self-publishing his first novela. El Atravesado (1975) was printed with a stamp opposite the title page reading Pirata Ediciones de Calidad (Pirata Quality Editions). Adorning the cover is a Ramones-esque sketch that the author had copied and enhanced from a bootlegged Rolling Stones album cover: a sunglasses-clad rebellious youth in front of a deteriorating and graffitied wall, a chain in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, ready for a fight. The story is one of youth in street gangs who have lost all faith in adulthood, living in the chaos of urban disorder, brawls, and parties, who yearn for a better world.
Inside cover of “El Atravesado,” with handwritten dedication and Ediciones Pirata seal. Benson Latin American Collection.
An intellectually curious lover of movies and letters, Caicedo began writing at the age of 10 and never stopped. He wrote plays, published stories in newspapers, and published Ojo al Cine, a film magazine that ran from 1974 to 1976. On March 4, 1977, at the age of 25, just after receiving the editor’s copy of his first published full-length novel, Que viva la música, Caicedo died by suicide. Que viva la música went on to become his best-known work, and would give voice to a generation of Colombia’s youth, offering a socially realistic alternative to the magical realism of García Márquez and other writers of the Latin American Boom.
Cover of issue 5 of the film criticism magazine “Ojo al Cine.” Benson Latin American Collection.
Caicedo already had a loyal following by the time of his death, but most of his writing was never published, or was limited to local and serial publications. His father, with whom he had fraught relations, discovered many of his manuscripts several years after his death. He led the creation of a family foundation dedicated to preparing and publishing the entire corpus of Caicedo’s writing. Caicedo’s renown has continued growing as publications are translated and published until today.
Review of “The Godfather 2” by Andrés Caicedo, including creative use of onomatopoeia, published in El Pueblo Estravagario.
The Andrés Caicedo Collection contains materials collected by the author’s sister, Rosario Caicedo, and includes manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, rare publications, press clippings, and family photo albums. Some of the most important documents in the collection are letters to and from his parents, Carlos Alberto and Nellie Estela, and his sister, Rosario, in the last years of his life. Several folders in the collection document Caicedo’s involvement in the Cine Club de Cali, including issues of the magazine Ojo al Cine. Finally, family photo albums of his parents and grandparents document the life of his family in the first decades of the twentieth century.
Letter from Caicedo to his father, signed ‘Tu Hijo (Que te pesa)’. Benson Latin American Collection.
This collection supplements the Archivo Andrés Caicedo, donated by the family to the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in Bogotá, Colombia, and helps present a side of Caicedo that brings a wider understanding to his life and his literary corpus. View the contents of the archive at Texas Archival Resources Online.
The witch trials of Europe in the early modern period, from about 1400 to 1775, resulted in the prosecution, often violent, of over 100,000 people. Studying this history and understanding its causes—which were multifaceted, and incorporated elements of religious persecution of alleged heresy, superstition, and religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants—is an important way we can understand the motivations of past atrocities and learn from them to avoid similar violence and intolerance in the future. The Witches: Survey of Scottish Witchcraft project at the University of Edinburgh is one project that makes this history more broadly accessible and understandable both to scholars and the general public.
The site itself contains an excellent introduction to the history of witch trials in Scotland. It states:
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Scotland went through a series of changes to the state and church which fuelled the Scottish witch hunt. As a result of the Reformation, when Scotland broke away from the Catholic Church and moved towards Protestantism, the church went through an upheaval of religious belief and became much more interested in what ordinary people did and believed.
This concern led to great concern from Church and state about people’s religious beliefs and practices, deviations from behavior expected by the Church and society (such as not attending Church on a Sunday), and witchcraft. More than 4,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736, and confessions were often evinced using torture. Of people accused of being witches it is estimated that around 2,500, or roughly two-thirds, were executed, with the majority of those executed (about 85%) being women.
The main map on the site’s landing page, showing locations where witches in the database lived.
The site’s most striking feature is a map showing accused witches’ residences and details about their case and personal lives, including their occupations. This provides an intuitive and visually appealing way to explore the dataset, and allows for free exploration of the data without digging into the spreadsheets and metadata underlying the map. Users can also search the complete dataset used to make the map, exploring the same by searching for an accused’s name. In addition to these exploratory tools, the site also features a very helpful introduction that explains many details of the dataset and provides further background information, as well as a number of additional visualizations. Particularly affecting is the Story of Isobel Young visualization, which chronicles the life and death of one woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed.
The Story of Isobel Young visualization.
The site also provides a host of references that provide scholarly background on the history of witch trials in Scotland. There are also a number of resources, including a GitHub repository for the project’s website and the CSV files used to make the map. It also provides lists of accused witches, trials, people involved, and memorials and sites of interest within Scotland that users may wish to visit.
The Witches: Survey of Scottish Witchcraft site offers a robust but inviting introduction to this period of European history. I encourage you to explore the site for yourself and find out what it has to offer.
The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is pleased to announce the acquisition of the literary archive of distinguished Mexican author and professor Cristina Rivera Garza, a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship. This archive enhances the Benson’s extensive collection of materials that embody Latin American literary tradition, intellectual thought, and leadership, reflecting the stature of the library and the University of Texas at Austin campus as an invaluable resource for students, faculty, and researchers globally.
Cristina Rivera Garza, born in 1964 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, is one of the most influential and innovative contemporary Mexican authors. She has been the recipient of Mexico’s most prestigious literary accolades, including the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, which she won twice. Her writing defies traditional literary genres, blending historical research, speculative fiction, and linguistic experimentation to challenge dominant narratives and conventional storytelling.
The author Cristina Rivera Garza, center, with her mother, left, and her sister Liliana Rivera Garza. Undated photo. Cristina Rivera Garza Papers, Benson Latin American Collection.
Rivera Garza’s works, including Nadie me verá llorar (1999), Dolerse: Textos desde un país herido (2011), El mal de la taiga (2012), and El invencible verano de Liliana (2023), engage deeply with themes of gender violence, loss, and memory. Through these narratives, she explores Mexico’s complex socio-political landscape, giving voice to silenced histories.
The Benson Latin American Collection presents An Evening with Cristina Rivera Garza on Monday, April 14, 2025. Find details here.
Rivera Garza grew up along the U.S.–Mexico border, a region rich in cultural traditions and marked by the fluidity of languages, identities, and experiences. This liminal space shaped her literary and academic sensibilities, fostering a transnational perspective that permeates her work. She studied urban sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), a premier academic institution, and later earned a doctoral degree in Latin American history from the University of Houston. This academic background plays a crucial role in her writing, allowing her to seamlessly weave together fiction, poetry, and scholarly research.
Rivera Garza’s acclaimed novel Nadie me verá llorar (1999) exemplifies her unique ability to fuse historical research with fiction. Set in a mental health institution in early-twentieth-century Mexico, the novel tells the tragic love story of Joaquín, a photographer and addict, and Matilda, a rebellious patient whose life defies social conventions. However, the novel transcends this romantic premise. It has become a powerful meditation on how medical discourse and institutional power define sanity and madness in Mexico’s tempestuous historical past. Through her prose, Rivera Garza captures the fragility of memory while critiquing the oppressive systems that define these mental states.
Page proof of English translation of No One Will See Me Cry, with query. Cristina Rivera Garza Papers, Benson Latin American Collection.
Language itself has become a central theme in Rivera Garza’s work. She experiments with form, voice, and narrative structure, often incorporating archival fragments, poetic interludes, and hybrid genres. In works like Dolerse: Textos desde un país herido, La muerte me da, and El invencible verano de Liliana, the author uses language not only as a medium of expression, but as a tool of resistance. She gives voice to the grief and trauma of gender-based violence, while simultaneously interrogating the silences imposed by official histories and institutionalized narratives.
Cristina Rivera Garza, right, with her sister Liliana Rivera Garza. Undated photo. Cristina Rivera Garza Papers, Benson Latin American Collection.
El invencible verano de Liliana (2021, published in English as Liliana’s Invincible Summer in 2023) is one of her most intimate and politically charged works. This book serves as a tribute to her younger sister, Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in the summer of 1990. Written decades later, the text functions both as an act of remembrance and a form of literary justice. Through its narrative, Rivera Garza reconstructs Liliana’s life and the circumstances surrounding her death by utilizing her sister’s personal writings, diary entries, letters, and official documents. In doing so, she transcends traditional literary classifications and crafts a work that challenges the conventions of genre. In prose that encapsulates the intimacy of sisterhood, she deploys precise language that condemns the systemic impunity and gender-based violence that persists in Mexico.
Cover, “El invencible verano de Liliana.”
Rivera Garza captures the essence of the women’s resistance movement against gender violence in a deeply personal yet politically charged reflection. When she writes, “These grassroots movements have attracted more and more women, younger women, women who grew up in a city, and a country, that harasses them every step of every day, never leaving them alone or offering respite. Women always about to die. Women dying and yet alive” (Liliana’s Invincible Summer, p. 9). The repetition of the word women underscores the collective suffering, while the paradox—“women dying and yet alive”—conveys the precarious existence of women living under constant threat, trapped in a liminal space between life and death.
Integrating her sister’s voice through preserved writings becomes Rivera Garza’s ultimate act of resistance—one that not only prevents the erasure of victims, but also critiques the sanitized language of legal and forensic reports, exposing the dehumanizing bureaucracy that often surrounds cases of femicide. By capturing the complexity of mourning and the struggle for justice, Rivera Garza denounces a broader social epidemic while issuing a powerful call to remember, fight, and resist.
Through her bold and experimental body of work, Cristina Rivera Garza has redefined the boundaries of Latin American literature. Her writing follows in the footsteps of a constellation of authors such as María Luisa Puga, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Alicia Gaspar de Alba, whose archives are also held at the Benson, offering readers a powerful lens through which to examine the intersections of personal and collective memory, violence, and resistance.
Student literary publication from UNAM. Cristina Rivera Garza Papers, Benson Latin American Collection.
Poem published during her time at UNAM. Cristina Rivera Garza Papers, Benson Latin American Collection.
The Cristina Rivera Garza Papers, now part of the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin, contains poetry, photographs, essays, correspondence, and manuscripts. Among the highlights of the collection are letters between the author and her sister, Liliana Rivera Garza. This rich archive offers scholars and students an unprecedented opportunity to engage with Rivera Garza’s creative process from conception to completion. Her literary contributions will undoubtedly continue to shape contemporary literature for generations to come.
Lauren Peña, PhD, is head of collection development at the Benson Latin American Collection.
Meryl Brodsky, Information & Communication Librarian and Juliana Kasper. Juliana Kasper received a Master’s in Information Studies from UT’s iSchool in 2024 where she conducted interdisciplinary research on Autonomous Vehicles using PIA requests. She now works in records and information management as a Records Analyst for the Texas state government.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) provides the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency. Federal agencies are required to disclose information requested under the FOIA unless it falls under one of nine exemptions which protect interests such as personal privacy, national security, and law enforcement.
The FOIA requires agencies to post some categories of information online, including frequently requested records. FOIA is part of informing the public about government activities. The first step you should take if you think there is agency information you need, is to see if it is already available online. It may be in a FOIA Library, or a FOIA Reading Room posted on an agency website. As an example, here’s a link to the Electronic Reading Room from the National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/foia/electronic-reading-room.
You will need to know which agency produces this information. Here is a list of federal agencies: https://foia.wiki/wiki/Agencies_Landing_Page. Each federal agency is a separate entity. There is no central office. For example, you must determine if you need information from the Department of Education or whether what you’re really looking for is local information about schools. You can request information from federal, state and local government agencies.
Once you’ve identified which agency has the information you are looking for, you must send them your FOIA request in the manner in which they specify. It could be a letter or an email or an online form. You need to make your request very specific. Structure your request so that whoever responds can easily find the information and get the information to you. In addition, you must specify the format in which you wish to receive your information. https://www.foia.gov/how-to.html
If you need to make multiple similar requests, it is valuable to build out a template to batch them. You can plug in words/terms based on the specific request. For example: “I am requesting [INSERT RECORD TYPE i.e: emails, meeting minutes] the [DEPARTMENT, AGENCY, OFFICE, ETC.] has collected on [INSERT SPECIFIC, SEARCHABLE TERM] related to [INSERT TOPIC OF INTEREST]. I aim to obtain records documenting [INSERT MORE CONTEXT/RELEVANT DETAILS ON THE SEARCHABLE TERM] related to [TOPIC] from [Month Date Year to Month Date Year].”
Agencies generally process requests in the order in which they are received. However, the information you seek may not be available immediately, depending on its complexity. Complex requests may be large or they may require searching for records from different locations or from different time periods. FOIA requests can take longer than a semester, so if you are interested in this information for a class project, you may need to start early, or use data that’s already available.
Sometimes there are fees for photocopying or other services. For example, the CIA has their fee schedule right on the FOIA page, though their information is generally free for academic pursuits.
You may even need to follow up to see where your request is in the process. Most of the agencies list people to call. Do not hesitate to get in touch with them. Getting access to public information is your right, even if you are not a citizen. However, it may take some effort. You might receive the response of “no responsive information” to a request. Sometimes the agency doesn’t keep the information you requested, especially if the information comes from a public/private partnership.
The Population Research Center on UT’s campus has restricted information on population health and well being, reproductive, maternal and infant health, family demography and human development and education, and institutions. This restricted information is generally private, but you may be able to access it for research purposes. If your research falls into this realm, you may apply to use their data, but you should first contact an Administrator to see if your proposal is feasible. Using this type of data requires a duty of care to protect study participants, even if the data is unrestricted public information. The data may be used if it is required for a research project, and the researcher keeps the data secure. https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/prc/
Texas Public Information Act (TPIA)
The Texas Public Information Act (TPIA) allows citizens to access government records held by public agencies. Information granted by TPIA is circulated but may not be readily available to the public.
While FOIA requests are open to the general public, TPIA requests are only available to citizens. TPIA can often release information faster, since the documentation has already circulated. Under the TPIA, governmental bodies are required to respond to PIA requests of all forms— you can even send them one written on a napkin and they have to respond to it.
Austin makes municipal information available. For example, you can request information on reported incidents involving driverless vehicles. Go here to learn more. The FAQ is also helpful.
The City of Austin also maintains an Open Data Portal. You can find out graduation rates of local schools here: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/city-of-austin-schools-with-data
