Acquisitions/Foreign Travel, Area Studies, Benson Latin American Collection, Global Studies, LLILAS Benson

“Visiting Days”: An Archive of Family Care at São Paulo’s Largest Women’s Prison

July 8, 2025 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

An archive acquired through the LLILAS Benson Archiving Black América–Black Diaspora Archive initiative documents scenes from prison visiting days

Brazil is among the top incarcerators of women worldwide, with Black women accounting for 65 percent of this population. The largest women’s prison in the country is the Penitenciaria Feminina Santana (Santana Women’s Penitentiary) in São Paulo. Every weekend, families of incarcerated women arrive to visit their loved ones on the inside. On Avenida Ataliba Leonel, the busy thoroughfare just outside the prison, two tents, or barracas, serve as informal storage sites where visitors pay to store their belongings prior to lining up to enter the prison. The tents also offer food for purchase.

A group of several dozen people cluster around the entrance gates of the large women's penitentiary in São Paulo, Brazil. One woman sits at the curb, a small child by her side. Many of the people have white plastic bags on the ground near them. The prison entrance is a pale yellow archway, trimmed in medium grayish blue, with a gate if the same blue, the name of the prison written above. In the foreground there is the surface of the street with many lines painted for crosswalks. — Facade of the largest women’s prison complex in Latin America, the Santana Women’s Penitentiary. Photo: Flávia Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

In the archive Dias de Visita/Visiting Days: Strategies for Connections, Affections and Black Encounters in Latin America’s Largest Women’s Penitentiary, LLILAS PhD student Ana Luiza Biazeto has assembled images and oral histories from her visits to the barracas, where she interviewed family members of incarcerated women, as well as some of the people who set up and run the tents. Biazeto became familiar with the prison and the visiting area during research for her master’s thesis, which was about Black incarcerated women in the prison.

A large blue tarp creates a tent with an open front. People can be seen standing or sitting under the tarp—one with an umbrella, one bent over holding a white plastic bag. Various bags and at least one suitcase are visible. On the rainy street in the foreground, a man rides by on a bicycle. — Loira’s tent welcomes visitors on a rainy day. Photo: Flávia Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

While many incarcerated women are completely separated from the lives of their families and loved ones during their imprisonment, others are visited by family on a regular basis. During her first year as a PhD student, in a 2022 seminar on urban Brazil, Professor Lorraine Leu asked Biazeto some pointed questions about the women she had interviewed in the prison: How were their children doing? Who were their families? Leu’s questions inspired Biazeto to think more deeply about the dias de visita and what she could learn in this setting. She applied for, and received, an Archiving Black América–Black Diaspora Archive (ABA–BDA) archival acquisition award, which afforded her an opportunity to better understand the dynamic of the families.

Two small boys, both with shorn heads, face away from the camera. They are standing on a paved median facing a two-lane road. In the background, pale yellow three-story building can be seen. The sky above it is gray. The boys stand with their shoulders touching. They wear flipflop sandals, matching voluminous sweatpants that are light blue with a wide navy blue band across the knee, and long-sleeved sweatshirts. — Brothers, taken by their grandmother, wait to visit their mother in the Santana Women’s Penitentiary. Photo: Ana Luiza Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

“I learned of things that I never would have imagined,” said Biazeto in an interview during spring 2025. “I was in connection with many mothers, many grandmothers, who visit women. There were many children, running around there on the avenue. And as I interviewed, I cried along with the women. The children came and showed me the drawings they were making, many the age of [my youngest child]. And just as my master’s thesis involved a painful process, it is also a painful thing to confront these realities.”

Barraca da Loira and Barraca da Adriana, named for the women who run them, are part of the informal economy and are protected by the Primeira Comanda da Capital, or PCC, an organized crime unit in São Paulo that is sometimes called upon by the state to act. Biazeto says the PCC might be on hand to make sure people line up in an orderly manner to visit the prison.

A group of white plastic bags sit on a dirty orange tarp. Each one is tied with a knot at the top. On some, a small yellow square of paper with a handwritten number is visible attached with a metallic hook. Some belongings, such as a dark plaid umbrella, can be seen peeking out of the bags. — Visitors’ items are put in plastic bags and locked with a password in Adriana’s tent. Photo: Flávia Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

During her fieldwork, Biazeto conducted interviews with Adriana, who runs one tent, and with Karina, the daughter of “a Loira” (“Blondie”), who runs the other. Additionally, Adriana and her son, Paulo, recommended visiting family members for Biazeto to interview.

“They knew the people, they heard their stories, they sold them coffee, they welcomed the people,” Biazeto said.

Closed containers of cake and several individually wrapped sandwiches made with white bread sit on a wooden table. Two cake containers are stacked one atop the other, while a knife sits atop a single container. — The cake and snacks sold at Barraca da Loira. Photo: Flávia Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

In the excerpt below, Biazeto discussed her fieldwork in more depth. The following conversation is translated from the Portuguese and condensed.

Q: What were some of the things that surprised you?

Biazeto: I saw a mother putting on makeup to show her daughter that she was ok. Because she said that her role was to maintain her daughter’s well-being inside the prison. She said, “I cry here with you, but I go in there with a smile for her to have hope, that I’m waiting for her out here, and that everything is all right.” So she puts on makeup, she applies eye shadow, puts on lipstick, fixes her hair.

In a grainy photo, a woman applies red lipstick to her mouth. She holds a mirror and the silver top of the lipstick tube in one hand, while applying the color to her open mouth in the other. She is wearing a leopard-print jacket. — A mother applies lipstick before visiting her daughter in the women’s penitentiary. Photo: Flávia Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

I also saw—although the statistics say the opposite—I saw many men going to visit their women. Taking their kids. So this happens in a way that research doesn’t show. These men are also invisibilized. Principally Black men, because when we talk about the Brazilian prison system, we’re principally talking about race. I saw a grandfather bringing a grandson to see his daughter. I saw a father bringing a little girl in a stroller, giving her a bottle. Cooking for the women. Breaking those gender barriers somewhat.

Professor Christen Smith commented [on my research], “You are bringing in new viewpoints [novos olhares].” Because it’s the man who works the dawn hours as garbage collector, street sweeper; comes back home, cooks, takes his daughter, and goes to the gate of the penitentiary. So those were the things that surprised me.

A slender man in loose gray sweatshirt and sweatpants stands with his back to the camera. He is facing a crowded line across the street from the entrance gate to the women's prison. He holds a small child against the left side of his chest. The child is wearing gray sweats, a blue-and-white hat with ear covers and a pompom on top, and bright red sneakers. The man has short black hair and a cigarette tucked behind his right ear. — Father takes his child to see mother, sentenced and imprisoned in PFS. Photo: Flávia Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

Also, mothers who brought food not just for their own daughters, but for the cellmates, and the block-mates, because they didn’t have visitors. A mother said, “My daughter shares the food I bring, even if it’s a spoonful for each person.”

Q: What are these women serving time for?

Biazeto: In general, it is drug trafficking. Sometimes it’s a family business; sometimes inherited from the mother, or along with a male partner. Generally it is the user who is criminalized, not the dealer.

Q: What more would you like to share about your work?

Biazeto: [I’ve been encouraged by Lorraine Leu to think about the (im)possibilities of Black futures in the context of the prison.] To see the children running around there, in the middle of a busy avenue, is to think about Black resistance. Right there, you witness the formation of a community that supports and sustains its members somehow, whether it’s sharing information on legal issues, or the workings of the prison system. Many times, this information comes from outside, from family members exchanging information between themselves. I could see a solidarity among those family members. I think that this archive keeps alive the memory of people who are resisting the Brazilian police state. It is a new way of resisting.

A small dark blue tent, open on two sides and held up by metal poles, reads "Barraca da Loira" in bright yellow letters (Loira's Tent). Inside the tent, there is a small metal table with a few full plastic bags, one or two large Thermos bottles, and two round plastic containers containing cake. Suspended from a makeshift clothing line outside strung from a larger pole is a rope with a few articles of clothing hung from it, among them a hot-pint long-sleeved sweatshirt. Several people stand facing the tent with their backs to the camera. In the foreground, a small amount of the street is visible, including an orange traffic cone. — Barraca da Loira sells flip-flops, soft drinks, coffee, cake, and underwear. They also rent out clothes and serve as a locker. Photo: Flávia Biazeto. Black Diaspora Archive.

Ana Luiza Biazeto will spend the 2025–2026 academic year in Brazil to continue her dissertation research on resistance and resilience among Black women and their families in the Brazilian carceral system.

The contents of the Visiting Days archive can be reviewed via Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO). The Black Diaspora Archive is an initiative of Black Studies, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, and the Office of the President. The archive is housed at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection.

Digital Humanities, Digital Scholarship, Global Studies, Read Hot and Digitized

Read, Hot and Digitized: Country of Words | بلد من كلام

July 3, 2025 DJCorrea Leave a comment

One of the more complex questions we encounter in area studies is how we define a nation. Is it lines on a political map? A shared territory? For Palestinians, traditional maps can often feel inadequate, showing borders and divisions but failing to capture the full, lived reality of a people. The remarkable digital-born project, Country of Words | بلد من كلام : A Transnational Atlas for Palestinian Literature, by Refqa Abu-Remaileh (Freie Universität Berlin) rethinks the very idea of a map. Instead of depicting political boundaries, it offers a form of literary cartography.

Screenshot of literature under British occupation essay title — Screenshot

Screenshot of Literary Diasporas essay title — Screenshot

At its heart, Country of Words is an interactive, web-based atlas that visualizes the vast geography of Palestinian literature. When you visit the site, you are met with a world map dotted with points and featuring an accompanying timeline. Each dot represents a location—Gaza, Jerusalem, Beirut, but also Paris, Santiago, and Iowa City—that appears in a work of Palestinian fiction or poetry. Clicking on a dot reveals an excerpt from the literary work set in that place, presented in both its original Arabic and in English translation.

The accompanying timeline summarizes essential events in Palestinian history and allows you to read essays on how these historical moments influenced and were shaped by key works of Palestinian literature. Additionally, you can look at an overall network visualization; a variety of visualizations of biographies, historical events, publishing histories, and publishing networks; and audio interviews with key current and recent Palestinian literary figures.

Screenshot of literary relationships visualization — Screenshot

Screenshot of map and timeline of Palestinian literary figures — Screenshot

The project is the work of Prof. Dr. Refqa Abu-Remaileh and her team at Freie Universität Berlin. It grew not from a desire to create a simple database, but rather from a potent intellectual argument. The project contends that for a people so often defined by exile and displacement, literature itself has created a “country”—a homeland of memory, imagination, and shared experience that transcends physical borders. This atlas makes that homeland visible.

As a librarian, I see this as a powerful tool for teaching and research. It allows students to literally see the global reach of the Palestinian experience. For scholars, it is a dynamic data visualization that can spark new questions about place, identity, and literary networks. It is a beautiful, poignant, and profoundly human entry point into a rich literary tradition. It invites you to wander through this country of words and discover the stories that connect a people, wherever they may be.

To dive deeper into the literary world mapped by the project, here are a few key works from the UT Libraries’ collections that speak to the themes of place, exile, and memory:

غسان الكنفاني ، الأثار الكاملة. The complete collection of a foundational writer of modern Palestinian literature, Ghassan Kanafani. Included is his novella, Men in the Sun, about Palestinian men seeking to cross a border in a water tanker. It is a searing allegory of the search for life and dignity in the face of statelessness.
After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives by Edward Said. A landmark book of essays and reflections paired with photographs by Jean Mohr. Said, a major figure in postcolonial studies, meditates on the nature of Palestinian identity in exile.
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad. Isabella Hammad’s second novel centers on Sonia, an actress who journeys back to Palestine and joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Enter Ghost offers a vivid portrait of contemporary Palestine and explores themes of exile, belonging, and the deep bonds formed through family and collective struggle.

Acquisitions/Foreign Travel, Distinctive Collections, Global Studies, Illuminating Explorations, South Asia Collection

CONTINUED DIVES INTO PULP FICTION

June 27, 2025 mrader Leave a comment

“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.

As a part of my Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, I was back in Delhi in early 2025, continuing research on “hidden archives,” namely the unpublished materials found in institutional settings (places like the Prime Minister’s Museum and Archive at Teen Murti or the National Archives of India) as well as private papers still kept in family homes. My fellowship allowed me to expand and nuance the work I regularly support here at UT such as the digital archiving projects related to 20^th century politico-literary figures but also to delve a little deeper into UT Libraries’ growing distinctive collection related to South Asian popular and pulp fiction.

In research, like in crime thrillers, you never know where seemingly random clues might lead.

Early into my stay in Delhi, a colleague from the Fulbright office called me up to invite me to join him in attending a literary “salon” where I could meet some new people. The event was to welcome a visiting Greek poet, translator, and editor wherein she would read and discuss her poetry at the home of a prominent Indian literary editor. Poetry? Editors? “Salon”? I was in.

In addition to the lovely verse and food which both flowed freely throughout the evening, I was delighted to make multiple new acquaintances at the gathering. As we went around the room introducing ourselves—one person an activist, one a publisher, another a poet, and so on–one person identified himself as a translator at which point his jovial colleague interrupted him to reveal that he was also an author of pulp fiction. As I’ve been building UT’s pulp fiction collection for over 10 years now, my ears perked up and I set my sites on meeting this translator/author as soon as the group dispersed for more casual one-on-one conversation.

The author was lovely and humble about his own work and kindly asked me about which authors were included in UT’s pulp fiction collection. I started listing off the names—Ibne Safi, Ved Prakash Kamboj, Om Prakash Sarma, Anil Mohan—but when I got to Surender Mohan Pathak he casually asked, “oh, SMP? You want to meet him? My partner has helped edit and publish his work.” I tried not to reveal my excitement. Surender Mohan Pathak, with over 300 published novels to his credit, is one of the biggest, if not actually the biggest, authors of Hindi pulp crime thrillers. Yes! Yes, yes! I would in fact like to meet him.

With arrangements made through the generosity of new colleagues, a couple of weeks, multiple WhatsApp chats, and SMS texts later, I was greeted at the elevator gates to his Noida apartment by none other than Surender Mohan Pathak himself.

Over the course of the next hour or two, as I sat starstruck and in rapt attention in SMP’s home office, surrounded by a lifetime of memorabilia and shelves and shelves of his publications. SMP graciously answered all my questions, generously telling me about his pathway to becoming a writer, the challenges he has faced in getting published, and his expectations about his legacy. The highlights from this chance meeting, “Surender Mohan Pathak in His Own Words” are now available in the UT Libraries Digital Exhibits. It was nothing short of an honor to have been able to meet such a legend and I remain tremendously grateful to the kindhearted help of my new network of fellow fans.

Fans and rasikars of pulp fiction don’t just reside in India, however. A new faculty member to UT recently shared his admiration for the genre and our collection thusly,

[The collections] allowed me to reconnect with my own culture, which I could not even do in India. Given that English was the primary medium of instruction in the schools I attended, I ended up reading Rushdie before Premchand… [in the South Asia collections such as and including UT’s]… some of my most memorable moments have involved getting lost among the library stacks, and then suddenly stumbling upon a rare classic in [non-English Indian languages]… My intellectual life is much richer than it would have been otherwise. As I often mention to my friends, it is a different experience because “a different part of my brain lights up”, when I’m reading a [vernacular] novel, despite the fact that English was the first language that I learnt to read.

I invite everyone to explore the South Asia Popular and Pulp Fiction Collection, in a language of your choosing—Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Telugu, English–and consider what these mysteries, romances, and thrillers can teach us about research as well as about ourselves.

Benson Latin American Collection, Exhibits, Global Studies, Uncategorized

An Adventure in El Paso, Texas

June 24, 2025 ana rico Leave a comment

One of my favorite parts of being a librarian is the opportunity to participate in community engagement projects. So when the opportunity to work with Albert A. Palacios on a traveling exhibit as one of my rotations, I immediately said yes. The exhibit was a collaboration with the University of Texas at El Paso’s C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department, which was especially exciting as a UTEP alumnus. This is part of a long standing partnership made possible by a U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center grant. Our exhibit brought together holdings from the Benson Latin American Collection, the C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections, and the Municipal Archive of Saltillo in a joint physical and digital exhibit about the Mexican Revolution.

Intertwined Destinies: El Paso and Northern Mexico exhibit at UTEP.

Albert and I traveled to El Paso in May 2025 to finally see the fruits of our labor. When we got to the library’s third floor, Claudia Rivers (Director of the C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections) was hard at work putting the finishing touches on her exhibit. The U.S.-Mexico border played a big role in the Mexican Revolution, which means that UTEP has a lot of special objects in their archives. One of these objects is a commemorative cigar from when Porfirio Díaz and William Howard Taft met at the border in 1909. It was an incredible experience to see these first hand, and to have people from the community view these as well.

The next day was dedicated to digital scholarship workshops to local scholars. We had participants from all over the El Paso-Juárez region, and an archivist even drove three hours from Alpine to attend! Elisabet Takehana, Director of UTEP’s Center of the Digital Humanities, taught stylometry using the stylo package in R. Sergio Morales, LLILAS Benson Digital Scholarship Graduate Research Assistant and Latin American Studies Master’s student, taught ArcGIS’s Online and StoryMap tools for presenting spatial research using the official photographs from Mexico’s 1910 independence centennial celebration. And finally, I taught how to use Voyant Tools and UDPipe for text analysis using telegrams between Francisco Villa and Lázaro de la Garza. By the end of the day, participants had gotten hands-on experience with all of these different digital humanities tools and processes.

Sergio Morales teaching ArcGIS Online and StoryMaps tools.

After the workshops, we headed upstairs to the third floor once again for the exhibit opening. The exhibit curated by Claudia Rivers was incredible – showcasing a silk print of Porfirio Díaz, a camera from the early 1900s, and portraits of Francisco I. Madero and his wife which were taken by an El Paso photographer. Though our exhibit didn’t get there on time for the opening (Albert and I learned how to roll with the punches) we were able to direct people to the digital version of the exhibit. All in all, it was a day full of learning and celebration, as well as making connections to scholars in the area.

People viewing exhibits during the opening reception.

Finally, on the third day, our exhibit arrived and we put it up for students, faculty, and the public to enjoy! It was a joy to share the Benson Latin American Collection with a wider audience. The exhibit, A Fight for Democracy: The First Years of the Mexican Revolution, will be displayed at UTEP for the summer and then travel to the El Paso Border Heritage Center in the fall. A second copy will circulate through the Austin Public Library later this year.

Albert A. Palacios and Ana A. Rico in front of their exhibit.

Acknowledgements
This initiative would not have been possible without the support of the following individuals and sponsorships:

C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department, The University of Texas at El Paso
● Claudia Rivers, Head
● Susannah Holliday, Assistant Head
● Gina Stevenson, Photo and Processing Archivist

Center of the Digital Humanities, The University of Texas at El Paso
● Elisabet Takehana, Director

Municipal Archive of Saltillo
● Olivia Strozzi, Director
● Iván Vartan Muñoz Cotera, Head of Outreach

LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections
● Melissa Guy, Director, Benson Latin American Collection
● Ryan Lynch, Head of Special Collections
● Jennifer Mailloux, Graphic Designer (special thanks)
● Adela Pineda Franco, LLILAS Director & Lozano Long Endowed Professor
● Theresa Polk, Head of Digital Initiatives
● Ramya Iyer, Grants and Contracts Specialist
● Susanna Sharpe, Communications Coordinator (special thanks)
● Cindy Garza, Accountant
● Leah Long, Administrative Manager

Sponsors
● U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center Title VI Grant
● LLILAS Benson Collaborative Funds

Global Studies, Read Hot and Digitized

Read, Hot and Digitized: Digital Benin

May 30, 2025 adrianacasarez Leave a comment

Launched in November 2022, Digital Benin isn’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.

See more resources in our library catalog:

Abungu, George Okello, and Webber Ndoro. Cultural Heritage Management in Africa: The Heritage of the Colonized. London: Routledge, 2022.

Coombes, Annie E. Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture, and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. Yale University Press, 1994.

Falola, Toyin. Britain and Nigeria: Exploitation or Development? London ; Zed, 1987.

Hicks, Dan. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. London: Pluto Press, 2020.

Ogbechie, Sylvester Okwunodu. Making History: African Collectors and the Canon of African Art : The Femi Akinsanya African Art Collection. Milan, Italy: 5 Continents Editions, 2011.

Phillipe, Nora. Restitution?: Africa’s Fight for its Art. Paris: Cinétévé, 2021.

Phillips, Barnaby. Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes. London: Oneworld, 2021.

Troelenberg, Eva-Maria, Damiana Oțoiu, and Felicity Bodenstein. Contested Holdings: Museum Collections in Political, Epistemic and Artistic Processes of Return. New York: Berghahn Books, 2022.

Assessment, Libraries, Strategy

Campus Perspectives: Key Takeaways from the UT Libraries 2024 Survey

May 21, 2025 roohiashahzad Leave a comment

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.

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.

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.

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.

Global Studies, Humanities & Liberal Arts, Illuminating Explorations

Highlights from the William R. Braisted Collection

May 16, 2025 ShanYi Leave a comment

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-20^th-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.

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.

Dr. David Montejano: Supporting Future Academics through the Benson

May 14, 2025 claireburrows Leave a comment

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.

Acquisitions/Foreign Travel, Benson Latin American Collection, Events, Uncategorized

Memory, Archives, and the Power of Storytelling with Cristina Rivera Garza

April 22, 2025 tex libris Leave a comment

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.

Watch video from the event.

Collections, Global Studies, Zines

Libraries Celebrate Comics at BIPOC PoP

April 16, 2025 tex libris Leave a comment

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.

TexLibris