Benson Latin American Collection, Collections Highlight, Diversity, Events, Exhibits, Humanities & Liberal Arts

Annual ¡A Viva Voz! Event to Feature Chicana / Tejana Artist Santa Barraza, Exhibition Opening

March 21, 2023 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is proud to host the 21st Annual ¡A Viva Voz! Celebration of U.S. Latino/a/x Culture, featuring a conversation with Chicana/Tejana artist Santa Barraza.

Santa Barraza, courtesy Juan Johnson Lopez

If You Go — ¡A Viva Voz! takes place in the Benson Latin American Collection (SRH 1) on Thursday, April 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. Light refreshments provided by The Local Explorer Mezcal and La Cocina de Consuelo; vinyl sounds by Chulita Vinyl Club. Paid parking available in Manor Garage.

A native of Kingsville, Texas, Santa Barraza is a contemporary artist and founder of Barraza Fine Art, LLC, a gallery and studio committed to furthering the appreciation of the visual arts in the borderlands and among isolated, rural populations.

Barraza’s artwork is in the permanent collections of museums in Texas, California, and Maine; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; France; Germany; and Spain. Most recently, her work is on view in the art museums of Denver, Albuquerque, and San Antonio as part of Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche; the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin for Chicano/a Art, Movimiento y Más en Austen, Tejas, 1960s–1980s; and for the Art in Embassies exhibition organized in Mexico City by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar.

The ¡A Viva Voz! event also marks the opening of the exhibition Legacies of Nepantla: Artists Affirming Identity and Existence, curated by Maribel Falcón, the Benson’s U.S. Latina/o/x Studies Librarian. The exhibition showcases work that is part of the Benson’s archival holdings. It will be on view in the Benson’s Ann Hartness Reading Room through mid-August 2023.

“The exhibition showcases work from women whose myriad identities include Chicana, Native American, Tejana, and Latina, in addition to mothers, sisters, organizers, artists, activists, teachers, and students,” said Falcón. “Many of the featured artists are established as leaders in their communities and recognized as pillars of the Chicano/a art world, such as Santa Barraza, Carmen Lomas Garza, Patssi Valdez, Yreina D. Cervántez, Ester Hernandez, Irene Pérez, and Alma López.”

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Susanna Sharpe.

Image: Cihuateteo con Coyolxauhqui y La Guadalupana, Santa Barraza, 1996

Awards, Open Educational Resources

Affordable Education Champion: Erin Reilly

March 10, 2023 tex libris Leave a comment

In celebration of Open Education Week 2023, the Senate of College Councils, the Natural Sciences Council, and UT Libraries partnered to solicit nominations from students across campus to recognize instructors who increased access and equity by selecting free or low cost course materials for their classes. We’ll be recognizing a few of those nominees this week as Affordable Education Champions!

Affordable Education Champions are instructors who assign free or low cost resources — like textbooks, websites, films, and more — for their courses. Sometimes they author their own materials, and sometimes they’re able to reuse free or low cost work created by others. We celebrate their commitment to fostering access to high quality education at the lowest possible cost barrier for their students.

Today, we recognize and thank Prof. Erin Reilly, who was nominated as an Affordable Education Champion for ADV 365, Audience Development and Engagement.

“Erin Reilly is a creator, educator, and strategist with 20 years of experience inventing new approaches, products, services, and experiences about storytelling, engagement, and learning through immersive technology. As an educator, Erin currently is Professor of Practice in the Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations, as well as founding Director of Texas Immersive Institute, the interactive and immersive media hub at the University of Texas at Austin focused on research, projects, and learning the future of media. Erin has been a guest lecturer worldwide at universities and industry conferences. She is an Executive Committee Board Member of the Infinity Festival, member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Interactive Media Peer Group, Past Board President of NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Education) and serves on advisory boards, such as SXSW Pitch and PBS children’s programming, Hero Elementary and Emmy-award winning Sci Girls.”

As the first course in the Texas Immersive sequence, Prof. Reilly’s class is designed around experiences, and especially around using technology like virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI). “These tools are often too expensive for a student to have on their own, so as a professor — I should ensure they are available for them to use and experiment with…” The student who nominated Prof. Reilly as an Affordable Education Champion appreciated this commitment to putting technology like VR within reach of the students in the class. After reorganizing her class to a flipped model that allowed students time to use these tools, Prof. Reilly noticed that her students understood better what virtual worlds were like and what they could do with them. She wrote “Through weekly sandbox demos, students gain better cognitive abilities of spatial literacy and learn to identify the possible interactions that can happen within a 3D environment whether it is a physical, digital or combination of both.” Because of this focus on using technology collaboratively, the class was also able to come together into a stronger learning community.

Providing free access to these tools was the right thing for her students’ learning in this class, but Prof. Reilly also believes in leveling the educational playing field in general. She wrote of her decision to lower the cost barrier for her students “There are too many things in this world that divide us but as instructors, we can combat this.” In her view “Making education affordable to everyone advances our society…. Making our materials affordable and accessible helps to address the unequal access to opportunities, experiences, skills and knowledge that will prepare our students for full participation in the world of today and tomorrow.”

If you are a faculty member who would like to discuss finding and using OER and other free or low cost course materials in your class(es), please contact Heather Walter, Tocker Open Education Librarian (heather.walter@austin.utexas.edu).

Awards, Open Educational Resources

Affordable Education Champion: Thomas Jesús Garza

March 9, 2023 tex libris Leave a comment

Today, we recognize and thank Thomas Jesús Garza, who was nominated as an Affordable Education Champion for E 316N, World Literature.

“Thomas Jesús Garza is University Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies and Founding Director of the Texas Language Center. He teaches Russian language and literature, language pedagogy, and contemporary Russian culture. He has been traveling to and researching in Russia since 1979 and has lived in Moscow for over six years. A native Texan, Dr. Garza received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1987. During his more than 30 years at the University, he has received numerous prizes for undergraduate and graduate teaching, including the Texas Excellence Award, the President’s Associates Award, the Harry Ransom Award, was inducted into the University Academy of Distinguished Teachers in 2003, selected for a Regents Outstanding Teaching Award in 2009, and chosen a “Texas Top Ten” instructor by the Texas Exes in 2018. He recently completed a book manuscript on filmic portraits of machismo in contemporary Russian and Mexican cultures and is currently working on a new project on Russian actor and bard, Vladimir Vysotsky in the Americas in the 1970s.”

“No student should ever have to make the choice between buying course books or eating lunch.”

Like many of the other Affordable Education Champions, Dr. Garza recognizes the role accessibility to textbooks plays in promoting equity among the student body. He writes, “The issues of equity and access to a quality higher education are extremely important to me. As [a first generation college student] myself, I understand how challenging undertaking college courses can be, especially when that difficulty is compounded by the excessive cost of books and course materials.” When students don’t have to worry about how they will manage to pay for expensive textbooks, they can focus more fully on the class content. The student nominator for Dr. Garza mentioned that they used the money they saved by not having to purchase textbooks for this particular class to pay for needed medication. This exemplifies the difficult financial decisions some UT students have to make. As Dr. Garza says, “No student should ever have to make the choice between buying course books or eating lunch.”

Furthermore, the student nominator appreciated that the format chosen by Dr. Garza (PDFs uploaded to the class Canvas page) allowed them to go back later to read or reread texts when they had more time to fully appreciate their nuances. They wrote that they planned to return to the texts in the future because of the quality of the discussions held in class and that “[it] made me feel cared for because he understands that we already spend so much money on courses and their materials and that there are ways of accessing wonderful literature without putting any burden on the students. Since a lot of them were in pdf form, I still have the ability to go back and read the ones I loved or save them for when I have time.” Using free materials in courses is a way of approaching teaching in a holistic manner. Students are balancing many responsibilities. Giving them flexibility for how they access texts allows them to engage with the material in the way that works best for them.

Dr. Garza’s class addresses trauma and healing, and the diversity of the readings reflects the many different ways to approach this complex topic. Nevertheless, he was “pleasantly surprised” to discover that many of the texts he wanted to use were already available in digital formats that he could link to in Canvas.

Awards, Open Educational Resources

Affordable Education Champion: Deborah Jacobvitz

March 8, 2023 tex libris Leave a comment

Today, we recognize and thank Deborah Jacobvitz, who was nominated as an Affordable Education Champion for HDF 342, Development of Psychopathology from Infancy through Adolescence.

Deborah Jacobvitz is the Phyllis L. Richards Endowed Professor in Child Development, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. “[She] specializes in the field of parenting and social and emotional development in children. Her research focuses on the links between family relationships, emotions, health, and development, with a particular focus on the transmission of caregiving across generations, attachment security across the life course and the effects of marital conflict on children’s well being. Her studies address how early caregiving experiences shape how we remember, organize and perceive information and the relationships we form with others. In her work, Dr. Jacobvitz is interested in developing interventions to help families and children in need of support. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, St. David’s Foundation, the Hudson Foundation, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Egg Nutrition Center and the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.”*

There is a direct link between Dr. Jacobvitz’s emphasis on free and low-cost materials and her genuine care for those whom she teaches. In their nomination, a student quoted from the course syllabus, “My top priority in this course is YOU and YOUR learning experience” and went on to say that Dr. Jacobvitz was “one of the most caring and selfless professors I’ve met during my time at UT.” Furthermore, they said that since they didn’t worry as much about buying expensive materials for the course, they experienced less stress and were able to focus more fully on the class itself. In other words, having low-cost materials as an option led to the student feeling more engaged in the content and more connected to their professor.

When asked about what led her to choose affordable materials for her course, Dr. Jacobvitz wrote, “I noticed there were students in my class that skipped buying textbooks even though it would hurt their grade because they could not afford them. . . .These students asked if they could purchase older used editions which had out-of-date material.” After she adopted the new approach, she noticed an increase in students being prepared for class, participating in discussions, and performing better on class assignments.

While she acknowledges that finding and providing free and low cost materials may take a little more time than requiring a traditional (often expensive) textbook, Jacobvitz feels that it was worth it. She also suggests that faculty who teach similar courses at different universities work together to suggest readings and other resources in the public domain. This has the advantage of bringing together an academic community that goes beyond the bounds of UT. Besides the clear benefit to the student experience, Dr. Jacobvitz pointed out that providing these types of materials aligned with her belief in equal access, as students were not prohibited from accessing up to date materials by a lack of funding.

If you are a faculty member who also believes in open access and would like more information about finding OER and other free or low cost course materials, we encourage you to contact Heather Walter, Tocker Open Education Librarian (heather.walter@austin.utexas.edu).

Awards, Open Educational Resources

AFFORDABLE EDUCATION CHAMPION: MJ Johns

March 7, 2023 tex libris Leave a comment

Today, we recognize and thank MJ Johns, who was nominated for their CS 303E class, Elements of Computers/Programming. “MJ Johns (they/them) received their M.E.T in entertainment technology with a concentration in game design from Carnegie Mellon University and their B.A. in computer science from The Ohio State University. MJ is a mobile app developer, game and experience designer, and founder/director of the indie game studio Astire Games.”

In an email, Prof. Johns shared the reasons they create affordable courses: “When I was in college I was working part time and paying my own way, and there were several occasions where I had to choose not to take a class I wanted because the materials required were too expensive. I don’t want any student to choose not to take my class because they can’t afford the materials or textbook.” They elaborated on their process for identifying and creating materials, writing, “I do a lot of research to find free resources for students, and I also create a lot of them myself (I always try to include a mixture of video and reading sources to improve accessibility).” This hard work was reflected in the student nomination, which was especially appreciative of the materials Prof. Johns created themself and of the breadth of materials they assigned.

If you’re looking to make a course more affordable, Prof. Johns has some advice. They recommend to “look for partnership opportunities around campus where such resources and materials could be offered to students for free – the campus libraries and labs have been very supportive and helpful whenever I have tried to make this work.” With partners like the libraries and other campus units, faculty can find access to book chapters, scholarly articles, and even software and hardware needed for the course – all for free for the student. “As for textbooks, my advice is to find out if there are websites or articles that offer similar concepts without the price barrier.” Prof Johns concluded by reiterating their commitment to creating affordable courses, stating, “It takes a bit of extra effort to make sure there are options for students, but in my mind it is well worth the extra time because there will be students who couldn’t take your class otherwise!”

Need help finding OER and other free or low cost course materials? Contact Heather Walter, Tocker Open Education Librarian (heather.walter@austin.utexas.edu).

Global Studies, Read Hot and Digitized

Read, Hot and Digitized: Nuṣūṣ — A Corpus of Neglected Texts

March 7, 2023 DJCorrea Leave a comment

Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from the UT Libraries Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship. Our hope is that these monthly reviews will inspire critical reflection of, and future creative contributions to, the growing fields of digital scholarship.

While digital, machine-readable texts in Arabic are growing in their availability, certain genres of writing and scholarship in Arabic have become more readily accessible than others. Among those more obscure disciplines are Sufism, theology (Muslim and Christian), and philosophy. These tend to be theoretically complex, and even dogmatically challenging, disciplines that are not as well represented in North American Islamic Studies programs as literature or Qur’anic studies. The Nuṣūṣ corpus––a project led by Antonio Musto––seeks to fill in some of the desiderata by putting more texts from these essential disciplines up on the Internet for researchers to use.

A project that began with an almost exclusive focus on Sufism, Nuṣūṣ has expanded to include works from a variety of complex disciplines of Arabic-language scholarship produced by Muslims and Christians. The corpus currently contains 61 machine-readable texts, with plans to add more and to make the text files available for download. Differing from other, larger corpora of Islamicate [1] disciplines, Nuṣūṣ provides the bibliographic information for the modern editions from which these digitized texts are derived. This is not only a responsible move, but a useful one for researchers: modern editions of historic texts can differ greatly; comparing modern editors’ approaches to the text and their choices that affect meaning and understanding is therefore rich area of exploration in Arabic-language digital humanities. It is hoped that––as possible––Nuṣūṣ will start to add multiple editions of historic texts in order to facilitate this comparative work.

Image of a table of Arabic-language works held in the Nusus corpus. — *Nusus’s “Browse Corpus” page.*

Nuṣūṣ’s aspirations lie in providing researchers with an adequate corpus from which to do computational text analysis. To that end, the team has created several different ways for researchers to access and engage with the texts. The “Browse Corpus” feature gives researchers an accurate sense of which specific items are included. If one is looking for a particular author or text, this would be the list to consult. This is also where crucial metadata (information about the item) is located, such as the origin of the digital images (Nuṣūṣ’s own OCR process or the OpenITI project repository), the internal corpus text ID, the date of the historic text’s alleged composition, the discipline, the genre of writing, the title, and the author. Author names link to biographies from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and titles link to the WorldCat record for the modern edition used in the digitization of the text.

Image of a search for an exact term in the Nusus corpus. — *Performing a search for the exact term “عقل” in the Nuṣūṣ corpus.*

Furthermore, the Nuṣūṣ team has provided a cross-corpus search tool. Researchers can build a search using the provided fields and Boolean operators (AND, OR), and can specify whether they are searching for an exact term. It is also possible to confine the search to specific titles, authors, or genres. This arrangement encourages researchers to pursue projects that might compare across a scholar’s oeuvre, across a genre of writing (Muslim theology, philosophy, Sufism, or Christian theology), or across a single text. Researchers could use this tool to construct searches across known networks of scholars, as well. As the corpus expands, the ability to conduct searches and collect the resulting data will become increasingly effective and useful.

Readers interested in text and corpora analysis should consult the UT Libraries’ Digital Humanities Tools and Resources guide for more information on methods to apply to corpora like Nuṣūṣ. For recommendations of other corpora that might be useful for your research, consult the Data Set list on the Text Analysis guide. Lastly, as the Nuṣūṣ corpus partners with and derives from the OpenITI repository, it is worth considering the OpenITI repository documentation at the KITAB project. Happy corpus hunting!

Dale J. Correa, PhD, MS/LIS is Middle Eastern Studies Librarian and History Coordinator for the UT Libraries.

[1] The term Islamicate was coined by Marshall G.S. Hodgson in volume 1 of his The Venture of Islam (p. 57).

Awards, Open Educational Resources

Affordable Education Champion: Dr. Kiril Avramov

March 6, 2023 tex libris Leave a comment

In celebration of Open Education Week 2023, the Senate of College Councils, the Natural Sciences Council, and the Libraries partnered to solicit nominations from students across campus to recognize instructors who increased access and equity by selecting free or low cost course materials for their classes. We’ll be recognizing a few of those nominees this week as Affordable Education Champions!

Today, we recognize and thank Dr. Kiril Avramov, who was nominated as an Affordable Education Champion 14 times by students in his EUS 348 class, Intelligence and Espionage in the Eastern Bloc (cross-listed as GOV 324E and REE 335).

“Kiril Avramov is currently an Assistant Professor at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and a non-resident Fellow to the Intelligence Studies Project (ISP) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Previously he was the Acting Vice-Rector for International Relations and Research at the New Bulgarian University (NBU) in Sofia, Bulgaria and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at NBU. He studied previously at Gustavus Adolphus College (USA/MN), the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), University of Sofia (Bulgaria), Central European University (Hungary), and NBU. He taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Sofia until 2005 and, from 2006-2010, was also the Director of the international consultancy and research institute ‘Political Capital’ in Bulgaria. In 2010, he was appointed as the Director for International Relations of Political Capital at the firm’s headquarters in Budapest. Dr. Avramov was a Fulbright Senior Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) at the University of Texas at Austin in 2015-2016. He earned a full scholarship for his PhD research at the University of Sofia and received an ‘Open Society Institute-Sofia’ scholarship for his year-long PhD specialization at the Central European University in Budapest.”*

Dr. Avramov, who shared his thoughts on this course with us via email, called EUS 348 “a course that is an actual labor of love that deals with meaningful and diverse topics that require a wide array of core theoretical and specific issue-focused texts, multiple audiovisual materials, and an AI discussion platform simultaneously to provide relevant context to a very diverse student body.” This variety of sources could become prohibitively expensive, so as one student noted in their nomination, “He [Dr. Avramov] retrieved a mass amount of readings for us, free of cost.” For Dr. Avramov, this strategy was intentional. “To keep the balance between narrowing the scope and the number of sources and keeping the price at a minimum, the natural choice was to seek, combine and incorporate free or affordable source materials.” Students recognized and appreciated this work, noting that the low cost of this course allowed them to buy other textbooks, to fund general living expenses, and, as one student wrote, “I could save money as I’m about to graduate and need to start having money to live on my own.” Students were required to buy one affordable program and found it an integral part of the course. According to one student nomination, “The one program we did have to buy has been very impactful in facilitating conversations with our classmates.”

The experience of teaching this intentionally affordable course has made Dr. Avramov a believer in creating courses this way where possible. He wrote, “Even though crafting a course syllabus based on free or accessible source materials could be taxing in terms of time and effort investment, the results from this investment are more than worth it. I firmly believe that easily accessible quality information does transform lives for the better!”

Need help finding OER and other free or low cost course materials? Contact Heather Walter, Tocker Open Education Librarian (heather.walter@austin.utexas.edu).

*Biography of Dr. Avramov from https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/slavic/faculty/kaa2656

Open Educational Resources

Happy Open Education Week!

March 2, 2023 tex libris Leave a comment

Join us in the global celebration of the open education movement for Open Education Week, March 6-10, 2023.

In recognition, the Libraries is hosting events to raise awareness of Open Educational Resources (OER) and introducing faculty who are using the technology for the benefit of their work and their students.

Events

OER Faculty Panel, March 7, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.: Join UT faculty members as they discuss the benefits, challenges, and rewards of incorporating OER into their teaching practices. This event is free and virtual. Register here.
OER Tabling Event, March 8, 11:00 a.m. – 1 p.m.: Stop by the PCL lobby to learn about OER initiatives happening at UT. Ask questions, complete our poll, or just come see what OER is all about.

But first, a primer…

What is open education? The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) defines it as “resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment.” Open education expands access to the resources of higher education (like open textbooks!) and enables the sort of collaboration that can engage students in new ways (like contributing to those open textbooks!).

It won’t shock you that cost remains a significant barrier to the pursuit of higher education. While the biggest costs, like tuition and housing, are generally beyond the reach of most instructors to impact, the cost of course materials is tangible and significant. At UT, students enrolled full-time in the fall and spring semesters can expect to spend $714 per year — and depending on their major, it could be much more.

Open educational resources, or OER, are learning objects, like textbooks, websites, images, videos, and more, that are generally free of cost AND free of the legal barriers that restrict instructors from customizing them for their students’ needs. Replacing expensive course materials with OER can save a student tens to hundreds of dollars per course.

Get more information on how high course materials costs impacts students, and contact Tocker Open Education Librarian Heather Walter if you’d like to know more or get help locating OER for your discipline.

Black Queer Studies, Collections, IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility)

Inaugural Black Queer Studies Award Winners

March 2, 2023 ginabastone Leave a comment

On Friday, February 12, the Libraries announced the inaugural winners of the Black Queer Studies Student Awards! A true labor of love several years in the making, the Monica K. Roberts Graduate and the Hogan/Schell Undergraduate Awards recognize honor, and celebrate excellence in student scholarship and creative endeavors in the field of Black Queer Studies. Winning submissions directly engage with the Libraries’ groundbreaking Black Queer Studies Collection.

Our first cohort of winners are Allen Poterie, a graduate student from the Performance as Public Practice program in the Theater and Dance Department, and Jeremiah Baldwin, an undergraduate senior majoring in Government, Rhetoric and Writing, and African and African Diaspora Studies (AADS).

Allen’s winning submission is entitled “And Don’t Let Go: Scenes of Holding as a Means of Emotional Exchange between Black Men.” Allen’s work is a scholarly literature review that contextualizes his creative work-in-progress – a television screenplay about the lives and relationships of Black Queer men. The selection committee was impressed with the quality of his literature review. Allen cited many books and films in the Libraries’ Black Queer Studies Collection, including literary work by Essex Hemphill, films directed by Marlon Riggs, and scholarship by E. Patrick Johnson.

Jeremiah’s submission is “Caught At An Intersection The Podcast,” which examines Black Queer experiences through interviews and discussions, using Kimberlé Crenshaw’s watershed theory of intersectionality as a framework. In one episode about James Baldwin, Jeremiah interviews author Alejandro Heredia. Alejandro’s book You’re the Only Friend I Need is part of the Black Queer Studies Collection.

Additionally, the selection committee was so impressed with two additional submissions that they awarded Honorable Mentions to Alexandria Cunningham, a graduate student in AADS, and Tolu Osunsade, a senior majoring in Public Health and AADS. Alexandria’s submission was a selection from her dissertation “The Black Freak Nasty Magic Project™ :: Choreographies of Play, Pleasure and Sexuality.” Tolu’s work was the research paper “The Harm in Reproductive Healthcare for Black Women and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals in The United States”.

These four students were recognized at the Awards Ceremony, held on Zoom on Friday, February 12. The ceremony included several guest speakers, including two of the collection’s co-founders. Matt Richardson shared the story of how he founded the Black Queer Studies Collection with librarians Kristen Hogan and Lindsey Schell, and he read from his recent novel Black Canvas: A Campus Haunting. Lindsey Schell and Xavier Livermon discussed their contributions to the BQSC, and Dee Dee Watters and Jo Hsu spoke about the life and legacy of Monica K. Roberts. Monica was known as the TransGriot, and she was a Houston-based transgender rights activist and blogger. The graduate award is named for her. Alexis Pauline Gumbs closed the ceremony with her presentation on “Archive as Oracle”, which included creative divination readings based on the poetry of Audre Lorde. The Black Queer Studies Collection includes Alexis’s books, such as Undrowned and M Archive: After the End of the World.

Many UT staff and faculty worked behind the scenes to make both the awards and the ceremony possible. Gina Bastone and Adriana Cásarez are the liaison librarians who curate and maintain the collection, and they partnered with professor Lyndon Gill from African and African Diaspora Studies to organize the awards and the event. The faculty selection committee included Hershini Young, Neville Hoad, and Nessette Falu.

The Libraries would like to thank our campus partners for sponsoring the awards ceremony and providing annual funding for the Black Queer Studies Collection. They include the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the LGBTQ Studies Program, and the English Department. The prize money is dispersed through the UT Libraries, and primarily draws from the Black Queer Studies Collection Endowment, originally funded through a crowd-sourced fundraising campaign in 2021. To give to the Black Queer Studies Collection Endowment fund, please contact the UT Libraries Development Office.

People, Staff Highlighter

Staff Highlighter: Alisha Quagliana

February 13, 2023 tex libris Leave a comment

Meet Discovery Services Librarian Alisha Quagliana, who operates behind the curtain to make sure users can get to stuff, wherever they are.

What’s your title, and what do you do for the Libraries?

Discovery Systems Librarian, I manage our discovery system (Primo) as well as other systems related things within Alma and dealing with electronic resource access and discovery. I also manage the ticket system for access issues.

What motivates you to wake up and go to work?

Coffee? Seriously, I like figuring things out so between resolving access related issues and figuring out ways to get our systems to work better for us I spend a lot of time on puzzles, which I love.

What are you most proud of in your job?

I’m really proud of the ticketing system and the various desks we have now. We were early in setting up a system like this, 2009, and now we’ve migrated it to JIRA so it’s a real ticketing system. It really helps me resolve issues and spot trends so much faster.

What has been your best experience at the Libraries?

I think our migration to Alma and Primo was a great working experience. I learned a lot about other areas of the library and got to work closely with folks I hadn’t before and we forged a great team.

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

Most people probably don’t know that I ride in a Mardi Gras krewe in New Orleans. It is a ton of fun!

Dogs or cats?

Both, but I only have a dog now.

Favorite book, movie or album?

I read so much I cannot possibly pick a favorite book. I’m actually listening to The Godfather right now, it’s been many years since I’ve read it, and the audio version is very compelling. I’m really enjoying it.

Cook at home, or go out for dinner? What and/or where?

Both. Spaghetti and meatballs is one of my go to dishes to make. And our go to restaurant is probably Odd Duck since we can walk to it.

What’s the future hold?

Immediate future for me is Mardi Gras! But long term I’m looking forward to getting some overdue clean-up projects completed and working on getting more of our cultural heritage materials into the discovery system.