Welcome Week at the Libraries

The Libraries received a new and returning fall class of Longhorns earlier this month with a series of events designed to connect patrons with resources, services and experts in fun and engaging ways.

Organized by the Arts, Humanities, & Global Studies Engagement Team, Welcome Week 2022 featured opportunities for students, faculty and staff to learn more about the UT Libraries’ map, international and zine collections in traditional and cutting edge spaces, all the while participating in activities that taught them about how resources can be used for scholarly and research endeavors.

Color + Geometry in Islamic Art, 9/1

Part math, part art: for centuries, artists in Muslim contexts have used geometry and mathematical principles to create stimulating patterns for architecture, textiles, manuscripts, ceramics, and paintings. Attendees at the Fine Arts Library’s Foundry makerspace had an opportunity to build a 3D geometric models, print Islamic tile-inspired window decals, and stamp beautiful designs inspired by Islamic art on fabric or paper. Throughout the event, visitors were rapt by the process of an Islamic sphere coming to life on a 3D printer, all while learning how to use the Foundry to create their own masterpieces.

Kolam Drawing on the Plaza, 9/2

Students from the Longhorn Malayalee Student Association and in the Department of Asian Studies’ Malayalam language courses showed up before sunrise at PCL to create colorfully complex chalk drawings on the plaza amid waves of onlookers making their way to the library at the throughout the day.

You Are Here: Shifting Perspectives, 9/6

The PCL Map Room hosted a gathering to introduce attendees to this incredible resource tucked away in the bottom floor of the Perry-Castañeda Library which houses the physical collection of more than 350,000 items representing all areas of the world. Most of the collection’s maps date from 1900 to the present, and are utilized by faculty, researchers and students from every corner of the Forty Acres.

Welcome to the Libraries…in Arabic, 9/7

The Libraries provided an informational session delivered in Arabic as an introduction to the services offered by the University of Texas Libraries. Visitors to the discipline-agnostic session were provided general information on how to use the Libraries and how to seek help for research and teaching.

Zine Party, 9/8

PCL denizens seemed happily distracted by a zine creation station set up in the lobby where students took a much-deserved break from academic work for some DIY creative therapy. Examples from the Libraries’ Zine Collections, featuring a number of works by BIPOC and LGBTQ creators, were presented for attendees to thumb through and gather ideas.

Alumna Virginia Miller: Fond Memories of UT Austin Prompt a Generous Bequest

Art historian Dr. Virginia E. Miller, a UT Austin alumna, has generously included support for LLILAS Benson in her estate. The bequest designates the creation of two program endowments: Virginia E. Miller Endowed Excellence Fund in Latin American Art Studies, to support the study of Latin American Art via LLILAS, and Virginia E. Miller Endowed Excellence Fund for the Benson Library, to support any function of the Benson Latin American Collection. 

Dr. Miller completed her master’s in Latin American Studies from LLILAS (at the time, ILAS) in 1973, and earned her doctorate in Art History, also from UT, in 1981. An art historian who specializes in ancient Maya art, she is Associate Professor Emerita of Pre-Columbian and Native American Art in the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Recently, Dr. Miller spoke to LLILAS Benson Communications Coordinator Susanna Sharpe, explaining how a young woman born in London, Ontario, Canada, made her way to Austin, Texas, to study Latin America. 

Photo courtesy Virginia Miller

“I was a French major [in college], but nobody was offering me a glamorous job in Paris when I graduated. But I got a chance to work for the YWCA in Mexico City, so I took it,” recalled Miller. “I had already spent a summer in South America by then.”  

Driven by her interest in learning more about Latin America, her fluency in Spanish, and her desire to study and live someplace warm, Miller applied to a handful of master’s programs in the U.S. She knew very little about the programs she applied to. “Remember, this is before the internet.” A Latin American history professor she knew told her to choose UT Austin if she got in, so she did, although she admits the decision was rather random. “I hadn’t looked at a map,” Miller laughed, “I didn’t know where Austin was; I just knew it was in Texas. I couldn’t understand anybody at all for the first few days!”  

It was during an art history seminar during her first semester that Miller began to develop an interest in the field that would become the focus of her career. Once she began the PhD program in art history, things gradually began to fall into place and her focus zeroed in on pre-Columbian and then specifically ancient Maya art.  

Miller remarked on witnessing her own students’ reactions to this material. “A lot of my students were just astonished to learn about [pre-Columbian art]. Even the art history majors. I got a lot of converts from modern and Renaissance art, especially at the master’s level. The best part of teaching was the students’ discovery of these cultures.” 

Although she spent most of her career teaching at UIC, Miller also taught at Oberlin College and Northwestern University. As a Fulbright scholar, she taught in both Guatemala and Mexico. She also took a brief break from teaching to join the Foreign Service, working in the consular office of the American embassy in Madrid.  

She is the author of The Frieze of the Palace of the Stuccoes, Acanceh, Yucatan, Mexico, and an edited volume titled The Role of Gender in Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture, as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles. A forthcoming article, “Heads, Skulls, and Sacred Scaffolds: New Studies on Ritual Body Processing and Display in Chichen Itza and Beyond” (Ancient Mesoamerica), is the product of a collaboration with physical anthropologist Vera Tiesler.  

Fond Memories of UT Austin 

Miller’s memories of UT and of Austin are joyful and positive, and it is clear that the Institute of Latin American Studies and the Benson Collection were a hub for much of her engagement here. 

“UT was really foundational to me—to my professional career, but also to me personally. I really enjoyed my time in Austin. It was wonderful having that fantastic library. There were so many events that had a Latin American focus. There were so many faculty, even in areas I didn’t do, like geography and history, that you had this wonderful climate.” 

Recalling the Benson, she said, “I loved the library. It had every publication. It was amazing. I mean, I would be researching pre-Columbian art in say, Bolivia, and I would find a journal that had two issues published in La Paz in the twenties [laughs] and it would be in the library! I was completely spoiled. Even Dumbarton Oaks in Washington does not match it. I was in the library a lot. Partly to work, partly to hang out with my friends, and partly because back then you browsed the stacks a lot. . . . I would browse the stacks endlessly to find interesting material on a wide range of subjects. It was the amplitude of the library and the accessibility of the material . . . it was just a very good atmosphere there.” 

The inevitable question arose: Did she cross paths with the revered (and sometimes feared) head librarian Nettie Lee Benson? “Oh yeah. She terrified me! [laughs] She was in charge! I also knew Laura Gutiérrez-Witt, and David Block was a close friend of mine in graduate school.” (The beloved Gutiérrez-Witt and the late Block are former head librarians at the Benson.) 

The Latin American Studies master’s degree offered Miller the freedom she needed to explore a wide and diverse field. “I was fascinated that when I arrived, I went to see my adviser because I didn’t know what to take, and he told me I could take anything,” she said. 

It is clear that Dr. Miller’s gift is her way of giving back to a place that helped shape her and enriched her life.  

“I had a lot of fun there. I know that’s not academic, but I really enjoyed my time. Austin is a wonderful memory to me.” 

Libraries Explorer Fellowship: Fast Fun Facts

Over the past five years, great strides have been made in enhancing access to the UT Libraries (UTL) maps and geospatial collections. The UT Libraries has for decades been committed to making copyright-free maps from its collections freely available online. This commitment has resulted in the scanning and sharing of tens of thousands of maps from the renowned Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (PCLMC), which have been made available for download online for over 25 years. The Libraries’ focus on sharing its geospatial data has also more recently led to the development of the Texas GeoData portal in 2019, which has been a game-changer for enhancing discovery and use of geospatial data and maps from the UT Libraries’ collections. This portal enables access to a wide variety of geospatial data types available for download, including georeferenced scanned maps from the PCLMC and geospatial datasets developed from collections in the Alexander Architectural Archives and the Benson Latin American Collection.

The Texas GeoData portal allows you to download georeferenced maps, like this Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Austin from 1889.

In 2021, the UT Libraries Map & Geospatial Collections Explorer Fellowship was created to incentivize engagement with the Libraries’ geospatial materials like those shared through the PCLMC site, the Texas GeoData portal, the UT Libraries Collections portal. This Fellowship has been designed to both support the work of UT researchers and scholars who utilize UTL map and geospatial assets in their projects and to encourage further enrichment and promotion of the UT Libraries’ map and geospatial collections. The Explorer Fellowship is now offered annually, with two separate award categories: one for UT students of all levels and the other for faculty and post-docs.

On August 22, UTL launched the call for proposals for the 2022 Fellowship awards. Proposals are due October 3, and the Faculty and Student award winners will be announced on GIS Day, November 16, 2022.

Here are some fast fun facts about the Explorer Fellowship to pique your interest:

  • Fellowship awards are $1500 each, with half distributed upon announcement of Fellowship recipients and half distributed after completion of Fellowship requirements.
  • Two Fellowships are offered annually, one for active UT students and one for UT faculty and postdocs in current paid appointments.
  • Fellowship recipients will have their work featured and preserved in one or more UTL repositories, such as Texas ScholarWorks and the Texas Data Repository.
  • Maps and geospatial assets that are improved or enhanced by Fellowship awardees will be shared with others through the Texas GeoData portal.
  • Fellows will have the opportunity to meet and consult with UTL map collections and GIS experts Katherine Strickland and Michael Shensky for project insights and tool guidance.
  • Researchers selected for Fellowship support will join the nascent ranks of previous recipients doing impressive work whose projects are described below.

2021 Student Fellowship:

Bailey Ohlson

Bailey is studying critical watersheds in Puerto Rico (PR) and their downstream fresh-water reservoirs in order to quantify sediment accumulation rates and identify environmental controls on erosion. She is using maps from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection to characterize past land use in PR and determine their influence on sediment accumulation. She plans on publishing a database of bathymetric data in the UTL repositories with pre-existing bathymetric data from government agencies as well as new data she will be collecting using a bathymetric hydro-drone.


headshot photo of Dr. Ginny Catania

2021 Faculty Fellowship:

Dr. Ginny Catania

The threat from sea-level rise to the Texas coast, which produces ~$400 billion in economic value, is increasingly visible with widespread impacts across human, built, and natural environments. This project plans to build a map of coastal change for the State of Texas to enable the detection of the regions of greatest change (hotspots). By studying hotspot locations in conjunction with environmental data, we can understand the processes responsible for change and how such regions might be impacted from future sea level rise. Map data will be superimposed with demographic data to determine the coastal populations most at risk from sea level and associated threats.


Curious to know more? Visit the UTL Map & Geospatial Collections Explorer Fellowship LibGuide.

Take a look at the Call for Proposals document for ideas about using geospatial collection items in research you’re planning. It’s possible your project could be elevated by these materials, and incorporating them would enable you to meet the Fellowship application requirements. Please also feel free to share this information about the Explorer Fellowship with any friends or colleagues that you think might be interested in this opportunity.

Latin American Digital Initiatives TEAM Visits Partners in Buenaventura, Colombia

[Español abajo]

Two members of the LLILAS Benson Digital Initiatives team recently visited Buenaventura, Colombia, to work with archivists and community leaders at Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN), a grassroots collective of organizations founded in 1993 that is working to transform the political, social, economic, and territorial reality of Colombia’s Black, Afro-descendant, Raizal, and Palenquera communities through the defense and revindication of their individual, collective, and ancestral rights.

View of Bahía de Buenaventura from hotel balcony in Buenaventura, Colombia. Photo: Karla Roig.

PCN participates as one of several sister archives with which LLILAS Benson has developed a partnership to support the digitization and description of archival materials. Funded by a succession of grants from the Mellon Foundation, this project emphasizes the post-custodial archiving model.* Digitized materials from PCN’s Colección Dinámicas Organizativas del Pueblo Negro en Colombia archive.

Alex Suarez, Digital Projects Archivist, and Karla Roig, former Post-Custodial and Digital Initiatives Graduate Research Assistant, spent a week in Buenaventura to assist PCN with organizing and processing their physical collection. By processing the physical collection, PCN will be able to digitize and create metadata more efficiently. Below, Suarez (AS) and Roig (KR) answer questions about this meaningful visit.

Please describe what you did while visiting Colombia.

AR: We conducted a series of trainings on archival processing, metadata creation, and digitization. We also had the opportunity to learn about the region as well as the city of Buenaventura. The first few days were spent getting to know the collection and to also understand how PCN works as an organization. 

Digital Projects Archivist Alex Suarez works with team members at PCN in Buenaventura, Colombia. Photo: Karla Roig.

Together with PCN, we brainstormed how to arrange the archive in a way that reflects how PCN operates and how they envisioned using the archive in the future. We also reviewed digitization and metadata best practices so that PCN materials can be accessible worldwide and researchers can learn about the organization and Buenaventura. 

We were also invited to attend throughout the week three talks titled “Diálogos ribereños,” organized by PCN and the Banco de la República, in which community leaders engaged in conversation with the community around topics of burial rites, economic practices and the environment, and the settlement of their rivers.

Diálogos ribereños meeting, Buenaventura, Colombia. Photo: Karla Roig.

Please share some of the highlights of the trip: the setting, activities, and accomplishments.

AR: I was blown away by the closeness of the community and the work they have accomplished over the last 30 years. Everybody knows each other and have been working toward the same goals. It was so interesting to see the community at work. 

One of the biggest accomplishments was PCN creating their archival processing plan and defining their arrangement plan. Some of my favorite moments were spent drinking freshly brewed coffee around [PCN leader] Marta’s dining room table talking about how to arrange the archive and how they envisioned future researchers using the archive. 

PCN leader Marta Inés Cuervo (l) examines archival material with Alex Suarez. Photo: Karla Roig.


Another favorite moment was attending an interactive exhibit titled Río la Verdad, by Bogotá-based artist Leonel Vásquez, who installed a swimming pool where guests could submerge themselves and hear the sound of the rivers and people singing songs about their history. It was a deeply powerful experience and one that I will never forget. 

Río la Verdad exhibit by Leonel Vásquez. Photo: Karla Roig.

KR: About the setting: On Sunday morning, we met with Marta and she showed us around Buenaventura for the first time. Our hotel was in front of the Malecón, their only public park, where people gather early in the morning to wait for the small boats that will connect them to other parts of the Colombian Pacific coast. Walking around the small coastal city, there were many local stores and street vendors displaying their goods—from fruits and vegetables, clothes and shoes, to home essentials. Right away we could sense the tight-knit community bonds. Everyone we passed greeted us with a “Buenos días” and Marta was often stopped by people she knew to have a small conversation.

View from the Faro – Mirador Turístico (lighthouse) at the malecón (pier) in Buenaventura. Photo: Karla Roig.

We stopped at a small coffee shop with the view of the Pacific Ocean to have a refreshing drink, where we talked about geography, how Colombia is divided into different departments, and how Buenaventura is the biggest municipality in the Valle del Cauca department. We were staying in the urban center of the municipality, which is where one of the major ports in the country that brings in a large percentage of imported goods is located. Seeing the large yellow container cranes was impressive, they spotted the skyline from our hotel view to the right, and to the left, on a clear day, we could see the mountains at a distance. 

One of my favorite memories from our visit was the cultural exchange that happened between us and the PCN team. They taught us about their colloquialisms and their native fruits such as maracuyá and borojó (we tried them too!) and we shared our own vernacular from Puerto Rican and Cuban Spanish. It was exciting to find the similarities between our cultures as well as learning about the uniqueness of their own: how their communities are based around their rivers and also how the marimba is one of their traditional music instruments. Definitely the highlight of the entire visit for me was how welcoming and friendly the PCN team was, and how excited they were to engage with us at a professional and personal level. Toward the end of the week, we had a team dinner to celebrate what we had accomplished and to thank them for hosting us. That night we talked at length about the week, and we all shared what we had learned and were grateful for. It was a beautiful moment interspersed with conversation centered on the archive, but also with laughter and familiarity. 

Farewell dinner with members of PCN. Photo: Karla Roig.

Any ongoing goals?

The main ongoing goal for LLILAS Benson’s Mellon-funded collaboration with PCN is to continue working on the physical archive and to arrange the materials in a way that reflects the organization. 

Note: Post-custodial archiving is a process whereby sometimes vulnerable archives are preserved digitally and the digital versions made accessible worldwide, thus increasing access to the materials while ensuring they remain in the custody and care of their community of origin.


Lea este artículo en español:

Equipo de Iniciativas Digitales visita socios en Buenaventura, Colombia

Dos miembros del equipo de Iniciativas Digitales de LLILAS Benson viajaron recientemente a Buenaventura, Colombia, para trabajar con archivistas y líderes comunitarios de Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN), una colectiva de organizaciones fundada en 1993 que trabaja para transformar la realidad política, social, económica y territorial de las comunidades negras, afro-descendientes, raizal y palenqueras colombianas a través de la defensa y reivindicación de sus derechos individuales, colectivas y ancestrales.

Como archivo, PCN participa en una colaboración con LLILAS Benson para apoyar la digitalización y descripción de la Colección Dinámicas Organizativas del Pueblo Negro en Colombia. El proyecto, se está realizando a través del modelo de archivos pos-custodiales* y es apoyado por la Fundación Mellon.

Vista de la Bahía de Buenaventura desde el balcón del hotel enn Buenaventura, Colombia. Foto: Karla Roig.

Alex Suarez, Archivista para Proyectos Digitales, y Karla Roig, Asistente Posgrado de Investigaciones para Iniciativas Digitales, pasaron una semana en Buenaventura para ayudar a PCN a organizar y procesar su colección física. Al procesar la colección física, podrían digitalizar y crear metadatos de una manera más eficiente. Abajo, Suarez (AS) y Roig (KR) contestan algunas preguntas sobre la visita.

Expliquen, por favor, las actividades que realizaron durante su visita.

AS: Llevamos a cabo una serie de capacitaciones sobre el procesamiento de archivos, la creación de metadatos y la digitalización. También tuvimos la oportunidad de conocer sobre la región, así como la ciudad de Buenaventura. Los primeros días fueron dedicados a conocer la colección y también a comprender cómo funciona PCN como organización.

Junto con PCN, aportamos ideas sobre cómo organizar el archivo de una manera que reflejara cómo opera PCN y cómo imaginaban usar el archivo en el futuro. También revisamos las mejores prácticas de digitalización y metadatos para que los materiales de PCN puedan ser accesibles en todo el mundo y los investigadores puedan aprender sobre la organización y sobre Buenaventura.

Archivista para Proyectos Digitales Alex Suarez trabaja con miembros del equipo de PCN en Buenaventura, Colombia. Foto: Karla Roig.

También fuimos invitadas a asistir a lo largo de la semana a tres charlas tituladas “Diálogos ribereños”, organizadas por PCN y el Banco de la República, en las que líderes comunitarios conversaron con la comunidad en torno a temas de ritos fúnebres, prácticas económicas y medio ambiente, y del poblamiento de sus ríos.

Reunión “Diálogos ribereños” . Foto: Karla Roig.

¿Cuáles fueron los eventos más destacados del viaje en términos del lugar, las actividades, los logros?

AS: Quedé asombrada por la cercanía de la comunidad y el trabajo que han realizado durante los últimos 30 años. Todos se conocen unos a otros y han estado trabajando hacia unas metas en común y fue muy interesante ver a la comunidad haciendo ese trabajo.

Uno de los mayores logros fue PCN creando su plan de procesamiento de archivos y definiendo su plan de organización. Algunos de mis momentos favoritos fueron bebiendo café recién colado alrededor de la mesa del comedor de Marta hablando sobre cómo organizar el archivo y cómo imaginaban que los futuros investigadores usarían el archivo.

Marta Inés Cuervo (i) examina documentos con Alex Suarez. Foto: Karla Roig.

Otro de mis momentos favoritos fue asistir a una exhibición interactiva que fue instalada en el parque principal durante nuestra estadía. La exposición se tituló Río la Verdad del artista bogotano Leonel Vásquez, quien instaló una piscina donde los invitados podían sumergirse y escuchar el sonido de los ríos y la gente cantando canciones sobre su historia. Fue una experiencia profundamente poderosa y una que nunca olvidaré.

Exhibición Río la Verdad por Leonel Vásquez. Foto: Karla Roig.

KR: Sobre el lugar: El domingo por la mañana nos reunimos con Marta [una líder de PCN] y ella nos caminó por Buenaventura por primera vez. Nuestro hotel estaba frente al Malecón, el único parque público de la ciudad, donde la gente se reúne temprano en la mañana para esperar las pequeñas embarcaciones que los conectarán con otras partes de la costa pacífica colombiana. Caminando por la pequeña ciudad costera, había muchas tiendas locales y vendedores en la calle que mostraban sus productos, desde frutas y verduras, ropa y zapatos, hasta artículos para el hogar. Inmediatamente pudimos ver la cercanía de la comunidad, a todo el que pasábamos nos saludaba con un “Buenos días”, y Marta a menudo paraba a hablar con algún conocido u otro para tener una pequeña conversación.

Nos detuvimos en una pequeña cafetería con vistas al Océano Pacífico para tomar una bebida refrescante en donde conversamos sobre la geografía, cómo Colombia está dividido en diferentes departamentos, y cómo Buenaventura es el municipio más grande del departamento del Valle del Cauca. Nos estábamos quedando en el centro urbano del municipio, que es dónde se encuentra uno de los puertos más importantes del país que trae un gran porcentaje de mercancías importadas. Ver las grandes grúas amarillas de contenedores fue impresionante, se percibían hacia la derecha del horizonte desde la vista de nuestro hotel, y a la izquierda, en un día claro, podíamos ver las montañas a lo lejos.

Vista del Faro – Mirador Turístico en el Malecón. Buenaventura, Colombia. Foto: Karla Roig.

Uno de mis mejores recuerdos de nuestra visita fue el intercambio cultural que ocurrió entre nosotros y el equipo de PCN. Ellos nos enseñaron sobre sus coloquialismos y sus frutas nativas como el maracuyá y el borojó (¡también los probamos!) y compartimos nuestro vernáculo del español puertorriqueño y cubano. Fue emocionante encontrar las similitudes entre nuestras culturas, así como aprender sobre la singularidad de la de ellos: cómo sus comunidades se basan en sus ríos y también cómo la marimba es uno de sus instrumentos musicales tradicionales.

Definitivamente, lo que más se destacó de toda la visita para mí fue lo acogedor y amable que fue el equipo de PCN, y lo emocionados que estaban de interactuar con nosotros a nivel profesional y personal. Hacia el final de la semana, tuvimos una cena de equipo para celebrar lo que habíamos logrado y agradecerles por recibirnos. Esa noche hablamos sobre la semana y todos compartimos lo que habíamos aprendido y por lo que estábamos agradecidos. Fue un hermoso momento intercalado con conversación enfocada en el archivo, pero también con risas y familiaridad.

Cena de despedida con miembros de PCN. Foto: Karla Roig.

¿Objetivos para el futuro?

El principal objetivo de la subvención Mellon es continuar trabajando en el acervo físico y organizar los materiales de una manera que refleje la organización.


Nota: La práctica de archivos pos-custodiales tiene que ver con la preservación de archivos vulnerables en su lugar de origen, mientras se crea una versión digital del material para hacerlo disponible a nivel global.

Read, Hot and Digitized: Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question

Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from UTL’s 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.


The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question (IEPQ) is “the first interactive platform entirely devoted to the Palestine question.” Conceived by the Institute for Palestine Studies as part of a joint project with the Palestinian Museum, the IEPQ traces the history of modern Palestine, from the end of the Ottoman era to present days.  

‘Palestine’ and ‘the question of Palestine’ are terms that bear multiple political, historical, geographical, and legal meanings and interpretations. Similar to other ‘national questions’ throughout modern history, the Palestine question pertains to the appropriate status and treatment of the Palestinians, and their right to self-determination. The public debate originated in 1917, with the Balfour declaration and the British Mandate, but the historical events that lead to that point in time, and are now part of the Israeli-Arab conflict (sometimes called ‘the Jewish-Arab conflict’) could be traced back to the second half of the 19th century.

The IEPQ consists of six sections: Chronology (timeline), thematic chronologies, highlights, biographies, places, and documents. The overall Chronology details “the main events that shaped Palestinian history in the realms of war, diplomacy, culture, and economy.” Events are categorized under various terms, such as ‘violence,’ ‘institutional,’ ‘contextual,’ ‘diplomatic,’ ‘legal,’ ‘cultural,’ and so forth. Some of those events are also mapped in the Thematic Chronologies section; for example, “history of the PLO,” or “Colonialism and Palestinian resistance.” Visualizing the events in a chronological order allows for better understanding of the conflict’s development throughout the years. The Highlights section includes detailed articles (with selected bibliographies) about specific topics, events, and organizations; for example, political movements, refugees, demography, and the Nakba. Currently the IEPQ includes 107 biographies of Palestinian “intellectuals, artists, activists, combatants and politicians.” Some include references to selected works of and about the individual. The Documents section includes historical texts, photographs, maps, and charts that support information presented in other sections and mapped back to the Chronology section.  

Thematic chronology of “Military operations and Zionist ethnic cleansing (1946-1949).” https://palquest.org/en/overallchronology?nid=140&chronos[]=140
An example of ‘cultural event’ in the Chronology section: “Ghassan Kanafani publishes first novel, Rijāl fī al-shams (Men in the Sun), in Beirut. https://palquest.org/en/overallchronology?sideid=5568

I find the Places section to be the most compelling one, as it presents “the painful legacy of the past,” mapping 418 Palestinian villages occupied, destroyed, depopulated, or deserted during the Nakba. The main screen of this section shows a 1940s survey map from the British Mandate. Detailed information about each village could be brought up either by clicking on the map itself, or on the village name on the right bar. Clicking on the left corner of the main map would bring up additional layers and overlays of modern maps, as well as satellite imagery. For example, the page of al-Jammasin al-Gharbi (image 1) shows where the village was located until 1948, with information about its size, population, land ownership and use, and a narrative about its ‘before and after’ 1948 status. Some pages include information about the specific military operation in which the village was occupied, mapping it back to the Chronology section. The information in this section is taken from the massive volume titled All that remains, edited by Walid Khalidi, and published in print by the Institute for Palestine Studies in 1992.

al-Jammasin al-Gharbi village page on the IEPQ Places section. https://www.palquest.org/en/place/17021/al-jammasin-al-gharbi

The IEPQ interface is available in both English and Arabic. The current platform was designed by Visualizing Palestine, a portfolio of the independent, non-profit Visualizing Impact innovation lab, that combines data science, technology, and design in similar awareness projects. IEPQ is using British Mandate era survey maps that were digitized and released to the public domain by the National Library of Israel. The digital maps, as well as the additional layers, overlays, satellite imagery, and the geographical metadata, are derived from the Palestine Open Maps platform, also a project of Visualizing Palestine.

The IEPQ brings to mind similar projects that compliment it. For example, the United Nations holds a large online repository of documents on the question of Palestine. The Israeli Zochrot NGO, dedicated to the memory of the Nakba, created a Nakba Map, where one could see the overbuilt area of villages on a current map of Israel.

Additional selected resources:

Amar-Dahl, Tamar. Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine : Jewish Statehood and the History of the Middle East Conflict / Tamar Amar-Dahl. München: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2016. Digital. https://search.lib.utexas.edu/permalink/01UTAU_INST/9e1640/alma991057960839006011 

Bashir, Bashir, and Leila Farsakh. The Arab and Jewish Questions : Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond / Edited by Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh. Ed. Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. Digital. https://search.lib.utexas.edu/permalink/01UTAU_INST/9e1640/alma991058189874306011

Khalidi, Walid. All That Remains : the Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 / Editor, Walid Khalidi ; Research and Text, Sharif S. Elmusa, Muhammad Ali Khalidi. Washington, D.C: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992. Print. https://search.lib.utexas.edu/permalink/01UTAU_INST/9e1640/alma991055971519706011

Lenṭin, Ronit. Thinking Palestine. Edited by Ronit Lentin. London : Zed Books, 2008. Print. https://search.lib.utexas.edu/permalink/01UTAU_INST/9e1640/alma991057925283506011

Said, Edward W. The Question of Palestine / Edward W. Said. New York: Times Books, 1979. Print.https://search.lib.utexas.edu/permalink/01UTAU_INST/9e1640/alma991036311349706011

Zochrot Remembering booklet series at the UT Libraries – https://tinyurl.com/ysduujp5 

Zochrot Nakba maps at the UT Libraries – https://tinyurl.com/bd4dpkrw