The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) is delighted to announce the launch of a free online course called Archiving for the Future: Simple Steps for Archiving Language Documentation Collections, available at https://archivingforthefuture.teachable.com/. The course material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-1653380 (Susan S. Kung and Anthony C. Woodbury, PIs; September 1, 2016, to August 31, 2020). The course is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Logo, Archiving for the Future: Simple Steps for Archiving Language Documentation Collections
The course is a resource to aid people of all backgrounds in organizing born-digital and digitized language materials and data for deposit into any digital repository (not just AILLA) for long-term preservation and accessibility. The target audience for this course is anyone who is engaged in creating materials in or about Indigenous, endangered, under-documented, or minority languages as part of language documentation efforts, including language rights, maintenance, and revitalization. It was designed particularly for individuals or groups made up of academic researchers and/or Indigenous or endangered language speakers and community members, though anyone may benefit from it.
The curriculum follows simple steps to guide participants through three phases of work to organize language documentation materials for archiving, and it explains in detail what to do before, during, and after data collection to facilitate the long-term preservation of the data. The course is designed to be informative, engaging, and accessible to anyone, especially to those with no previous experience archiving collections of language materials.
Infographic showing the three phases and nine steps on which the curriculum is based
This course was developed by four members of the AILLA staff: Susan Kung, AILLA Manager and grant co-PI; Ryan Sullivant, AILLA Language Data Curator; Alicia Niwabaga, Graduate Research Assistant 2017–2018; and Elena Pojman, Undergraduate Research Assistant 2019–2020. Sullivant and Kung interviewed representatives of various DELAMAN (delaman.org) archives and other digital data repositories in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and Cameroon. Niwagaba collaborated with Kung and Sullivant to develop an early version of the course that the AILLA team taught live at the Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang 2018) at the University of Florida in Gainesville during June 18–22, 2018. Niwagaba created the educational animated videos that are embedded in the course to illustrate key aspects of the curriculum. Pojman researched curriculum platforms in which to build the online course. Teachable was selected for a variety of reasons, including its simple yet attractive aesthetic that displays all course modules in the left side bar (see illustration below); its ease of use and progress tracking for enrolled students; its responsiveness to different technology; and the built-in ability to quickly and easily set up the same course in multiple languages. This last feature is especially important since AILLA staff plan to translate the curriculum into Spanish and Portuguese to make it more accessible to AILLA’s Latin American audience. Once the curriculum software was selected, Kung and Sullivant expanded the original 2018 workshop curriculum and wrote the additional content. Pojman wrote the objectives and activities for each step, built the English course in Teachable, and created all of the graphics that are used in the curriculum.
Screenshot of the Teachable student interface, including an embedded video developed for this curriculum
In funding and academic environments where it is becoming increasingly common for researchers to be responsible for archiving their own research data, the AILLA staff saw a need to train language researchers to do this work so that the resulting language collections would be well organized, well described, easy to navigate, and available to reuse for further research and education. While there are some language documentation programs in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand that train language documenters to do these tasks, most do not, and almost no training on how to archive language documentation is available in Latin America. The AILLA team created this course to fill these gaps.
In the spring of 2019,LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections partnered with the Urban Teachers Program at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education to develop and provide free, online access to high school lesson plans. The goal was to bring together the historical perspectives of underrepresented groups, current scholarship, and digitized holdings of the Benson Latin American Collection and Latin American partners. Thanks to a Department of Education Title VI grant, LLILAS Benson was able to create a portal via UT Libraries’ open-access repositories to make these resources widely available to teachers.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction chair Dr. Cinthia Salinas walks “Social Studies Methods” master’s students through a teaching exercise using a pictorial account of Moctezuma and Cortés’s meeting from the Benson’s Genaro García Collection, March 19, 2019. Courtesy of Albert A. Palacios.
For the past two years, College of Education graduate students have been creating World History and World Geography units for use in high school classrooms. The underlying principle for these teaching materials is that students are able to understand, and then subvert, dominant historical narratives in Latin American, U.S. Latinx, and African Diaspora history given the marginalized perspectives the lesson plans highlight. Using the Benson’s digital collections, they have focused on a variety of topics, including women in colonial Latin America, the Mexican Revolution, and the Cold War in Central and South America (publication in process).
Collection materials from the Benson’s Rare Books and Genaro García collections, and El Salvador’s Museum of the Word and Image’s Armed Conflict Collection.
The collaboration and site has since broadened to include other disciplines, audiences, and learning objectives. LLILAS Benson Digital Scholarship staff has been partnering with faculty and graduate students in Latin American Studies, Art and Art History, Spanish and Portuguese, Mexican American Studies, and History to design Digital Humanities–focused lesson plans and assignments for undergraduate teaching. Work is also ongoing to publish technical capacity-building teaching and learning resources for graduate students, digital humanists, and archival professionals at UT Austin and beyond.
The site also helps instructors and students find and browse through LLILAS Benson’s digital resources. It consolidates under its Primary Sources section all existing LLILAS Benson digital scholarship projects, digitized collections, and exhibitions. Visitors can filter these resources by grade level, date range, course subject, and country to find relevant primary and secondary sources on their research and teaching focus.
Banner image for Fidel Castro’s Building Inauguration Speeches geospatial exhibition. Curated by Karla Roig, Association of Research Libraries’ Digital and Inclusive Excellence Undergraduate Fellow (2018–2019).
Explore the site through http://curriculum.llilasbenson.utexas.edu/. The interdisciplinary collaborations and site’s development were generously funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI Program and LLILAS Benson’s Excellence Fund for Technology and Development in Latin America. This resource was conceived, designed, and launched by:
Lindsey Engleman, Public Engagement Coordinator (2014–2019), LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections
Tiffany Guridy, Public Engagement Coordinator, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections
Delandrea S. Hall, Doctoral Candidate, Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education
Rodrigo Leal, Website Designer and Student Technician(Spring 2019), LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections
Casz McCarthy, Public Engagement Graduate Research Assistant, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections
Albert A. Palacios, Digital Scholarship Coordinator, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections
Cinthia S. Salinas, Professor and Chair, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education
UT Libraries Digital Stewardship (Anna Lamphear and Brittany Centeno)
The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is thrilled to announce the acquisition of the Miguel Ángel Asturias Papers. Asturias, the 1967 Nobel Laureate in Literature from Guatemala, was a precursor to the Latin American Boom. A prolific writer of poetry, short stories, children’s literature, plays, and essays, he is perhaps best known as a novelist, with El Señor Presidente (1946) and Hombres de maíz (1949) garnering the most acclaim. Asturias’s portrayal of Guatemala and the different peoples that live there—their beliefs, their interactions, their frustrations, and their hopes—mark the profundity of his texts.
Miguel Ángel Asturias, photographed in front of his portrait
The Benson is the third repository to house materials pertaining to Asturias’s life work, the other two being the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris and El Archivo General de Centroamérica in Guatemala City. What differentiates this particular collection is the role that Asturias’s son, Miguel Ángel Asturias Amado, played in compiling it over the course of fifty years. Indeed, in many ways the collection is just as much the son’s as it is the father’s. It features years of correspondence between the two, who were separated after the elder was forced to leave Argentina in 1962. This was not the writer’s first time in exile: his stay in Argentina was due to the Guatemalan government, led by Carlos Castillo Armas, stripping his citizenship in 1954. The letters provide insight into Asturias as a father, writer, and eventual diplomat when democratically elected Guatemalan President Julio César Méndez Montenegro restored his citizenship and made him Ambassador to France in 1966. Moreover, scholars will find within these letters a number of short stories for children that would eventually be collected in the book El alhajadito (1962).
Author’s self-portrait
In addition to correspondence with his son, Asturias maintained a longstanding relationship with his mother via letter during his first stay in Paris in the 1920s. Detailed within are the family’s economic hardships as a result of the country-wide crisis in Guatemala caused by the plummeting international coffee market, and information pertaining to the publication of his first collection of short stories, Leyendas de Guatemala (1930). Other communication from this era demonstrates the role that Asturias played in facilitating the publication of other Guatemalan authors and as a journalist for El imparcial.
As a journalist for El Imparcial, Asturias was in constant correspondence about events in Guatemala.
Beyond letters, scholars will find a multifaceted collection. Manuscripts of poetic prose, such as “Tras un ideal” (1917), and an early theater piece titled “Madre” (1918) are included with loose-leaf fragments from El señor presidente. News clippings are also prominent. Those written by Asturias reflect his time at El imparcial while those written about him focus on his Nobel Prize. Perhaps an unexpected highlight is the audiovisual component of the collection. The author contributed an array of caricatures, doodles, and portraits, as well as a robust collection of photographs. Furthermore, there are several audio recordings of Asturias reading his work.
This hand-written manuscript of “Madre” (1918) is Asturias’s first foray into theater.
Finally, scholars will also be able to access studies dedicated to the work of Asturias and first, rare, and special editions of his books. These editions, meticulously collected and cared for by his son, reflect the author’s continued popularity.
La Colección Benson adquiere el archivo del Premio Nobel Miguel Ángel Asturias
Por DANIEL ARBINO
La Colección Latinoamericana Nettie Lee Benson se complace en anunciar la adquisición de los documentos de Miguel Ángel Asturias, Premio Nobel de 1967. El autor guatemalteco fue un precursor del boom latinoamericano. Escritor prolífico de poesía, cuentos, literatura infantil, obras de teatro y ensayos, es quizás mejor conocido como novelista, y El señor presidente (1946) y Hombres de maíz (1949) son las más aclamadas. La representación de Guatemala y sus variados pueblos, creencias, interacciones, frustraciones y esperanzas, marcan la profundidad de sus textos.
El author, frente a un retrato pintado
La Benson es el tercer archivo que reune materiales de la vida de Asturias, después de la Bibliothèque nationale en París y El Archivo General de Centroamérica en la ciudad de Guatemala. Lo que distingue a esta colección en particular es el papel que desempeñó el hijo de Asturias, Miguel Ángel Asturias Amado, en su recopilación a lo largo de cincuenta años. De hecho, la colección es, en muchos sentidos, tanto del hijo como del padre. Presenta años de correspondencia entre los dos, que se separaron después de que el padre tuvo que abandonar la Argentina en 1962. Ésta no fue la primera vez que el escritor se había tenido que ir al exilio: su estadía en la Argentina se debió a que el gobierno guatemalteco, liderado por Carlos Castillo Armas, le había despojado de su ciudadanía en 1954. Las cartas dan una idea de Asturias como padre, escritor y eventual diplomático, después de que Julio César Méndez Montenegro, el presidente de Guatemala democráticamente elegido, restauró su ciudadanía y lo nombró embajador en Francia en 1966. Además, los investigadores encontrarán dentro de estas cartas una serie de cuentos para niños que se recopilarían en el libro El alhajadito (1962).
Auto-retrato por el autor
Aparte de la correspondencia con su hijo, Asturias mantuvo una larga relación epistolar con su madre durante su primera estancia en París en la década de los 1920. Ahí se detallan las dificultades económicas de la familia como resultado de la crisis que atraviesa la sociedad guatemalteca, por la caída del precio del café a nivel internacional, e información relativa a la publicación de su primera colección de cuentos, Leyendas de Guatemala (1930). Otra comunicación de esta época demuestra el papel que desempeñó Asturias al facilitar la publicación de otros autores guatemaltecos y como periodista de El imparcial.
Como periodista para El Imparcial, Asturias mantuvo comunicaciones constantes sobre la situación en Guatemala
Asimismo, los investigadores verán una colección multifacética. Los manuscritos de prosa poética, como “Tras un ideal” (1917) y una obra de teatro titulada “Madre” (1918) se incluyen, tanto como fragmentos de hojas sueltas de El señor presidente. Los recortes de periódicos también son prominentes. Los escritos por Asturias reflejan su tiempo en El imparcial, mientras que los escritos sobre él se centran en su Premio Nobel. Quizás un punto destacado inesperado es el componente audiovisual de la colección. El autor contribuyó con una serie de caricaturas, garabatos y retratos, así como una colección robusta de fotografías. También, hay varias grabaciones de audio de Asturias en las cuales realiza lecturas de sus obras.
Este manuscrito de la obra “Madre” (1918) es la primera incursión de Asturias en el mundo del teatro.
Por último, los académicos también podrán acceder a los estudios dedicados al trabajo de Asturias y a las primeras, raras y especiales ediciones de su trabajo. Estas ediciones, meticulosamente recopiladas y cuidadas por su hijo, reflejan la continua popularidad del autor.
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.
Katie L. Coldiron is the Global Studies Digital Projects GRA at Perry-Castañeda Library and a current graduate student at the School of Information. She also has an M.A. in Latin American Studies.
Arab migration to the Americas is a unique phenomenon, particularly in the context of northern South America. While Arabs came to the Americas fleeing such events as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Genocide, they mainly went to the countries of the Southern Cone and Brazil, which are known for welcoming more immigrants than their other Latin American counterparts. Colombia and Venezuela, which are referred to as sister countries, tend to be portrayed outside their borders in a negative light, rather than for that which makes up their rich and diverse cultures. This post is an effort to highlight a group of migrants that came to Colombia and Venezuela and remain there today, both assimilating into their respective countries while also keeping their traditions alive. Furthermore, the existence of these digital primary resources provides a necessary means of continuing academic research in the midst of a global pandemic. The ability to have first-hand accounts readily available of a particular diaspora is a privilege of the digital age, and a mechanism of democratization for the cultural record.
Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia
Through my research into the Arab-Colombian diaspora and conversations with prominent scholars on the subject, I was put in touch with Odette Yidi David of Barranquilla. The city of Barranquilla became a hub for Arab migration to Colombia in the early 20th century due to its proximity to the Port Colombia. Yidi David is a fourth generation Palestinian barranquillera and a scholar on the subject of Arabs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently she divides her time teaching at Barranquilla’s Universidad del Norte and serving as executive director of the Colombian Institute of Arab Culture.
Yidi David founded the Colombian Institute of Arab Culture with the intention of constructing bridges between Colombia and the Arab world, as well as generating and sharing responsible knowledge about the Arab world in Colombia. The organization has offered Arabic language classes and talks on a variety of subjects pertaining to the Arab world, and even hosted an Arab culture festival in Barranquilla. With the advent of social distancing, I have noticed an uptick in content they are sharing about digital events, as well as resources and other activities to pass the time of quarantine. Many Zoom panels have also been shared through their social media outlets, including ones that feature Yidi David herself. The Institute also regularly hosts talks on Arab dance and even virtual dance classes. These posts not only provide means of diversion in a time in which not many exist, but also create larger awareness of the existence of the Arab diaspora in Colombia. While prominent families, beauty queens, and even the singer Shakira have brought notoriety to the diaspora, the Institute goes beyond a few notable faces to show that Arab culture is alive in the Colombian Caribbean. Their social media includes Instagram and Facebook.
Odette Yidi David, Founder and Executive Director of the Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia.
Instagram advertisement for a recent Zoom talk – “Let’s Talk about Arab Dance: Myths, Realities and the Role of Women” – hosted by the Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia.
Los libaneses en Venezuela
My research also led me to the blog “Los libaneses en Venezuela,” or “The Lebanese in Venezuela.” This blog is the product of Venezuelan-Lebanese journalist Tony Frangie Mawad, who regularly contributes to outlets like Caracas Chronicles. To create this blog, Frangie Mawad did recorded interviews with multiple Lebanese immigrants to Venezuela who arrived from the 1940s to 1960s, and chronicled their stories individually. Due to his familial ties to the Lebanese diaspora of Caracas, finding the individuals to interview was, in the words of Frangie Mawad, “only a question of picking up the phone and telling them or their kids about the project.” A photographer friend also helped Frangie Mawad with photographing the featured individuals. The accounts are very personal and are contextualized within the atmospheres of Lebanon and Venezuela at the time. The blog can be found here.
Tony Frangie Mawad.
The beginning of a blog post from “Los libaneses en Venezuela.”
For more information on UT’s and other Open Access materials on the Arab Diaspora in Latin America, check out this research guide: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/ArabsinLatAm
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.
Katie L. Coldiron is the Global Studies Digital Projects GRA at Perry-Castañeda Library and a current graduate student at the School of Information. She also has an M.A. in Latin American Studies.
La inmigración árabe a las Américas es un fenómeno único, particularmente en el contexto del norte de Sudamérica. Aunque es verdad que los árabes llegaron a las Américas huyendo de eventos como la caída del Imperio Otomano y el Genocidio Armenio, la mayoría fueron a los países del Cono Sur, los cuales son conocidos como mayores receptores de inmigrantes en América Latina. Colombia y Venezuela, los cuales se conocen como países hermanos, tienden a padecer de una imagen negativa en el extranjero, menos por sus culturas ricas y diversas. Este blog es un esfuerzo para mostrar un grupo de inmigrantes que llegaron a Colombia y Venezuela y hoy siguen allá, que igualmente se asimilaron en sus países respectivos, pero preservaron sus propias tradiciones. Además, la existencia de estos recursos digitales primarios provee una manera necesaria para la propagación de investigaciones académicas durante una pandemia mundial. El acceso a los recursos primarios de una diáspora específica es un privilegio de la época digital, y un mecanismo de democratización del archivo cultural.
Odette Yidi David, fundadora y directora ejecutiva del Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia.
Anuncio en Instagram de una charla reciente hecha por el Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia.
Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia
A través de mi investigación sobre la diáspora árabe-colombiana y conversaciones con eruditas conocidas de este tema, me puse en contacto con Odette Yidi David de Barranquilla, Colombia. La ciudad de Barranquilla se volvió un centro de migración árabe por su proximidad a Puerto Colombia. Yidi David es una palestina barranquillera de cuarta generación y experta del tema de los árabes en América Latina y el Caribe. Actualmente, ella divide su tiempo entre labores en la Universidad del Norte de Barranquilla y como directora ejecutiva del Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia.
Yidi David fundó el Instituto de Cultura Árabe de Colombia con el propósito de “construir puentes de diálogo entre Colombia y el mundo árabe” y también “generar y compartir conocimiento responsable sobre el mundo árabe en Colombia.” La organización ha ofrecido clases del idioma árabe y charlas sobre una variedad de temas del mundo árabe. Además, hicieron un festival de cultura árabe en Barranquilla. Con el arranco del distanciamiento social, he notado que el Instituto comparte más sobre eventos virtuales, y también recursos y otras actividades para pasar el tiempo en cuarentena. Se comparten muchos paneles de Zoom en sus redes sociales, que incluyen a la misma Yidi David. El Instituto también tiene charlas de danza árabe y hasta clases virtuales de danza. Estas publicaciones no solo proveen una manera de divertirse cuando no hay otras opciones, sino también crean más conocimiento sobre la existencia de la diáspora árabe en Colombia. A pesar de que ciertas familias conocidas, reinas de belleza, y la cantante Shakira han traído fama a la diáspora, el Instituto va más allá que unas pocas caras conocidas para mostrar que la cultura árabe está viva en el Caribe colombiano. Sus redes sociales incluyen Instagram y Facebook.
Los libaneses en Venezuela
Mi investigación también me llevó al blog “Los libaneses en Venezuela.” Este blog es el producto del periodista venezolano libanés Tony Frangie Mawad, quien contribuye regularmente a medios como Caracas Chronicles. Para crear este blog, Frangie Mawad entrevistó a inmigrantes libaneses que llegaron a Venezuela desde los 40 hasta los 60, y registró sus historias individualmente. Por sus lazos familiares a la diáspora libanesa de Caracas, encontrar dichos individuos fue, en las palabras de Frangie Mawad “solo cuestión de levantar el teléfono y contarles sobre el proyecto o a sus hijos.” Un amigo fotógrafo también le ayudó a tomar las fotos de los personajes incluidos. Los testimonios son muy personales y se contextualizan dentro de los ambientes del Líbano y Venezuela de la época. El blog se encuentra aquí.
Tony Frangie Mawad
El comienzo de un post del blog “Los libaneses en Venezuela.”
Para más información sobre los recursos de UT y acceso abierto de la diáspora árabe en América Latina, vea esta guía de investigación: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/ArabsinLatAm
Vea abajo para versión en español / Veja em baixo para versão em português
In honor of World Digital Preservation Day, members of the University of Texas Libraries’ Digital Preservation team have written a series of blog posts to highlight preservation activities at UT Austin, and to explain why the stakes are so high in our ever-changing digital and technological landscape. This post is the final installment in a series of five.Read part one, part two, part three, and part four.
BY ASHLEY ADAIR, Head of Preservation and Digital Stewardship, University of Texas Libraries
The UT Libraries’ Digital Stewardship unit supports digital preservation work across the University of Texas Libraries. When Libraries repositories, such as the Alexander Architectural Archives, LLILAS Benson, or the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America begin new digital projects, the Digital Stewardship unit often helps develop initial processing plans. Unit staff install tools and provide training to recover data from older media such as floppy disks and Zip disks, or for acquiring files produced by partner organizations and depositing researchers. Processing of these materials must be planned and undertaken very carefully since data may be at risk of permanent loss due to obsolete formats and media, or because of political or physical issues in local environments.
Floppy disk from a UT Libraries archival collection
Taking a life-cycle approach, the unit also coordinates long-term safekeeping of these valuable and sometimes vulnerable files. Digital Stewardship developed file organizing, naming, and description practices for uniformly storing all of UT Libraries’ diverse preservation data in keeping with international standards. When repository staff complete processing, the Digital Stewardship unit takes in copies of data to be preserved, vaults them to long-term storage, maintains detailed centralized records, and manages off-site backup copies. The unit collaborates with UT Libraries repositories continuously over time to enhance organization-wide digital preservation practices, adapting to new developments and the growing scale of data to be preserved.
La unidad de Administración Digital de las Bibliotecas de la Universidad de Texas (UT) apoya el trabajo de preservación digital en el conjunto de bibliotecas de la universidad. Cuando repositorios como el Archivo de Arquitectura Alexander, LLILAS Benson o el Archivo de Lenguas Indígenas de Latinoamérica comienzan nuevos proyectos digitales, la unidad de administración digital ayuda a desarrollar planes de procesamiento. El personal de la unidad instala herramientas y provee entrenamiento para recuperar datos de medios antiguos como disquetes o discos Zip, o para la adquisición de archivos producidos por organizaciones colaboradoras e investigadores que depositan sus archivos en los repositorios. El procesado de estos materiales debe ser planeado y realizado con mucho cuidado puesto que los datos pueden estar en peligro de borrado permanente debido a formatos o medios obsoletos, o por cuestiones políticas y de tipo medioambiental.
Disquete de una coleção archival de las Bibliotecas de UT
Con un enfoque de ciclo de vida de los datos, la unidad también coordina la custodia a largo plazo de estos archivos valiosos y a veces vulnerables. La administración digital desarrolló prácticas de organización, denominación y descripción de archivos para almacenar de manera uniforme todos los diversos datos de preservación de las bibliotecas de UT de acuerdo con los estándares internacionales. Cuando el personal del repositorio completa el procesamiento, la unidad de Administración Digital toma copias de los datos para preservarlos, los guarda en un almacenamiento a largo plazo, mantiene registros centralizados detallados y administra copias de seguridad en otras localizaciones. La unidad colabora con los repositorios de las bibliotecas UT continuamente a lo largo del tiempo para mejorar las prácticas de preservación digital de toda la organización, adaptándose a los nuevos desarrollos y la creciente escala de datos a preservar.
A unidade de Gestão Digital da UT Libraries apoia o trabalho de preservação digital de todas as bibliotecas do sistema. Quando um dos repositórios das Bibliotecas, seja o Alexander Architectural Archives, a LLILAS Benson ou o Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America, inicia um projeto digital novo, a unidade de Gestão Digital geralmente auxilia a criar os planos iniciais de processamento. Os profissionais da unidade instalam ferramentas e dão treinamento para recuperar dados de mídias mais antigas como floppy disks e discos Zip ou para adquirir arquivos produzidos por organizações parceiras e pesquisadores com trabalhos depositados. O processamento desses materiais deve ser planejado e empreendido com muito cuidado, pois os dados podem estar expostos ao risco de perda permanente causado por formatos e mídia obsoletos ou por problemas políticos ou físicos em ambientes locais.
Disquete de uma coleção arquival das bibliotecas UT Libraries
Utilizando uma abordagem de ciclo de vida, a unidade também coordena a guarda a longo prazo desses arquivos valiosos e às vezes vulneráveis. A Gestão Digital desenvolve práticas para organizar, dar nomes e descrever os arquivos visando a armazenagem uniforme de todos os diversos dados de preservação da UT Libraries em conformidade com as normas internacionais. Quando os funcionários de repositórios concluem seu processamento, a unidade de Gestão Digital providencia cópias dos dados a serem preservados, armazena-os em sistema de armazenagem segura de longo prazo, mantém registros centralizados detalhados e providencia cópias de reserva em local externo. A unidade colabora de modo contínuo com os repositórios da UT Libraries ao longo do tempo para aprimorar as práticas de preservação digital em toda a organização, sempre se adaptando aos novos avanços e ao aumento em escala do universo de dados a serem preservados.
The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) is pleased to announce the opening of the Baniwa of the Aiary and Içana Collection of Robin M. Wright. The materials in this collection cover research Wright conducted from 1976 to the present among the Baniwa, a northern Arawak–speaking people who live both in villages in the Northwest Amazon and in urban contexts. The digitization was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
During his career as an academic researcher and activist in Brazil and the United States, Wright has focused on the history of the Baniwa people and their religious practices, including shamanism, prophet movements, and evangelization within the region, publishing several books on these subjects.
The collection is multimedia, consisting of over 81 hours of audio, 16 hours of video, and 2,300 scanned pages, and includes a large amount of analog material that has been digitized and made accessible to indigenous communities and researchers. “The Baniwa have anxiously waited for this material to become available, and it certainly has acquired even more importance given the Baniwa cultural ‘revitalization’ that has been taking place over the last few decades,” said Wright.
Manuel da Silva (l) and Robin Wright. Da Silva is a Baniwa shaman and one of Wright’s longtime collaborators. Wright wrote a long biography of him in one of his monographs. https://ailla.utexas.org/islandora/object/ailla:273071
According to the collection guide, the materials in the collection correspond to two major periods. “The first corresponds to Wright’s field trips to Baniwa communities during 1976 and 1977. The second is a longer span covering the period from 1990 to 2010, when Wright was working on projects including the creation of the Waferinaipe Ianheke collection of Baniwa myths, collaborative research projects on traditional Baniwa knowledge surrounding diseases and their treatments, and collaborative projects with shamanic knowledge and sacred sites.”
AILLA manager Susan Kung initially met with Wright at his University of Florida office in June 2018 to discuss the process of organizing, digitizing, and archiving his collection. Kung says “we discussed the potentially sensitive nature of his materials and what was appropriate for AILLA’s different access levels, as well as the types of metadata that we would need for the final arrangement.”
A look inside one of the boxes of Wright’s physical materials that arrived at AILLA (photo by Ryan Sullivant)
In June 2019, AILLA Language Data Curator Ryan Sullivant traveled to Gainesville, FL, with Linguistics Professor Patience Epps, a specialist in Amazonian indigenous languages and co-PI on the grant, to review Wright’s materials, work on describing them, and determine what to include in AILLA’s digital collection. Also discussed were “how to arrange the materials, and how to handle materials that are worth preserving and distributing through AILLA, but whose access must be controlled,” Sullivant said. “This last part is important because one of the main themes of Wright’s work, and the collection, are Baniwa healers’ stories and blessings, which are sacred knowledge and should not be accessed by just anyone.” In the end, only some of the contents were restricted and most of the material was made public.
Capela (chapel), Itacoatiara-Mirim, São Gabriel, Amazonas, Brazil. Robin Wright’s research included both Indigenous religious practices as well as the effects of Protestant evangelization in Baniwa communities. https://ailla.utexas.org/islandora/object/ailla:273376
Digitization Services at the Perry-Castañeda Library digitized microcassettes and AILLA staff digitized standard-sized audio cassettes, scanned thousands of manuscript pages, and handled many already digitized and born-digital files. Sullivant worked closely, albeit remotely, with Wright during the arrangement and description of the materials, and wrote the collection guide, which he translated into Spanish and Portuguese. This is the first AILLA collection to have a Portuguese collection guide.
Robin Wright is director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Florida, where he is also affiliated faculty in Anthropology and Latin American Studies. The curation of this collection was made possible by generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is part of an NEH-funded project to bring together and preserve a number of important Indigenous language collections from South America.
Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from the Libraries’ Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship to encourage and inspire critical reflection of and future creative contributions to the growing fields of digital scholarship.
Mapping Access is a crowdsourced mapping and data visualization project started at Vanderbilt University through their Critical Design Lab that examines physical and social barriers on the Vanderbilt campus. Professor Aimi Hamraie began the project as a Dean’s Fellowship in 2016 with a small $2500 grant from the National Humanities Alliance and in partnership with the Nashville Feminist Collective. Vanderbilt University Library Fellow Leah Samples was charged with planning and execution of the project. The initial goal was to assess and map the accessibility of spaces around Vanderbilt and Nashville in order to provide necessary information to disabled users for navigating around campus but also more generally to gain insights and to look critically into the accessibility of built environments. The project’s website explains that Mapping Access was informed and influenced by methods and theories from disability justice, the environmental humanities, intersectionality, and critical GIS to look beyond code compliance and satisfying legal standards to create a more human centered approach to accessibility. As such, it exemplifies one of the key principles of the Universal Design movement, namely that features that help disabled users will also yield benefits to non-disabled users.
Leah Samples used geospatial data, participatory research, urban cartography and mobile technologies to achieve the aims of the project. Through the use of focus groups, project members were able to build and refine a survey that was ultimately managed in REDcap, a survey and data collection app created at Vanderbilt. Project members organized a one day Map-A-Thon where volunteers could add relevant data to a map of the University. In the Map-A-Thon, 120 participants surveyed the campus for accessible features and barriers and updated a live map with images and descriptive text so all participants could view the project’s progress and see which buildings were being mapped. . A live Twitter stream also allowed the team to track progress in real-time. The event featured panel discussions and speakers throughout the day highlighting the intersectional nature of disability studies.
Promotional image for Vanderbilt Accessibility Map-a-Thon, April 8,2016.
After gathering data from the live mapping event, team members reviewed and cleaned the data, they visualized the GIS data using R and Shiny, and they created JSON drafts that were edited in Atom. The resulting Campus Access Amenities Map examines not only accessible features such as automatic doors, ramps, and sidewalk obstructions (permanent and impermanent); it also highlights inclusive features such as all-gender bathrooms, lactation rooms, prayer and meditation spaces, showers and Blue Light Security stations.
Detail of campus amenities map highlighting user generated text describing a permanent sidewalk obstruction.
“New digital projects use geographic information systems (GIS) and crowdsourcing applications to gather data about the accessibility of public spaces for disabled people. While these projects offer useful tools, their approach to technology and disability is often depoliticized. Compliance-based maps take disability for granted as medical impairment and do not consider mapping as a humanistic and activist practice. This essay draws on digital humanities theories of “thick mapping” and critical disability theories of public citizenship to offer critical accessibility mapping as an alternative to compliance-focused mapping. Using Mapping Access as a case study, I frame digital mapping as a question-generating device, a site of narrative praxis, rather than mere data visualization. I argue that critical accessibility mapping offers a digital humanities-informed model of “sociospatial practice,” with several distinct benefits: it recognizes marginalized experts; redefines the concepts of data, crowdsourcing, and public participation; offers new stories about disability and public belonging; and materializes the principles of disability justice, an early twentieth-century movement emphasizing intersectionality and collective access.”
Digital accessibility maps are becoming more commonplace either through commercial apps or crowdsourced digital humanities projects like Mapping Access. These kinds of initiatives can not only yield direct and tangible results to help people with disabilities get around but more importantly, they offer critical insights into the built environment that can influence architects and policy makers to make meaningful changes to create accessible spaces for all.
citations
Elwood, S., Schuurman, N. & Wilson, W. (2011). Critical gis. In T. L. Nyerges H. Couclelis & R. McMaster The SAGE handbook of GIS and society(pp. 87-106). London: SAGE Publications Ltd doi: 10.4135/9781446201046.n5
Hamraie, Aimi. “Mapping Access: Digital Humanities, Disability Justice, and Sociospatial Practice.” American Quarterly, vol. 70 no. 3, 2018, p. 455-482. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/704333
Hamraie, Aimi. Building Access : Universal Design and the Politics of Disability / Aimi Hamraie. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017. Print.
More than 60 thousand scanned images from seven archival collections throughout Latin America are now available online in the updated Latin American Digital Initiatives (LADI) repository (ladi.lib.utexas.edu). The site was developed over the course of two years by the LLILAS Benson Digital Initiatives team and University of Texas Libraries software developers, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A previous version of the site, featuring four archival collections, launched in 2015.
¡Alto a la represión del sindicalismo! [Stop the repression of unionism!] From the Colección Conflicto Armado, Afiches, collection, Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, San Salvador, El Salvador. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/en/mupi01
The digitized images in the LADI repository were created by archive-holding organizations in Latin America in partnership with LLILAS Benson. Partnering organizations produced high-quality scans and detailed metadata about their collections, while LLILAS Benson staff offered equipment, on-site training, and technical consultation under a post-custodial archival framework. The online repository is intended for use by researchers, teachers, and activists, as well as the communities to which the materials belong. The site can be navigated in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Manifestaciones reclamando la reglamentación del artículo transitorio 55 [Protests demanding the establishment of Artículo Transitorio 55]. From the Colección Dinámicas Organizativas del Pueblo Negro en Colombia, Proceso de Comunidades Negras, Buenaventura, Colombia. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/en/pcn01
The collections found in LADI span the sixteenth through the twenty-first centuries, and were created by project staff at the following partnering organizations: Archivo Judicial del Estado de Puebla (Mexico), BICU-CIDCA (Nicaragua), Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica (CIRMA, Guatemala), Equipe de Articulação e Assessoria às Comunidades Negras do Vale do Ribeira (EAACONE, Brazil), Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (MUPI, El Salvador), and Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN, Colombia). The variety of materials found in these collections reflects the ethnic and social diversity of Latin America. At the same time, the collections speak to common struggles that reach across temporal and geographic boundaries. The particular thematic strengths of the collections in the repository include Afro-Latinx and Indigenous rights, environmental justice, and Cold War–era internal armed conflicts. The collections are:
Archivo de Inforpress Centroamericana (CIRMA, Guatemala)
Colección Conflicto Armado. Afiches. (MUPI, El Salvador)
Colección Conflicto Armado. Publicaciones. (MUPI, El Salvador)
Colección Digital del Periódico “La Información” (BICU-CIDCA, Nicaragua)
Colección Digital Fondo Real de Cholula (Archivo Judicial del Estado de Puebla, Mexico)
Colección Dinámicas Organizativas del Pueblo Negro en Colombia (PCN, Colombia)
Quilombos do Vale do Ribeira SP/PR (EAACONE, Brazil)
MOAB – A Saga de um Povo [MOAB – The Saga of a People]. From the Quilombos do Vale do Ribeira SP/PR collection, Equipe de Articulação e Assessorias às Comunidades Negras do Vale do Ribeira, Eldorado, Brazil. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/en/eaacone01
About the Site Update
The new version of the site was built from the ground up using an open-source technology stack consisting of Fedora 5, Islandora 8, and Drupal 8, based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF) for linked data. The updated repository infrastructure greatly improves the site’s multilingual capabilities and provides more connections between objects to improve cross-searching and discoverability. The site was developed using a combination of standard Islandora features and custom code, which was contributed back to the Islandora community.
Avalúo de los bienes de Manuel Romero [Appraisal of the assets of Manuel Romero]. Colección Digital Fondo Real de Cholula, Archivo Judicial del Estado de Puebla. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/en/frc01
The core project team consisted of David Bliss, Itza Carbajal, Minnie Rangel, Brandon Stennett, and Theresa Polk. The LLILAS Benson Digital Initiatives team would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the many others who supported this project, including the project staff and leadership at each partner organization; scholar liaisons Dr. Anthony Dest, Dr. Lidia Gómez García, Dr. Kelly McDonough, and Dr. Edward Shore; translators Tereza Braga, Jennifer Isasi, Joshua Ortiz Baco, and Albert Palacios; UT Libraries IT services; the UT Libraries Digital Stewardship team; LLILAS Benson Grants Manager Megan Scarborough; the UT Libraries and LLILAS Benson leadership teams; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Islandora development community; and the graduate research assistants who contributed to the project—Alejandra Martinez, Joshua Ortiz Baco and Elizabeth Peattie.
David A. Bliss is the digital processing archivist for LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, The University of Texas at Austin.
Más de 60 mil imágenes escaneadas, que pertenecen a siete colecciones de archivos digitales, ya se hicieron disponibles en el repositorio Iniciativas Digitales Latinoamericanas (LADI), (ladi.lib.utexas.edu). Recientemente actualizada, la página web fue desarrollada a lo largo de dos años por el equipo de Iniciativas Digitales LLILAS Benson y el equipo de informática de las Bibliotecas de la Universidad de Texas, con el apoyo de la Fundación Andrew W. Mellon. Una versión previa del website fue lanzada en el 2015 y presentó cuatro colecciones de archivos.
¡Alto a la represión del sindicalismo! De la Colección Conflicto Armado, Afiches, Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, San Salvador, El Salvador. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/es/mupi01
Las imágenes digitalizadas que se encuentran en el repositorio LADI fueron creadas por las organizaciones latinoamericanas que son dueños de los archivos, un trabajo que se realizó a través de una colaboración con LLILAS Benson Colecciones y Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de Texas en Austin. Las organizaciones colaboradoras produjeron escaneos de alta calidad y metadatos detallados sobre sus colecciones, mientras el personal de LLILAS Benson ofreció equipamiento, entrenamiento en-sitio y consulta técnica, todo dentro de un marco pos-custodial. El propósito del repositorio online es que esté disponible para investigadores, maestros y activistas, tanto como las comunidades a quienes pertenecen los materiales archivados. El sitio puede ser navegado en inglés, español y portugués.
Manifestaciones reclamando la reglamentación del artículo transitorio 55. De Colección Dinámicas Organizativas del Pueblo Negro en Colombia, Proceso de Comunidades Negras, Buenaventura, Colombia. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/es/pcn01
Las colecciones en LADI abarcan los siglos XVI hasta XXI. Fueron creadas por personal de las siguientes organizaciones socias: Archivo Judicial del Estado de Puebla (México), BICU-CIDCA (Nicaragua), Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica (CIRMA, Guatemala), Equipe de Articulação e Assessorias às Comunidades Negras do Vale do Ribeira (EAACONE, Brasil), Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (MUPI, El Salvador) y Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN, Colombia). La variedad de materiales encontradas en estas colecciones refleja la diversidad étnica y social de Latinoamérica. A la vez, las colecciones manifiestan temas y luchas comunes que atraviesan las fronteras temporales y geográficas. Las áreas de destaque común de las colecciones incluyen los derechos afro-latinx e indígenas; la justicia ambiental; y los conflictos armados internos de la época de la Guerra Fría.
Las colecciones
Archivo de Inforpress Centroamericana (CIRMA, Guatemala)
Colección Conflicto Armado. Afiches. (MUPI, El Salvador)
Colección Conflicto Armado. Publicaciones. (MUPI, El Salvador)
Colección Digital del Periódico “La Información” (BICU-CIDCA, Nicaragua)
Colección Digital Fondo Real de Cholula (Archivo Judicial del Estado de Puebla, México)
Colección Dinamicas Organizativas del Pueblo Negro en Colombia (PCN, Colombia)
Quilombos do Vale do Ribeira SP/PR (EAACONE, Brasil)
MOAB – A saga de um Povo [MOAB – La saga de un Pueblo]. De la colección Quilombos do Vale do Ribeira SP/PR, Equipe de Articulação e Assessorias às Comunidades Negras do Vale do Ribeira, Eldorado, Brasil. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/es/eaacone01
Detalles de la versión actualizada
La nueva versión del sitio fue construida desde cero con el uso de tecnología de acceso abierto que consiste en Fedora 5, Islandora 8 y Drupal 8, basado en el Marco de Descripción de Recursos (Resource Description Framework, o RDF) para datos enlazados. La infraestructura del repositorio actualizado representa un gran mejoramiento en la capacidad multilingüe el sitio, y provee mayores conexiones entre objetos, para mejorar las búsquedas avanzadas y la visibilidad. El sitio fue desarrollado utilizando una combinación de herramientas estándar de Islandora y código especialmente diseñado, el cual ha sido donado a la comunidad Islandora.
Avalúo de los bienes de Manuel Romero. Colección Digital Fondo Real de Cholula, Archivo Judicial del Estado de Puebla. https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/es/frc01
Los miembros del equipo central del proyecto son David Bliss, Itza Carbajal, Minnie Rangel, Brandon Stennett y Theresa Polk. El equipo de Iniciativas Digitales de LLILAS Benson también quisiera reconocer las contribuciones de muchos colegas y entidades que apoyaron este proyecto, como el personal y el liderazgo en las organizaciones colaboradoras; los/las investigadores Dr. Anthony Dest, Dra. Lidia Gómez García, Dra. Kelly McDonough y Dr. Edward Shore; los/las traductores Tereza Braga, Jennifer Isasi, Joshua Ortiz Baco y Albert Palacios; servicios IT de Bibliotecas UT; el equipo de Administración Digital de las Bibliotecas UT; la administradora de subvenciones de LLILAS Benson Megan Scarborough; el liderazgo de las Bibliotecas de UT y de LLILAS Benson; los asistentes posgraduados que contribuyeron a este proyecto—Alejandra Martínez, Joshua Ortiz Baco y Elizabeth Peattie.
David A. Bliss es archivista de procesamiento digital en LLILAS Benson Colecciones y Estudios Latinoamericanos, La Universidad de Texas en Austin.
![Avalúo de los bienes de Manuel Romero [Appraisal of the assets of Manuel Romero]. Colección Digital Fondo Real de Cholula, Archivo Judicial del Estado de Puebla: https://ladi.lib.utexas.edu/en/frc01](https://texlibris.lib.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Cholula.jpg)
