Documenting Movements, Identity, and Popular Culture in Latin America

HCllUJng Movements, tity, and Popular Culture in Latin America SEMINAR ON THE ACQUISITION OF LATIN AMERICAN LIBRARY MATERIALS XLIV HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PROVO, UTAH Documenting Movements, Identity, and Popular Culture in Latin America SALALM Secretariat Benson Latin American Collection The General Libraries The University of Texas at Austin Documenting Movements, Identity, and Popular Culture in Latin America Papers of the Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the SEMINAR ON THE ACQUISITION OF LATIN AMERICAN LIBRARY MATERIALS Nashville, Tennessee May 30 -June 3, 1999 Richard F. Phillips Editor SALALM Secretariat Benson Latin American Collection The General Libraries The University of Texas at Austin ISBN: 0-917617-63-0 Copyright © 2000 by SALALM, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY BRIQHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PROVO, UTAH . 2 Contents Preface ix I. Challenges for Librarianship 1 Considerations for Outsourcing Cataloging Claire-Lise Bénaud 3 2. Documenting Cultural Heritage: The Oral History Collections at The University of the West Indies Margaret D . Rouse-Jones and Enid Brown 1 3. La importancia de la información en la construcción de la identidad cultural Saray Córdoba G. 27 4. Selecting for Storage: Local Problems, Local Responses, and an Emerging Common Challenge Dan Hazen 34 5. Centros de documentación y bases de datos sobre asuntos de la mujer y género en América Latina /. Félix Martínez Barrientos 46 II. Culture 6. The Tango and the Buenos Aires Urban Identity Simon Collier 63 7. The Body as Vehicle of Political Identity in the Art of José Clemente Orozco Leonard Folgarait 72 8. Pan, Parang, and Chutney: Identity, Music, and Popular Cultural Forms in Trinidad and Tobago Kathleen Helenese-Paul 80 9. Preserving Our Heritage: The Work of Al Ramsawack, Folklorist of Trinidad and Tobago Jennifer Joseph 100 10. The Way We Live: Fetes and Festivals of the English-Speaking Caribbean Elmelinda Lara 108 VI CONTENTS 11. In Their Own Words: The Folk Literature of South American Indians Series Colleen H.Trujillo 121 12. "Yo vivo de lo que escribo": Antonio Paredes Cândia, Bolivian Folklorist John B.Wright 130 13. Los esfuerzos por recuperar y preservar el cine puertorriqueño Víctor Torres 148 III. Women and Identity 14. A Bolivian Literary Minority: Women Writers Nelly S. González 157 15. Memory and Identity in Selected French Caribbean Women Writers: Maryse Conde and Simone Schwarz-Bart Marian Goslinga 169 16. Menchu, Stoll, and Ideology: Oral History and Documentation MarkL.Grover 179 17. The Urban Woman in the Electronic Age: A Survey of Electronic Resources Mina Jane Grothey 188 18. Frances Toor and the Mexican Cultural Renaissance Peter Stern 200 19. Escritoras cubanas en el exilio Lesbia Orta Varona 220 IV. Society 20. Cultural Amnesia: Systematically Erasing the History of Brazilian Industrialization Marshall C. Eakin 229 21. Documenting Maya Resurgence: Trends in Maya Scholarship and Publishing Edward F. Fischer 236 22. Military Power and Privilege in Contemporary Latin America: Suggestions on Sources Wendy Hunter 244 23. Searching for Maroons in the Historical Record: New Approaches Jane Landers 253 CONTENTS Vil 24. Unintended Outcomes: William Walker and the Emergence of Nicaraguan Nationalism Emily Story 265 25. Dual Identities? The Andean Gentry in Peru and Alto Peru, 1533-1826 Rafael E. Tarrago 270 26. Old Pitfalls and New Opportunities in Documenting Popular Political Culture in Latin America Kurt Weyland 290 Contributors 305 Conference Program 307 Preface As I look back on my Peace Corps service days in Brazil in 1971-1972, 1 recall being profoundly struck with an eager interest in all things sertanejo, an expres- sion of the truly essential character of the hearty folks of the rugged interior of Pernambuco. In my mind it is no great leap to see where the inspiration for the theme of the 1999 meeting of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin Ameri- can Library Materials (SALALM) came from. One draws from experience. Indeed, I have always drawn upon my experiences. I grew up in a diverse community in eastern New York and count among my friends many Shin- necock Indians from the nearby reservation. I also shared many good times during my youth with migrant workers in the area. To me, living in Pernambuco was in some ways like living in that community. But, of course, Latin America is not the same as it was in the 1970s. Ensu- ing years have been marked by an opening of the cultural and political channels of Latin American societies to marginalized groups. Voiceless groups are sud- denly organizing, sharing experiences, clamoring for opportunity, and generat- ing documentation of their goals, dreams, and objectives. Faced with new flows of information in formats and vehicles previously little known and often undervalued, libraries, librarians, and libreros have had to look for new ways to identify, collect, and organize such materials. Nontra- ditional publishing presents many challenges for both collector and dealer. I want to thank many people who helped organize the SALALM meeting. Paula Covington, local arrangements chair, provided vision and "savvy." Her staff and assistants were extremely valuable in many ways. I am also very grateful to Vanderbilt University for its commitment to making our meeting a success. Thanks also go to the panel organizers and participants. Their ideas formed the SALALM XLIV program. I want to express my gratitude to the SALALM Secretariat as well for its efficiency and helpfulness. Let me also acknowledge Dale Canelas, Sam Gowan, John Ingram, and Mary Gallant at the University of Florida Libraries for their support. Carole Bird, Justino Llanque- Chana, Irmi Feldman, and Paul Losch also merit my profound thanks. Last, family and friends too numerous to mention are in my prayers and thoughts. These are special people. These are special times. IX I. Challenges for Librarianship 1 . Considerations for Outsourcing Cataloging Claire-Lise Bénaud Outsourcing is the transfer of an internal function to an outside vendor. In its most basic form, it is a fancy term for paying someone else to do your work. It implies that the "someone else" will provide the product cheaper than can be achieved in-house. The growth of outsourcing in cataloging departments in the 1990s can be attributed to budgetary shortages and advances in technology. The practice is perhaps reinforced by cataloging 's lack of visibility in the library. The cataloging community has been vocal about outsourcing: the main concern for catalogers remains the accuracy of the bibliographic record and the integrity of the online catalog, while the main concerns for library administrators are cost and productivity. The recipient of the bibliographic record—the library user—is often not consulted. l General Considerations Most academic libraries today are not receiving substantial funding increases. If new acquisitions have to be made, if library hours have to be maintained, if reference desks have to be staffed, the funds to support these services must come from the library's budget. Cataloging is invisible to patrons and administrators, whereas reference services, teaching, and computer termi- nals for Internet access are visible to all. The high cost associated with processing every book and serial and the perception that cataloging can be done more cheaply by a vendor make cataloging an obvious target for budget cuts. Cataloging is also a good target because, unlike other library departments, it is a production department: it is easy to quantify output and to specify the number of records that can be purchased from a vendor. Outsourcing also allows administrators to budget a predictable amount of money for cataloging. In contrast, hiring staff does not guarantee that a certain number of books will be cataloged. When a library finds itself in the opposite situation, that is, when it receives extra funds, these typically go toward acquisitions. There is usually no corresponding funding increase for processing, and administrators are more willing to spend money on outsourcing than to hire more staff. Although the motivation to outsource is based on the need to save money, technology is making outsourcing of cataloging a viable option. For example, records can be loaded into databases quickly and effortlessly and optical 4 CLAIRE-LISE BENAUD scanning technology is readily available, making it easy to add table of contents, for example. Vendors are taking full advantage of these technological developments. While libraries may purchase cataloging records from various vendors, they may also purchase a full package of products from a single vendor: the book itself, the matching catalog records (bibliographic, authority, and/or item), and physical processing for the book. The position of the OPAC relative to other databases also affects how cataloging is perceived. Web-based products are playing a more prominent role and many no longer see the OPAC as the library's central database. For example, at the University of New Mexico (UNM) General Library, access to the electronic journal holdings is more efficient through a specialized Web page than through the OPAC. The OPAC is simply one of many databases available to library users. Vendor-produced indexes and full-text databases such as First- Search, Lexis/Nexis, and EBSCO are commonplace. Other libraries may fol- low the same logic for their OPAC, that is, they may have it produced and maintained by a commercial vendor rather than by the library's cataloging department. It is conceivable that libraries can build an OPAC without a cataloging department. Outsourcing: An Evolving Concept The concept of outsourcing has evolved during the last three decades. The business literature reveals that in the 1970s outsourcing simply involved a sup- plier providing a service to a company by managing and performing a function formerly done in-house.

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