Just once month after announcing the highest ever usage for the UF Digital Collections (UFDC) with 3.2 million hits in October 2011, we saw another dramatic increase with 4 million hits for November 2011!

The UF Digital Collections (UFDC)  have seen continuous, steady increases in usage thanks to the abundance of amazing content and ongoing search engine optimization work. November was another milestone with nearly 4.1 million human hits to the UF Digital Collections (UFDC) and associated collections and libraries, as with the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC).

• October usage: 3,196,063 views
• November usage: 4,076,673 views

Here’s to upcoming months of increased exposure, usage, and impact for the UF Digital Collections and for all those who work with and support open access to digitized materials as well as to digital scholarship!

The UF Digital Collections have seen continuous, steady usage thanks to loads and loads (and loads) of wonderful content and ongoing search engine optimization work. October was another milestone with nearly 3.2 million human hits to the UF Digital Collections (UFDC) and associated collections and libraries, as with the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC).

October usage: 3,196,063 views. Here’s to the coming months with increased exposure, usage, and impact for the UF Digital Collections and all who work with and support open access to digitized cultural and historical materials as well as to digital scholarship.

UNESCO’s Global Open Access Portal (GOAP) lists many important Open Access initiatives and programs. One of those listed is the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), for which the University of Florida is the technical partner. There’s more on GOAP below and more on dLOC on the dLOC site (www.dloc.com), which is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. dLOC provides open access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections.

Global Open Access Portal

Features of GOAP

The portal provides a high-level view of the Open Access environment and is not designed to provide an inventory of repositories, OA journals, and other associated initiatives. The primary target audience includes policy-makers, advocates, and delegates from national, regional, and non-governmental organizations as well as members of the OA community. The Portal aims at being the first destination of information seekers on OA. It is also supplemented by a Community of Practice through the exiting online platform “WSIS Knowledge Communities”. The GOAP is a knowledge portal that has the following features:

• Country-wise distilled knowledge on the status of Open Access
• Key organizations engaged in OA in Member States
• Thematic focus areas of OA
• Important publications on OA coming from different regions of the world
• Critical assessment of major barriers to OA in each country
• Potential of OA in UNESCO Member States
• Funding and deposit mandates
• Links to OA initiatives in the world

The post below is by Paul Losch, from the UF Latin American Collection newsletter.

Football season begins tomorrow and Gator fans may be interested to know that the UF football team visited Havana in December 1912, nearly 99 years ago. They went on a kind of informal athletic excursion that was relatively common before the modern system of post-season bowl games was instituted.

Someone on that 1912 trip brought back some Cuban newspapers as souvenirs, and these ended up in the University Archives. The UF Digital Collections recently put them online as a small but valuable addition to the collection of historical newspapers already available in the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC).

Two games were arranged against private athletic clubs. The result of the first game was Florida 27, Vedado Tennis Club 0, and the event is described in the articles below.

• Cuba – “Los Floridanos Aniquilaron al V.T.C.”
• Havana Post -  “Florida University Eleven Puts It All Over Vedado Tennis Club”
• La Lucha -  “Florida Footballers”
• La Noche -  “27 Puntos el Florida”

We also have a program from the first game, online in the UF Digital Collections here.

The second game, against the Club Atlético, was not as successful as the first. It was forfeited by the UF team on account of a dispute over rules, and the police were called because of complaints from paying spectators who felt cheated out of the price of admission.

• La Prensa -  “Espectáculo Bochornoso en Almendares Park”
• La Lucha -  “Los Patos Se Rajaron” (UF team referred to not as “Gators” but as “Ducks,” like the ones that migrate seasonally between the peninsula and the island).

Despite this unfortunate first attempt at international relations, friendly athletic exchanges between UF and the Universidad de la Habana eventually did take place on various occasions.

News:

Caribbean Region of the International Resource Network presents “Preserving Our Stories – Caribbean LGBT Histories & Activism” Launch & Discussion The Digital Archive Collection of the Jamaica Gay Freedom Movement 21 June, 2011 at 6PM (USA Eastern Standard Time)

Panelists include: Larry Chang (co-founder of the Jamaica Gay Freedom Movement and Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals & Gays – JFLAG) & Thomas Glave (award-winning author and co-founder of JFLAG); along with co-chairs of the Caribbean IRN Board: Angelique V. Nixon (scholar, writer, community worker) & Rosamond S. King (writer, scholar, artist)

Also featuring the short documentary “Sisters without Misters” by Cynthia Cheeseman http://bandwagonist.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/sisters-without-misters/

The digital archive is hosted by the Digital Library of the Caribbean at: http://dloc.com/icirngfm.

The event will be based at Brooklyn College,Woody Tanger Auditorium in the Library, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11210.

Questions can be posed by emailing to caribbeanirn@gmail.com

The Caribbean IRN Board is looking forward to this important digital launch and discussion of the Jamaica Gay Freedom Movement Archive! Help us spread the word to folks in the region especially and/or anyone you know who is interested in these histories and activism. The Caribbean IRN is a resource for people and organizations inside and outside the region whose work focuses on issues related to diverse genders and sexualities in the Caribbean.

Please visit our website for more information about our work: http://www.irnweb.org/ en/about/region/caribbean. The International Resource Network is supported by the Ford Foundation and housed at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York.

The digitization of this archive was made possible through a City University of New York Diversity Grant.

Special thanks to Stephanie Harvey, who organized and digitized the archive, to Marianne LaBatto, and the entire Brooklyn College Division of Archives & Special Collections. This event was made possible through a City University of New York Diversity Grant, with additional support from the Brooklyn College Department of Africana Studies and the Brooklyn College Division of Academic Information Technologies.

Please note: this event has already taken place, but I will update with comments (or others, please do) if I find the video of the event online. Despite my tardiness in posting, I still wanted to share this to promote the important work being done.

In April, Europeana announced that they would be releasing a number of additional online exhibits this year. They’ve already released quite a few including:

• From Dada to Surrealism Exhibition Live
• Yiddish Theatre in London Virtual Exhibition Live

These are wonderful online exhibits on their own. It’s also wonderful to see Europeana’s dedication to supporting online exhibits because online exhibits allow people to see, use, and understand materials in new ways that enhance the experience with the online exhibit and the collections it draws upon. The process of creation online exhibits itself is also requires scholarly and creative work for the curation and design. The UF Digital Collections and Digital Library of the Caribbean have released and constantly at work on new online exhibits in collaboration with researchers, and we’re always amazed at how positive the response is to the online exhibits.

The Digital Library of the Caribbean’s diverse partners serve an international community of scholars, students, and citizens by working together to preserve and to provide enhanced electronic access to cultural, historical, legal, governmental, and research materials in a common web space with a multilingual interface.

Please read our latest newsletter to learn about new partners, new content and new technologies available in dLOC.

• English
• Français
• Español

If it has been a while since you’ve been to www.dloc.com, we encourage you to browse our more than 1.5 million pages of content. Enjoy reading more about dLOC in the newsletter and please contact us with any questions or suggestions.

Also, we encourage you to forward the newsletter to any professional associations or colleagues that are interested in the region!

30 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, ERIC WILLIAMS MEMORIAL COLLECTION CELEBRATES CENTENARY OF HIS BIRTH

“He made us proud to be who we were, and optimistic, as never before, about what we were going to be, or could be.” Arnold Rampersad, Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University

PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD (March 19, 2011) – March 22, 2011 will usher in the 13th anniversary of the inauguration of The Eric Williams Memorial Collection (EWMC) at The University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, by former US Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell. Powell heralded the country’s first Prime Minister, who died in office on March 29, 1981:  “No one was a greater fighter for justice and equality.  No one was a greater leader.”  More recently, Dr. Williams was honoured as scholar, politician and international statesman when former South African President Thabo Mbeki wrote the Foreword to the University of South Africa Press’ first publication of Williams’ seminal work, Capitalism and Slavery.

The EWMC consists of Williams’ Research Library, Archives and Museum and is the English-speaking Caribbean’s first effort at establishing an entity akin to a U.S. Presidential Library. In 1999, it was named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register. At the time, the documentary heritage of only 47 other countries had been so designated. To date, four biographies of Williams either have been published or are in progress – one dedicated to the EWMC. In the prior seventeen years before the appearance of the first, nothing of note was written.

“Those who labored in the organizational, financial and other vineyards to create the Collection have provided a unique intellectual gift, not just to Trinidad and Tobago…” states Professor Ivelaw Griffith, former Dean of Florida International University’s Honors College.

In addition to the physical repository at UWI the EWMC, among other activities, promotes, facilitates and organizes: international conferences (four to date) and conference panels; Encyclopedia entries; symposia; lectureships (Florida International University’s Eric Williams Memorial Lecture is now in its thirteenth consecutive year); book publications and launches; a regional Essay Competition in 17 Caribbean countries, 178 schools; and the first annual CAPE Prize in History. The EWMC has introduced an Oral History Project, comprising hundreds of interviews and calypsoes about Eric Williams; has been the subject of academic papers, lectures and books, and has received multiple awards and recognition for its efforts.  It has also collaborated with the Mayor of London and continues to do so annually with the University of Sheffield in the U.K.  Community-based initiatives are two school pilot projects – The Baby Think it Over anti-teen pregnancy programme, and The Killing Fields: Man’s Inhumanity to Man – a Genocide/Holocaust programme.  In the future, the Collection will team up with Williams’ alma mater at Oxford University – establishing a scholarship in his name in perpetuity.

As 2011 is the Centenary of the birth of Eric Williams, the EWMC is actively involved in numerous celebratory projects: an Oxford/Harvard Universities co-sponsored conference; a Symposium at the University of London; a University of Havana, Cuba conference; the Cuban publication of two of Williams’ books in Spanish (including details of his many contacts with Cuban scholars and several visits to the country in the 1940’s and again in 1975); two Trinidad and Tobago Schools Stamp Design and Performing Arts competitions (co-sponsored by the Trinidad and Tobago Postal Corporation and UNESCO); the Launch of Eric Williams Centenary Stamps, with proceeds donated to the hearing impaired of Trinidad and Tobago; the publication of Williams’ dissertation, from which emanated  Capitalism and Slavery; the re-issue of the book in Brazil and Spain for the first time in some 40 years; the production of a 16-month historical calendar; and the online publication of Williams’ bibliography, consisting of over 1000 titles.

All of these efforts have been amply promoted in the local, regional and international media – from London’s British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and the British Virgin Islands Island Sun to the Organization of American States’ Americas magazine – in both English and Spanish.

Thus, with all of its other endeavours, the EWMC is a model for the Caribbean, a means of demonstrating to its younger generation the vital connection to the past – what that means for both the present and for the future.  When the University College of the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands’ H. Lavity Stoutt Community College and the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, along with the latter’s UK consultants, sought pointers in the creation of their own museums, it was to The Eric Williams Memorial Collection they came – visiting several times.

Guests of the EWMC Museum continue to be inspired by their experience, as were the Vice President of India; the Prime Minister and former Prime Minister of St. Vincent/Grenadines and Jamaica respectively; former Mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani, Commonwealth Secretary General, Prime Minister of Tonga, and three Nobel Laureates.  Thousands of Trinidad and Tobago students – along with schools/universities from Barbados; Guadeloupe (including the Chamber of Commerce); Martinique; St. Lucia; Suriname; US Virgin Islands; Mauritius; UK; US – have toured the facility since its inception.  While a mere 20 schools visited in 2001, this figure had quadrupled within two years.  And the young continue to demonstrate their profound comprehension as they speak, following, to what the EWMC means to the population at large and, as important, what it will mean to future sons and daughters of Trinidad and Tobago, in particular, and of the Caribbean, indeed the world, in general.

“A deep sense of awe and respect, pride, descends upon me in this place.  A remarkable collection.” Romaine Vularoel

“Without a past, how can we look towards the future. This establishment is amazing!” Nicola Whitley, Trinidad and Tobago student
“An inspiring experience. Propels one to soar to highest high.” Sophia Almorales, Trinidad and Tobago student

“Thank you very much for treasuring what is really ours.” Kimberley Correia, Trinidad and Tobago student

The EWMC is about teaching, research, and community service.

“What we research, is what we teach, is how we can give back.”

Media Contact

Erica Williams Connell
305-905-9999
ewmc@ewmc-tt.org

News Release from the University of Miami Libraries (a dLOC partner):

Coral Gables, FL. – The University of Miami Libraries and the College of Arts and Sciences have received a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to rebuild the technical and organizational infrastructure for the Cuban Theater Digital Archive (CTDA), a unique digital collection of Cuban theater resources.

“The CTDA is a fantastic example of how the University of Miami Libraries support interdisciplinary scholarship using innovative new media,” said Dean and University Librarian William Walker. “We are grateful for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s recognition of our commitment to this unique scholarly resource. We hope that our partnership with the College of Arts and Sciences will serve as a model for other creative digital humanities initiatives at the University and beyond.”

Leonidas Bachas, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said the CTDA provides an innovative approach to research, teaching, and learning in the humanities and the arts and “explores new methods of scholarly publishing in a networked environment. The partnership between the Center for Latin American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences and the UM Libraries is ideal, given the center’s renewed focus on the Caribbean as well as the Libraries’ extensive collections in this area.”

The CTDA was established by Lillian Manzor, associate professor of modern languages and literatures and Latin American studies, and the UM Libraries as the result of a 2005 Digital Library Fellowship. The initiative’s purpose is threefold: It is a resource for teaching, learning, and research in Cuban theater and performance as well as in related fields; a community repository for important Cuban theatrical materials; and a forum to foster scholarly communication in this field.

As such, the CTDA participates in a virtual culture that allows for communication and exchange to take place between communities that are socially and geographically separated. The Digital Archive includes materials digitized and filmed in Cuba as well as resources and information related to Cuban theater in the Diaspora, with a special focus on theater produced by the Cuban community in the United States.

The $172,000 grant comes on the heels of the completion of a six-month research and planning initiative, also funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which determined the importance of the CTDA to the broader academic and cultural communities, as well as the need to rebuild its technical and organizational back-end. The new grant will support an overhaul of the CTDA’s technical infrastructure to better support the long-term contribution of new content from geographically dispersed partners. This work, led by the University of Miami Richter Library, will be complemented by an organizational restructuring led by the Center for Latin American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

With the aid of the Mellon Foundation, the yearlong project of establishing a sustainable infrastructure for the CTDA will bring CTDA staff and international partners closer to their goal of creating the world’s most comprehensive scholarly record of Cuban theater. It will also allow the CTDA to realize its mission of engaging educational, scholarly, artistic, and cultural communities across national boundaries in a collaborative virtual environment.

The grant will be led by principal investigators Manzor, of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Kyle Rimkus, of the Richter Library.

To view the official press release, please visit:
http://everitas.univmiami.net/2011/01/21/mellon-foundation-grant-will-help-cuban-theater-digital-archive-improve-technical-infrastructure/

The University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies will sponsor Library Travel Research Grants for summer 2011. Their purpose is to enable faculty researchers from other U.S. colleges and universities to use the extensive resources of the Latin American Collection in the University of Florida Libraries, thereby enhancing its value as a national resource.  The grants are funded by a Title VI National Resource Center grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

Six or more travel grants of up to $1250 each will be made to cover travel and lodging expenses. Grantees are expected to remain in Gainesville for at least one week and, following their stay, submit a brief (2-3 pp.) report on how their work at UF Libraries enriched their research project and offer suggestions for possible improvements of the Latin American Collection. Researchers’ work at the Latin American Collection may be undertaken at any time during the summer, starting May 15, 2011.  All travel must be completed by August 14, 2011. At least one grant will be made to a scholar from a Florida college or university.

Applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents.
Application Deadline: March 2, 2011

The UF Libraries Latin American Collection

The UF Libraries’ Latin American Collection contains one of the finest collections of Latin American materials in the U.S. It consists of over 500,000 volumes, some 50,000 reels of microfilm (many unique and very scarce), renowned newspaper and government-document holdings, and a growing access to computer-based electronic information resources.

Areas of collection focus include all disciplines, although literature, the humanities and the social sciences are best represented. All regions of Latin America are also well represented, with the Caribbean, Circum-Caribbean and Brazil having the deepest holdings, while the Andean and Southern Cone regions are developing strengths. Particularly noteworthy are the Collection’s holdings on religion in the Americas, including Santeria, Rastafarianism and the Ralph Della Cava Collection on Padre Cícero and Brazilian popular religion. Materials on women’s issues are strong.

Other units of the UF Libraries also contain important resources and researchers are encouraged to utilize them as well. The UF Map Library houses approximately 500,000 maps and atlases, some 50,000 of which deal with Latin American topics. The Science Library has important book and journal holdings on agriculture, tropical conservation, and development. The Special Collections Department has manuscript holdings such as the Rochambeau, Jeremie and the Braga Brothers Sugar Company papers, and the newly acquired Ramón Figueroa Collection of Mexican and Cuban film posters. (Selected materials are available in the international collaborative Digital Library of the Caribbean, to which UF has and continues to contribute to on a regular basis.)

Information on the UF Latin American Collection is available at: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/lac. You can also e-mail Richard Phillips, Director of the Latin American Collection, for further information.

Application Procedure

All applications must be filed electronically. To apply for a Library Travel Grant, send a letter of intent, brief library research proposal, travel budget, and CV to:

Aimee Green, Program Coordinator
Center for Latin American Studies
318 Grinter Hall
Telephone: 352-273-4715
E-mail: agreen@latam.ufl.edu