Library Services to Youth of Hispanic Heritage

This is a book that I will keep in my reference collection. It is packed with trial and error reports, good advice, and valuable resources. It is actually a series of essays gathered by the Trejo Foster Foundation for Hispanic Library Education. The essays are aranged by topics: Programs, Collections, Planning and Evaluating, Bibliographical Resources, and For the Future. Many ideas can be gleaned from this and there is also an excellent annotated bibliography. I especially enjoyed the thoughtful ideas about how to contact people in the community and what to offer them to bring them to the library. There were great sources on how to build a collection including titles, authors and publishers.

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Immroth , B. F. (2000). Library services to youth of hispanic heritage . Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company.

Mummies

There are three interesting aspects to consider about the mummies: how they came about, Ray Bradbury’s short story and why they’re still there.

Evidently, the combination of local conditions of high heat, low humidity and special soil composition quickly turned the bodies in the crypts into mummies. These, 119 in number, are the well preserved bodies of the dead of Guanjuato, whose loved ones probably couldn’t afford the upkeep fees at the local cemetery. When a family failed to pay three years in a row, between 1896 and 1958, the bodies were exhumed and deposited in the local museum. People believe that some were accidentally buried alive during a cholera outbreak in 1833.

Ray Bradbury visited Guanajuato in 1947[?] and then wrote “The Next in Line” which is a gothic, psychological thriller about a woman’s descent into madness after visiting the museum. It’s no bedtime story. The protagonist is haunted by what she calls the silent screaming of the mummies. “Marie’s eyes slammed the furthest wall…swinging from horror to horror…starring with hypnotic fascination at paralyzed, loveless, fleshless loins, at men made into women by evaporation, at women made into dugged swine. The fearful ricochet of vision…ended finally...when vision crashed against the corridor ending with one last scream.”

Bradbury said “I made the mistake of going to the city of Guanajuato … witnessing the mummies wound up and wired to the walls, a long line of them, about a hundred mummies….which terrified me. I wanted to get the hell out of Guanajuato as soon as possible. …I had to write the nightmare down.”

The pictures of the mummies, which you can see by clicking here, are gruesome and shocking. Yet this is a very popular tourist attraction, and a selection of the mummies has even gone on the road as a traveling exhibit. Some have questioned whether it is ethical to keep to them on display, but the town has come to depend quite heavily on the money that comes from the museum. I know I’m not going anywhere near them. In fact I may not be able to sleep tonight just from reading the story and seeing the pictures. But if you’re a fan of the genre, it may be just your thing.

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Bradbury, R. (1955). The October country. New York, NY: Balantine. The next in line, p.18

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/40550

http://redwood.stormloader.com/bradbury/stories.htm

http://www.reflectionsedge.com/archives/mar2007/fsrb_mm.html

Plata y Presidios

San Miguel (later 'de Allende') was founded because of the Chichimecas and the silver. Chichimeca was the name that the Spanish gave to the indigenous peoples from the north. While the southern tribes, like the Aztecs, were sedentary; the northerners had guerilla tactics that made their subjugation more difficult. When the Spanish attempted to haul their new-found treasure to their ships, the Chichimecas were so skilled with bows and arrows that they were able to practically nullify the horses, swords and guns of the Spanish. They were fearless and elusive in the terrain they knew so well. They liked to capture and cruelly torture, enslaving native women and children, martyring Spanish friars, and leaving ghost towns in their wake. They had a very large territory and little hierarchical social structure. The Spanish sent at least two special detachments to impose order. They were not successful. They attempted to transport their spoils in large wagon trains, but the Chichimecas were still irrepressible.
So the Spanish solution was to found a series of presidios (prisons) and defensive towns. San Miguel was the first founded. It had been a native settlement with a small group of Spaniards that had, in fact, been abandoned about four years earlier following a Chichimeca raid. It was a superb site strategically, and on December 15th, 1555 Viceroy Velasco (pictured here) issued orders that made it the first in a chain of settlements meant to keep the barbarian Chichimeca at bay. About 50 Spaniards were given lands and commissioned with establishing houses, orchards, farms and ranches. The nearby natives were not to be disturbed by the new settlement, but would contribute to it by adding to its size.

In the end there were more than 30 presidios and frontier towns that made a safe network for getting the silver from the mines to the ports.

The Forty-Niners of Sixteenth-Century Mexico Author(s): Philip Wayne Powell Source: The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1950), pp. 235-249 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3635589

Presidios and Towns on the Silver Frontier of New Spain, 1550-1580 Author(s): Philip Wayne Powell Source: The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 (May, 1944), pp. 179-200 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2507832

Authority control and tagging

Authority control, as explained in Katherine Wells’ informative article, definitely appeals to the aspiring perfectionist in me. As our world becomes more complicated, and published works proliferate with technological advances spurring on their rapid growth, having a reliable method of being able to locate information will continue to escalate in importance.
Wells makes a good case for how authority control creates a structure that helps enable better searching through four functions: authority, finding, information and maintenance. Key word searching is less exact and cannot provide the ‘see from’, ‘see also’, ‘broader terms’ or ‘narrower terms’ that can quickly enhance a mediocre or uninspired search. It also makes it much easier to update huge systems when changes are necessary.
Tagging, that flavor-of-the-month, new-kid-on-the-block, hip, cool form of creating one’s own terms is even less satisfactory than keywords. Many (most?) people use very general tags like “read” or “library_sci”. What I tagged “MH” may have been clear 2 semesters ago, but now it’s just one big question mark. What Julie meant when she created the tag “Lib-web” is something I can only guess . These are the most popular tags on Delicious.com today: design, blog, video, software, tools, music, programming, webdesign, reference, tutorial, art. web, howto, javascript, free, linux, web2.0, development, google, inspiration, photography, news, food, flash. css, blogs, education, and business. How many do you think would be useful for finding exact information?
One of my pet peeves about tagging is that it is not hierarchical. At least mine is far from hierarchical. My del.icio.us account is less organized than a 12-year-old’s desk. Organizing it is somewhere on the proverbial ‘to-do’ list, but not really a high priority. It would surely benefit from some behind the scenes control.
Alas, I have strayed from Wells’ authority control, so let me just say that I agree with her premises . I am partial to authority. I approve of control. To me, its win-win.

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Wells, K.L. (2006). Got authorities? Why authority control is good for your library. Tennessee Libraries (Online), 56(2), 1-12.

Subject access and accessible cataloging

Elaine Yontz says: “If service to Hispanic patrons is not yet a major concern of your library, it will be soon.” We know that the Spanish speaking population is rapidly increasing in many areas across the country and every indication is that this segment of our population will continue to grow. Given this, it seems logical to conclude, as she does, that: “To lobby for a certain amount of consistency in the cataloging produced for national use is reasonable. Likewise, we should encourage utilities and vendors to catalog with more sensitivity to special populations.” She enumerates three current systems, LCSH, AC program, and Bilindex, and proceeds to analyze their effectiveness using the works of Mora. She finds them all extremely inadequate. 

She does advocate using MARC fields on a local level to make sure a library’s materials are at least accessible to it’s own immediate users, pointing out that “needed materials which cannot be found by patrons or by the librarians who help them represent a waste of valuable resources and do not, for practical purposes, even exist.” At least by identifying materials through MARC fields like 520, 650 and/or 690 will enable the local library and it’s patrons to have “a consistent access point" so that items can be located efficiently and certainly. When Yontz says that "this kind of editing can be done by anyone who can read, think, and type,” I thought: Aha! Our mission in SMA is defined!

Her point that “individual librarians must accept ultimate responsibility for the quality and effectiveness of their catalogs”also made me think that we must ensure that the soon to be released RDA has this covered better that the current systems.

 

Immroth, B. & McCook, K. de la P. (2000).  Library services to youth of Hispanic heritage.  Jefferson, NC: McFarland.  Subject access to fiction: A case study based on the works of Pat Mora, pp. 131-135. 

 

Don't waste your time

In my opinion this book is almost a total waste of time. From the start the author misrepresents SMA (“a smattering of ex-pats”? Every other source I've seen says that it is known for having a large and significant ex-pat community). I find his style smarmy and disgusting (The hotel manager’s daughter and later one of his own renters are described in lecherous and demeaning terms, as if they're ‘asking for it’.)

Most abysmally his knowledge of Spanish is so substandard that he continuously misunderstands and misrepresents what transpires. (Rematar is not "to kill twice"; rematar is to “finish off or to put out of one's misery”.) His self-serving, all knowing, superiority about Mexican language and culture, and indeed all language and culture, make me shudder to think that someone might read this and believe that it represents mainstream truth.

It’s hard to believe that something so sloppy could be published, yet the author’s back page bio seems credible. It would be interesting to see if this is representative of his normal quality or just a knock off for a special audience.

Reaching Latino community

I started on Chapter 6, because I'm most interested in outreach. The first points were to get to know the community and the leaders of that community. The authors suggest doing PR by partnering with Latino organizations. This certainly gives a great entree into the community, and provides a ready made organizational structure to take advantage of.

In the marketing section they list the following steps: plan well, use promotional fliers and the Internet, Use bilingual PR, emphasize that services are all free, Write effective press releases, utilize public service announcements, give effective presentations, and develop a distribution list with the necessary information included. Of these, I would like to highlight the following:

Use bilingual PR. This is a good idea even if the service or program is only being offered in English. Parents might like to bring their children to a story hour but either not understand enough about how it works from an English only announcement, or feel that they would not be welcome if they do not speak English. Often children know more English than their parents. In fact I think it would be great to develop a slogan to print as a footer on every library publication saying that all are welcome and all services and programs are free.

Emphasize that all programs are free. 'It's free' and 'You're welcome' are the two most important messages to get across. Many Latinos may come from areas that did not have libraries or the libraries were not able to offer many services. We want them to know what we offer and we want them to come. This is a vital part of outreach.

Develop a distribution list. This is a step that will pay off over and over again. When meeting people through their community organizations it is important to keep track of who they are, what group they represent, what their interests are, contact information and dates that are important to their community or group. (Holidays and celebrations vary from country to country.) If the library keeps good records of these things they will be able to provide greater services and attract more patrons. In short the library will be more successful.

Alire, C. & Ayala, J. (2007). Serving Latino communities. 2nd ed. NY: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.

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