This was my first time attending the annual meeting of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) that took place in Mexico City, Mexico from July 1st through July 4th. The meeting was a huge, tremendous learning opportunity for a newly appointed Latin American Studies librarian like me. Some of the questions that the panels examined were as follows: How do our descriptions of resources reinforce or challenge meanings? What roles do standardized professional benchmarks play in collection building, cataloging, and curricular development? How does our work promote or hinder information empowerment and global information equality? How might alternative library and archival practices or tools foster equitable access? How do current funding structures affect our successes and failures? How can we foster critical reflection in our profession? How might we address the inequalities of access to electronic platforms and misperceptions about their provision of global resources?
It was the only chance for me to meet with my new colleagues as well as the vendors that supply books from all over the Caribbean and Latin America for the Main collections at UC Berkeley. Here are some of the photos from that meeting. Please click on the image below to access the album. All of the photos in this album were taken by me during the actual meetings and events.