Please submit your feedback to your librarian for Latin American and Caribbean Studies: Liladhar
Latin America Commons Landing Page
Latin America Commons by Coherent Digital is a full-text, richly-indexed database that provides unified, cross-searchable access to millions of pages of Latin American and Latinx primary-source materials, including books, magazines, photographs, maps, letters, diaries, ephemera, videos, and audio files that were previously scattered across the internet and in archives. The project aims to preserve at-risk content, rare documents, and often overlooked resources spanning from the 16th to the 21st centuries, making it easier for scholars and students to discover vetted, high-quality material for research and study.
Physically located in Oakland, CA, speCt! (titles on Asterism) has been treating a reading public to beautiful poetry and visual art since 2012.[1] Founded by Gillian Hamel, Peter Burghardt, and Robert Andrew Perez, the group started printing on a C&P is a small letterpress.[2] The community publisher started with and continues to focus heavily on chapbooks, which they publish with beautiful covers and excellent printing. They also print the occasional full-length text with titles like Wildfires. Their authors, including Ching-In Chen, have won awards for their beautiful work, including the 2022 Markowitz Award.[3]
One can find information about their publications on Asterism and about their community activities, including readings, on their Instagram page.
Thumbnail associated with publisher map, displaying some of the publishers we collect from. Link goes to interactive map on ArcGIS.
Alongside the celebration of the many, phenomenal books we display, we’ve also made material available about what kinds of publishers UC Berkeley Library has been collecting from across the continent.
Let me (Bee, the Lit Librarian) know if you have questions or note that there is information missing. Our thanks for to the many artists, authors, and magazine editors who’ve made this possible.
Since its inception in January 2021, Abalone Mountain Press (https://www.abalonemountainpress.com) has published several phenomenal compilations of poetry and zines. Amber McCrary, the founder, operates the press on operates on the traditional lands of the Akimel O’odham.[1]
To delight, this semester (Spring 2025), UC Berkeley’s Doe Library put in an order for five of Abalone Mountain Press’s recent publications. The chapbooks, anthology, and zines will be located in Doe Library’s main stacks.
Taté Walker and Ohíya Walker, The Trickster Riots (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022).
Kinsale and Alice Mao, Hummingbird Heart, Pink (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022).
Take a look at these or other Abalone Mountain Press books in our UC Berkeley Library.
Additional Material
Several of these authors contributed to The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature. You can find an interview with Amber McCrary about the Press in the September 2022 issue of Poetry.
From Macron, L’an I: pardon de vous le dire par Zef, Kak, and Degreff (Paris: Florent Massot, 2018.)
Recent acts of censorship of late night television talk show hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel have spurred interest in not only reposting this ever pertinent blog post originally published on November 27, 2018 but also updating it with some relevant books acquired since then. With or without humor, we find both presidents still (or again) in power and in the satirical spotlight. Enjoy! Amusez-vous!
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As two of the oldest modern democracies, France and the United States share a long tradition of freedom of speech and of the press (and at times governmental censorship). The two societies have found catharsis in the mockery of their highest elected officials through caricatures, cartoons, and critical writings. Here are a few recent library acquisitions, in English and in French, from both sides of the Atlantic in this category of political critique:
Insert Press was found in 2005 by Mathew Timmons to focus on interdisciplinary and/or hybrid works.[1] Initially, Insert Press focused on poetry in chapbook form, but over the following decade turned to increasingly toward “translation, poetics, artist books.”[2]
Balcony of the Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Street, San Francisco, Chinese in California, 1850-1925, BANC PIC 1905.06485:044–PIC, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Closing the Loop
It has been almost a year since Leah Sylva joined the Digital Collections Unit (DCU) at The Bancroft Library as the Digital Collections and Metadata Librarian. In that time, she has provided crucial technical services support, moving the program forward by building on its past successes. With Christina Velazquez Fidler at its head, the DCU has largely focused on how to “close the loop” in regards to descriptions of digital materials. This process of “closing the loop” refers to an integration of the data points created at various stages of representing the archival material in our care. In the Bancroft context, this translates to ensuring that digitized materials are represented in the records of their originating collections whenever possible.
Underscoring this issue is the iterative nature of archival description, especially in the digital context. As we work with digital materials, we hold in mind the goals of maintaining archival context and improving access and discovery. These goals can only be accomplished by strategic decision-making to guide processes of observation, evaluation, and action. This often requires returning to past projects to ensure that they are meeting current standards and needs of library users. One example of this is the DCU’s newly completed The Bancroft Library Archived Websites LibGuide which preserves and provides context to past digital projects that are no longer hosted on the Library website.
As archival material passes through discrete stages of arrangement and description, new data points are created:
Archival material is acquired and accessioned → creation of catalog record
Archival material is arranged and described → creation of finding aid
Archival material is digitized -> creation of digital object and Digital Collections record
Since these processes can be completed years apart, there are often overlapping fragments of metadata existing in different platforms without reference to one another. With limited resources and staff capacity, we are always making choices about what to prioritize and what to leave for another day, creating backlogs and technical debt that future generations must repay with effort and creative problem solving. With migrations between systems, changing accessibility standards, and shifts in the direction of our work, we understand that the digital landscape is ephemeral and in need of attention, maintenance, and augmentation. Digital projects offer new pathways for access and discovery alongside significant technical challenges that must be resolved as part of a process of quality control.
“Closing the Loop” case study: Moving Images from Environmental Movements in the West, 1920-2000
These recordings, comprising 130 videos from 8 distinct collections, were digitized under a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) grant to preserve audiovisual material in need of reformatting.
At the end of the project, the recordings were added to the Berkeley Library Digital Collections, but there were many inconsistencies and a lack of archival context for these materials. This necessitated a careful review of the digital objects and archival collection information to note what information existed in each system and where there were discrepancies.
Catalog
Problem
Catalog records did not include digital material
Some material did not have item-level catalog records
Solution
Updated collection level records and item-level records to reflect digital material
Finding aid
Problem
Some audiovisual material was separated from original collections or appeared in multiple resource records
Some recordings did not have archival objects
Solution
Archival objects confirmed, moved, or created in ArchivesSpace
Digital objects created in ArchivesSpace linking out to Digital Collections records
Digital Collections
Problem
Objects had incorrect collection names in some cases
Many items did not have links to their catalog records or finding aids
Solution
Reviewed and resolved metadata issues
Added links in Digital Collections to connect digital object with catalog record and finding aid
This project is a prime example of “closing the loop” – circling back to the system of record, augmenting metadata, and ensuring that the various systems we employ connect to one another. It is only at the closing of this loop that we can truly consider a digitization project complete.
Delivering Archives and Digital Objects: A Conceptual Model (DadoCM)
This approach is supported by the emerging Delivering Archives and Digital Objects: A Conceptual Model (DadoCM). This model acknowledges that while digital repositories are largely designed for managing single discrete objects, archival principles are focused on efficiently describing materials in the aggregate. This model is centered on facilitating access and provides a framework which aims to resolve the inherent tensions in archival description of digital collections through a series of guiding principles and technical structures. UC Berkeley Library’s maría a. matienzo, Head of the Application Development Services Department, is a contributor to the DadoCM and she has been a helpful resource in conceptualizing DadoCM.
Two core ideas of DadoCM that we can apply to our work:
The meaning of an individual record becomes impoverished when it is removed from its context.
Information may be displayed in multiple places, but it must only be created and updated in one, canonical system of record.
The DCU’s focus on “closing the loop” lays down the foundation of DadoCM by keeping materials described within the context of their collections as well as maintaining connections through our canonical system of record, ArchivesSpace. We hope to continue implementing the DadoCM framework in our practices.
Completed Loops
During FY 2024/2025, Leah added 891 digital objects to ArchivesSpace. The following finding aids were republished by Leah to include newly added digital objects from ArchivesSpace.
Looking ahead, we are excited to build on this momentum, and we are exploring how emerging technologies can enhance discovery and access to our collections. We are also continuing to learn from and contribute to our vibrant digital archives community. Our collaboration with our campus stakeholders is the cornerstone of this work, and we are eager to continue this journey together.
Post written by Christina Velazquez Fidler and Leah Sylva
For over 150 years, residents and visitors alike have not run short of reasons to support the claim, “There’s no place like California.” And since the 1960s, that claim has been echoed—albeit in whispers—among cannabis circles around the globe. This summer, Oral History Center historian Todd Holmes has been traveling up and down the state to document the overlooked history of California cannabis communities as part of the multidisciplinary project, Legacy Cannabis Genetics: People and their Plants, A Community-Driven Study. Funded in 2023 by a $2.7 million grant from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the project is now in its final year charting the history and genetic heritage of the state’s famed cannabis communities.
LCG Research Team at community engagement meeting in Mendocino County. (Left to Right): Hannah Nelson (Origins Council); Genine Coleman (Origin Council); Todd Holmes (UC Berkeley Oral History Center); Dominic Corva (Cal Poly Humboldt); Kerin Law (LeafWorks and Canndor Herbarium); Caleb Chen (Research Assistant, Cal Poly Humboldt); Yaw Reinier (Research Assistant, Cal Poly Humboldt)
In many respects, the study can be seen as one of the first of its kind. The research team is composed of academic and community researchers from across the state: sociologist Dominic Corva from Cal Poly Humboldt; historian Todd Holmes from UC Berkeley’s Oral History Center; Genine Coleman from Origins Council, a nonprofit public policy and research institute serving the state’s historic rural cannabis farming regions; Khalil Ferguson of United CORE, a statewide equity advocacy organization representing the interests of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in urban communities; and Eleanor Kuntz, co-founder of Canndor the world’s first cannabis herbarium, and co-founder and CEO of LeafWorks, a genomics and plant science company. Moreover, the project operates through Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), a methodology premised on a partnership approach to research that equitably involves community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers in all aspects of the research process. “CBPR is an approach that not only affords community members an equal seat at the table,” Holmes explained, “but more importantly recognizes them as the real experts in this field.” Typically used in public health research, the CBPR approach of the project represents the first time the methodology has been used in cannabis research.
Cannabis Farm in Nevada County, California, getting ready for harvest.
For the oral history component of the project, Holmes is conducting around 100 hours of oral history interviews with cannabis farmers and breeders throughout the state. When complete, the oral histories will comprise the California Cannabis Oral History Collection at the Bancroft Library, another first-of-its-kind component of the project. “For most of the communities in this project, this is the first time they have told their stories,” Holmes explained. “It’s a powerful reminder of the importance of oral history and a real honor to help place California cannabis within the historical record.”
Be on the lookout for the release of the California Cannabis Oral History Collection in the fall of 2026. For more on the project, visit the Legacy Cannabis Genetics website.
Dr. Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., was a scientist, consultant, and defense policy expert who earned tenure at UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering in 1966, chaired the UC Davis Department of Applied Science at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the early 1970s at the request of Edward Teller, and served the United States government and military in various roles throughout his life, including in the 1990s as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs. In that role for the US Department of Defense, Dr. Smith oversaw the security, safety, reliability, and treaty adherence of weapons of mass destruction for the United States and NATO arsenals. And, at the end of the Cold War, Dr. Smith implemented the historic Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program to dismantle the nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals of the former Soviet Union in accordance with the strategic arms limitation treaties then in effect.
From left to right: Vladimir Putin, then mayor of St. Petersburg; Mikhail Kasyanov, then deputy Minister of Finance; Harold Palmer Smith, Jr.; and Russian-English interpreter Irene Nehonov in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1994.
From June to August of 2023, Dr. Smith and I recorded fourteen-hours of his full-life oral history over seven interview sessions at The Bancroft Library, which resulted in his 304-page transcript, including a small appendix of photographs from his life and career.
I’m sad to report that Dr. Smith passed away in early August 2025, a few months shy of his ninetieth birthday. You can read Dr. Smith’s obituary, as shared by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. Upon Dr. Smith’s retirement from his remarkable career of teaching, research, public service, and private consulting, he became a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, where he created the Harold Smith Seminar Series on Defense Policy for public lectures on subjects related to national security.
Below is a brief summary of what Dr. Smith and I explored in his oral history, followed by several video clips from his recorded interview sessions. For greater detail on the diversity of topics discussed during each hour of Dr. Smith’s 14-hour-long oral history, please consult the discursive Table of Contents in the frontmatter to his published transcript.
Left to right: Russian General Evgenii Petrovich Maslin, Russian-English interpreter Irene Nehonov, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., in the US Supreme Court chambers in 1996. Dr. Smith discusses this meeting the video below.
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., was born in November 1935 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. He earned a B.S. degree in 1957 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he met his wife, Marian Bamford. They married in 1958 and have three children born between 1959 and 1963. Smith completed his Ph.D. thesis on nuclear powered rocketry at MIT in 1960, the same year he joined the faculty in Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley. After service in 1961 as an active-duty ROTC officer in the Ballistics Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Smith returned to UC Berkeley where he conducted research on fissioning gas, Xenon poisoning, and nuclear sputtering to earn tenure in 1966. After a White House Fellowship under the direction of the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara from 1966 to 1967, Smith regularly advised the US government on defense-related science and policy. From 1969 to 1975, Smith served as Chairman of UC Davis’s Department of Applied Science located adjacent to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr., with his longtime friend, hiking buddy, and former US Secretary of Defense William Perry in the Great Hall of the Ahwahnee Hotel at Yosemite National Park in 2007.
Upon retiring from the University of California in 1976, Smith worked through his Palmer Smith Corporation as a private defense industry consultant and government advisor. From 1993 to 1998, Smith accepted an appointment with the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs with responsibilities for the reliability, security, safety, and treaty adherence of weapons of mass destruction for the United States and NATO arsenals. He was responsible for implementation of the Cooperative Threat Reduction (Nunn Lugar) program and worked with former-Soviet officials to dismantle their weapons of mass destruction and convert related industries to commercial production. Smith then returned to UC Berkeley as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence with the Institute for Governmental Studies and organized the Harold Smith Seminar Series on Defense and National Security. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Commander in the Legion of Honor of France, and thrice received the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest honor granted by the Department of Defense for civilian service. In this oral history, Smith discusses all of the above with details on his careers in academia, private consulting, and especially his government service in the Department of Defense.
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on teaching nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley, early 1960s
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. shares his Edward Teller memories, 1970s
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on reducing weapons of mass destruction in the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Program, 1990s
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on NATO’s “slow pig” or Senior-Level Weapon Protection Group (SLWPG), 1990s
Harold Palmer Smith, Jr. on Russian General Evgeny Petrovich Maslin and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Program, 1990s
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Sign up for our newsletter featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Oral History Center if you’d like to see more work like this conducted and made freely available online. As a soft-money research unit of The Bancroft Library, the Oral History Center must raise outside funding to cover its operational costs for conducting, processing, and preserving its oral history work, including the salaries of its interviewers and staff, which are not covered by the university. You can give online, or contact us at ohc@berkeley.edu for more information about our funding needs for present and future projects.
This workshop will provide you with practical strategies and tips for promoting your scholarship, increasing your citations, and monitoring your success. You’ll also learn how to understand metrics, use scholarly networking tools, and evaluate journals and publishing options.
As two of the oldest modern democracies, France and the United States share a long tradition of freedom of speech and of the press (and at times governmental censorship). The two societies have found catharsis in the mockery of their highest elected officials through caricatures, cartoons, and critical writings. Here are a few recent library acquisitions, in English and in French, from both sides of the Atlantic in this category of political critique:
Collard, Susan P., ed. 
Drezner, Daniel W. 
Lee, Bandy X. 
Ngono, Emmanuel. 
