Association of Research Libraries
Latin Americanist Research Resources Project

Latin American Partners Visit:

Sistema de Bibliotecas, Universidad de Puerto Rico
Río Piedras, Puerto Rico
October 1-5, 2001

The University of Puerto Rico (UPR) library at the Río Piedras campus has an extensive regional collection of Caribbean journals. Since the TICFIA grant is designed to improve access to "foreign information" sources, the Project obtained clearance from the U.S. Department of Education grant officer to pursue UPR as a potential Caribbean partner despite Puerto Rico's Commonwealth status.

My initial contact occurred just as a change in administration at the UPR University Libraries was taking place which caused some delay. Dr. Víctor Torres, head of collection development at UPR and a SALALM colleague, was very helpful in bringing the partnership proposal to the attention of the recently appointed director, Dr. Ramón Budet. Dr. Budet confirmed his interest in having the library become a Project member. Though I had intended to schedule a site visit during spring 2001, delays in receiving the technical data and preliminary periodicals list I needed for preparation forced me to postpone the trip until fall.

Agreement: Dr. Budet agreed to all points of the agreement after having a few questions about document delivery, the equipment purchase, and the possible future membership fee. Since the agreement was prepared in Spanish, he requested that additional copies be provided in English to comply with local practice of maintaining official documents in English and Spanish. This is easily done since I always prepare an English version of each partner agreement for the ARL Executive Director, Duane Webster, as he signs the Spanish language agreements. Both language versions of the agreement will be signed by the parties. Training: Ms. Almaluces Figueroa, department head for the Caribbean Regional Library, will coordinate the UPR University Libraries' participation in the Project. Librarians and some other staff in the Colección Puertorriqueña and the Periodicals Department will also provide table of contents inputting. The training session took place on Tuesday morning with about ten people in attendance.

Journal Selection: I received three different preliminary lists from UPR that indicate the section of the library in which Caribbean journals are held: the Colección Puertorriqueña, the Periodicals Department, and the Caribbean Regional Library. The lists were problematic because they had been prepared separately and lacked consistent data. The library building is currently undergoing an asbestos removal project, which has made it necessary to relocate the current periodicals from a public reading area to a storage area from which they are retrieved. I was allowed to browse this area to review Caribbean titles, which proved a challenge due to crowding in this stack area. The list from the Caribbean Regional Library was especially difficult since it contained titles from both the Caribbean and the rest of Latin America with no clue as to the currency of holdings. Prior to my arrival, I put together a smaller preliminary assignment of journals because I was also uncertain of the currency of some of the titles given on the other lists. During my site visit, the three librarians in charge of the three departments mentioned earlier met with me so we could go over the lists and better verify what should also be added to their assignment. We were able to add some Cuban periodicals and identified others received on exchange that require claiming to be brought up to date and will then be added to the UPR assignment list. Ms. Figueroa provided an updated list of titles in the Caribbean Regional Library.

UPR's journal assignment presently stands at 22 titles, most from Puerto Rico and Cuba with one title each from the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Dr. Budet and Ms. Figueroa both supported the idea that the UPR University Libraries' assignment would primarily focus on the Spanish-speaking Caribbean but that they would also add journals from other linguistic areas of the Caribbean. The title added from Haiti, Conjonction, is one of few Haitian journals to maintain a long history of publication. The Hispanic American Periodicals Index dropped it from its indexing coverage in 1992 so having its table of contents in LAPTOC will fill in a gap for a title with great research importance for Haitian scholars. Dr. Torres, the collection development officer, sees UPR's role as Project partner as having great potential for the library to add new subscriptions for Caribbean journals that can also be added to their title assignments.

Computer Equipment: The Advisory Committee chair and I agreed that the purchase of computer equipment specified in the grant should not take place until the new version of the Ariel software program (3.01) was released in case of changes in hardware specifications. Dr. Budet initially thought they would be able to place an order for the computer, printer and scanner. He discovered that in order to be reimbursed with grant monies, it would be necessary to set up a special campus account that can take up to one year to establish! After e-mail consultation with the ARL staff and the Project Advisory Committee chair, we agreed that ARL will arrange for the equipment purchase and have it delivered as a "donation" to the library. Unfortunately Dr. Budet's schedule did not allow him to work with me to identify a vendor in San Juan during my site visit but this is a matter that can be handled by e-mail. Dr. Budet also attempted to have the library's order for the new version of Ariel cancelled but received notification that their order was already at a point of completion. We will also have to arrange reimbursement for this.

Dr. Budet called together a meeting with the Technical Services division head, Cataloging Department head, and Interlibrary-Loan librarian (the latter reports administratively to the other two units) so I could explain LAPTOC's document delivery function. This was a useful session since the Interlibrary-Loan librarian had initial misgivings about being flooded with many hundred of requests. In the end he was agreeable that his unit would be able to work with our objectives.

Conclusion: After a slow start in establishing ties, the UPR University Libraries will be an able partner in meeting Project objectives. Despite their Commonwealth status, Puerto Rico institutions are often overlooked in US enterprises and for that reason the library administration was eager to become a Project partner. Like the University of the West Indies (UWI), the other Caribbean partner, their structure is akin to US research libraries, and they have an understanding of the Project's objectives. They are an important complement to the UWI collection since they provide access to Caribbean journals published in languages other than English.

Gayle Williams
ARL Coordinator of Latin American Partnerships