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In: Caribbean, dloc

Press Release: Eleventh Annual FIU Eric Williams Lecture Touts a New Vision for the Caribbean MIAMI, Fla. (October 27, 2009)— The 11th Annual Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture at Florida International University will take place on Friday, November 6, 2009 at 6:30 p.m., as part of FIU’s African & African Diaspora Studies Program. As current events demand new prescriptions for emerging countries, this year’s Distinguished Africana Scholars Lecture, “A New Vision for A New World Reality: Prospects for the Anglophone Caribbean,” promises to address critical issues of sustainable development for the region with a vibrant discussion of the implications for contemporary times. Former Jamaican PrimeRead More →

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Press Release Port of Spain, TRINIDAD and TOBAGO (September 10, 2009) The Eric Williams Memorial Collection (EWMC) at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago, announces the biennial “Eric Williams ‘School Bags’ Essay Competition.” Since 2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, Caribbean students are being asked to assess its successes and failures and to comment on their relevance to today. This year, the EWMC is partnering with UNESCO offices in Trinidad and Tobago; Jamaica; Guyana; Grenada and the British Virgin Islands in encouraging eligible schools in those countries to participate. Throughout his life, Dr Eric Williams, noted scholar/historian and theRead More →

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In: Caribbean, dloc

The National Library of Jamaica was awarded nearly $3 million through the 2009 Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) to conserve the Enos Nuttall Manuscripts. The Jamaica Gleaner explains that the grant: will save historically important documents which once belonged to the esteemed Enos Nuttall who served as bishop. His collection consists of 38 boxes of letters written by governors of Jamaica, clergy and laymen identified as a source of important perspectives during the period immediately following the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 up to and including the World War I. The manuscripts also provide information on the formation and development of several institutions includingRead More →

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The second international Congress of the Haitian Diaspora “Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress” is being organized by The Haitian League with the cooperation of its chapters and affiliates, and numerous other supporting organizations and agencies. This will be the first time that representatives of Haitian Diaspora in a number of countries will convene under one roof to find long-term solutions to the major issues that plague Haitians in and out of Haiti. Themed “HAITIAN DIASPORA UNITY CONGRESS”, the purpose of the 2009 Congress — “La Grande Reunion de la Famille Haitienne” — is to coalesce and capitalize on the Haitian Diaspora´s resources (intellectual, financial, professional, andRead More →

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In: Caribbean, digitalcollections, dloc, partners

September 22, 2008 Invitation to Participate in Caribbean Newspaper Digitization Project The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is issuing a call for partners in a new effort to ensure preservation of and increase access to newspapers in the Caribbean. Newspapers offer valuable information to researchers on a broad range of topics. Digitized newspapers with full text searching capabilities are revolutionizing the ability of scholars to discover information. Due to the natural tendency of newspapers to deteriorate more quickly over time than other resources, confounded by the climate in the Caribbean, digitization provides a mechanism to ensure that these valuable resources are available not onlyRead More →

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In: Caribbean, dloc, presentations

The University of the Netherlands Antilles is hosting a Seminar for Libraries in the Dutch Caribbean this week and it will include a session on the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC). The full program is online, and Brooke Wooldridge (the dLOC Coordinator) and I will both be attending and we’re excited to share about dLOC and to further develop connections and representations of the Dutch Caribbean in dLOC. Currently, dLOC already includes a number of maps like the one here, travel books, and many other items related to the Dutch Caribbean with many more materials in process to be added. Please see the materialsRead More →

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In: Caribbean, dloc, law, UFDC

The Haiti Press Network has an article on the digitization of Hatian law (in French, or translated with Google Translate). Digitizing Haitian law is a major project with great significance because like all democratic societies, access to the law and legal information is necessary for the public to be involved in the democratic process. Many countries, including the US, are still struggling with making laws accessible and comprehensible, and Haiti’s digitization project faces the same challenges and will reap the same rewards. The Haitian law digitization project will present a complete inventory of Haitian law from 1804 within a clear and ease to use databaseRead More →

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In: Caribbean, conference, Digital Library, dloc, presentations, tools

In my last post on the Digital Library of the Caribbean presenting at ACURIL, the title for Brooke Wooldridge and Marilyn Ochoa’s presentation was incorrectly listed as “dLOC Toolkit and Usability Testing: A User-­Centered Approach to Improve Electronic Resource Design” when it should have been “A User-Centered Approach to Improve Electronic Resource Design.” More importantly, I failed to list (or even realize) that Mark Sullivan from the University of Florida presented twice on the dLOC Toolkit, “dLOC Toolkit: Create Your Own Electronic Resources.” Mark’s presentation will soon be online within dLOC here and an earlier presentation, “dLOC Technical Overview,” is already online within dLOC here.Read More →

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In: access, Caribbean, Collection Items, newspapers, preservation

The University of Florida supports the Florida Digital Newspaper Library and the Caribbean Newspaper Imaging Project. By preserving and digitizing the news of the past, these projects make the news new again. The Caribbean Newspaper Imaging Project includes papers like Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste, with issues from 1899 – 1902 now online. While the early issues online are imperfect (because of materials and processing with newspaper paper, microfilming, and then digitizing from microfilm) the pages are easily readable. If I could read Haitian Creole, or at least enough French to understand with savvy use of Google’s translator, I’d be able to read the December 30, 1899Read More →

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In: access, Caribbean, digital collections, Digital Library, dloc, preservation

The Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) 2008 Conference included many presentations, at least two of which spoke on the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC). Brooke Wooldridge and Marilyn Ochoa (both of dLOC, from FIU and UF respectively) held a workshop on usability for the dLOC contributor tools entitled “dLOC Toolkit and Usability Testing: A User-­Centered Approach to Improve Electronic Resource Design.” OCLC’s Karen Calhoun presented “Digital Library Dreams,” on ways that research resources are being brought to student and researchers of and in the Caribbean, and how the dreams of effective resource delivery are coming true, with the Digital LibraryRead More →