Monday morning I was out walking around downtown Bogota when I happened upon this lovely little library in the park. This stand makes part of the Paradero Para Libros Para Parques (PPP), a program created about 10 years ago to help promote literacy across the country. The program is part of Fundalectura in association with [...]

Today I went to visit a couple of the libraries that make up the BiblioRed in Bogota. BiblioRed is Bogota’s public library systems, and it’s composed of a number of large, and small libraries, as well as a bibliobus. Today I went to visit the Biblioteca Pública Parque El Tunal, and the Biblioteca Pública Virgilio [...]

While I was growing up in Colombia libraries were very scarce, the only library one ever heard mentioned was the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (BLAA), which I finally got to visit.
While the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango is owned by the Banco de la República de Colombia, it is very much a public library, and open [...]

I arrived in Bogota last night and today I’m off to visit a few libraries, my first stop is the Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. As Colombia’s national library, one of their main responsibilities is serving as the country’s legal deposit.
The collection includes monographs, journals, and a large music collection. The library’s music collection includes both [...]

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked up a galley of this book while attending ALA Midwinter, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Marilyn Johnson became interested in librarians while researching her previous book on obituaries, and running into a few fascinating [...]

Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America by Chesa Boudin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked up this book because of the title; I’m a big fan of the word “Gringo.” And for those of you who are about to get offended, know that I am the daughter of a self-proclaimed “gringo” and [...]

Yesterday while I was riding the bus to work a new billboard caught my eye, one for Read.gov. Read.gov is part of the Library of Congress, and it aims to encourage reading of all kinds of material, by every age group. On the website you’ll find recommendations by age group, and for educators, and under [...]

My friend Alberto Martinez, who works at El Colegio de México, is always collaborating on great projects, the most recent one has resulted in free access to all the journals that the university edits!
The journals, which cover a wide range of topics, many of them relating to Mexican history can be accessed here. You can [...]

A couple days ago my father sent me this slide show from the BBC on the pirate book industry in Peru. The author comments that Peru has one of the worst cases of book pirating in all of Latin America, and that books from all over the world find their way into the industry. It [...]

This morning, bright and early, I attended an ALA Midwinter Conference session hosted by OCLC titled “Redesigning Technical Services Workflows.” The session was composed of three presenters, two of which shared their experiences on how their technical services departments are adapting to decreased budgets and new technology trends. The third presenter, Ruth Fischer (R2 Consulting), [...]