Title: And They Were There-Reports of Meetings-SALALM 2010 and the final installment of reports from the 2009 Charleston Conference
Abstract: Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown, remarked that when he looked at 20 years of SALALM themes, the words Change, New, Adaptation, and Transformation have been a steady feature of SALALM programming.Still, he pointed out that he was impressed by SALALM's "truly new" activities: a "Smoothie Time" sponsored by the Libreros (Bookdealers) and a "Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream Social" sponsored by Gale-Cengage.SALALM (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials) brings together Latin Americanists, Librarians, and "Libreros" at an annual event, and keeps them connected through publications and electronic communications, especially business transactions, throughout the year.At the annual conference, the Libreros set up a large book exhibit, and librarians have the opportunity to discuss business with their respective vendors.Both groups are an integral part of SALALM and participate in discussions, panels, and of course, enjoy each other's company at the conference receptions.We were fortunate to have Deborah Jakubs, Duke University Librarian, as the keynote speaker.Ms. Jakubs is a past SALALM president and was a very active SALALM member for many years.In a thought-provoking address, she discussed old worries, like area studies librarianship, and new worries -archiving full-text, diversity of models for digital dissemination and how digital acquisitions impacts print acquisitions.She outlined library goals -improve users' experience and understand users' research needs, provide digital content, and develop new research and teaching partnerships.Finally, she highlighted two major trends: the library's engagement beyond the walls of the library and an integrated view of collections, rather than print versus digital.This year, SALALM offered several types of programs: the usual panel presentations on a wide variety of topics, roundtable discussions on collaborative collection development and the evolving role of the Latin American Studies librarian, and a Pecha Kucha panel (i.e., Japanese term for quick presentations by several people to share ideas).