Capturing Caribbean Life & Culture
Jeff Barry
Director, Digital Library Programs & Technology
University of Miami
Overview Miami and the Caribbean University of Miami’s Digital Library Caribbean Literary Studies Faculty Collaborations
University of Miami’sDigital Library Cuban Heritage Collection Digital Digital Media Lab Caribbean initiatives Imagebase Faculty Fellows
Caribbean Digital Initiatives CHC Digital Caribbean Literary Studies Archivo Teatral Cubano Moderate Cuban Politics, 1952-65 Balseros: Cuban Rafting Crisis
Digital Media LabA centralized facility in the library for exploring the potential to
enhance instruction and research through digital audio and video.
Staffing: full-time lab manager, student assistantsEquipment: 4 digital audio/video editing workstations & 4 digital
imaging workstations
Streaming media The library (quietly) manages streaming
media services for the University. 2001: Streaming media server donated
to library by School of Communication. 2004: Support RealNetworks &
Windows streaming media, exploring QuickTime support.
It’s about CONTENT! Enormous potential for universities to
capture intellectually vibrant events on campus via digital media.
What role can/do/should libraries play in acquiring and managing this content?
Relationship to university archives? To institutional repositories?
Collaboration with Caribbean Literary Studies Caribbean Writers’ Summer Institute Video Archives Electronic Journal
Caribbean Writers’ Summer Institute 1991-1996 Initially funded by
James Michener Directed by Sandra
Paquet Video recording by
School of Communication
Caribbean Writers
Kamau Brathwaite & George Lamming, co-directors of first Caribbean writers institute.
Over 400 video files online featuring notable writers, scholars as well as emerging authors.
Caribbean Literary Video Archives Expand content
beyond writers’ institute (91-96)
Continuing series of readings, conferences.
Oonya Kempadoo, fall 2003
Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal
Peer reviewed, bi-annual
First issue: fall 2003 Second issue: April
2004 Library provides server
space, technological assistance, and guidance on e-publishing
Dealing with Pagination in Anthurium Citations in literary criticisms refer to a
specific page number. How to deal with this issue in an
electronic only publication that has no “pages”.
Followed example of paragraph numbering in Postmodern Culture
But are they paragraphs or endnotes? Where’s the article!
Paragraph numbering is not common and can lead to confusion among readers.
Anthurium’s 2nd issue adopts a different display scheme for paragraph numbering.
“Namsetoura & the Companion Stranger” Original work by Kamau Brathwaite
prepared specifically for Anthurium. Brathwaite utilizes a textual style that he
developed, “video sycorax”. Despite wanting all pages of Anthurium
to be in HTML, we opted to display “Namsetoura” in PDF (84 pages).
Multi-layer Framework
Repository: digital objects (item/metadata in filesystem)
Access: Search & retrieval
exhibit documentary narrative
Interpretive: Repurposing of content by scholars into works of new scholarship
Primary lesson learned
The collaboration with the Caribbean Literary Studies group has worked well due to the vision of a professor who championed the projects and the tireless commitment of grad students.
Digital Library Fellows Three faculty projects selected a year. Provide extensive technological
support, work space in library, and $15,000 (could be used for stipend, grad assistants, research travel, etc).