Meet Our Staff

Primary Responsibilities

The Director of the Latin American Library oversees policy, budgets, operations, collections, acquisitions, fundraising, public relations, a visiting research fellowship program, and the work of six permanent staff. She provides leadership and vision in developing programs and services related to Latin American Studies; maintains professional contacts appropriate to the mission of the Library; and represents Tulane University in local, national and international forums related to Latin American libraries and librarianship. 

About Hortensia Calvo

Hortensia Calvo has been the Doris Stone Director of the Latin American Library since 2003. She holds a Licenciatura in Philosophy from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, an MA in Spanish and Spanish American literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a PhD in Spanish from Yale University. Her research interests and publications include the Spanish and Spanish American literary Baroque, and the social history of books and print culture in Latin America. She is also the co-author of Cartas de Lysi: La mecenas de Sor Juana en correspondencia inédita (Madrid: Vervuert-Iberoamericana, 2015), a critical edition of recently discovered correspondence by María Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’ mentor. Before coming to Tulane she taught literature at Princeton University and served as Librarian for Latin America and Iberia at Duke, where she also taught in the Romance Studies Department. At Tulane she oversees all administrative functions, collection policies, programs and services of the Latin American Library. 

Primary Responsibilities

The Curator of Special Collections is responsible for the organization, cataloging, preservation, and access to the LAL’s rare books, manuscripts, photograph, maps, and ephemeral materials. She also coordinates digitization projects and assist with collection development, reference duties, and long-term planning for preservation and access to the collections.

About Christine Hernández

Christine Hernández joined the staff of the Latin American Library in April 2012. She received her A.B. in Spanish and Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where she was Phi Beta Kappa, and earned her MA and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Tulane University in 2000. She has published widely on the archaeology of Mesoamerica, specializing in the prehistory and ceramic traditions of Michoacán and the El Bajío regions of north-central Mexico, and the pre-Columbian painted Maya and highland Mexican codices.

In addition to her daily curatorial duties, Christine is regularly involved with several professional organizations including SALALM, the Society for American Archaeologists, and the Society for American Archivists. Her recent projects at the Latin American Library include the ongoing digitization of Special Collections materials to build digital collections in the Tulane University Digital Library, online exhibits, and videos; as one of 3 PIs, she helped to finished a CLIR funded grant to convert our collection of Cuban-American radionovela audio tapes to digital; is working in collaboration with an NEH-funded grant project to build an online repository of Maya hieroglyphic texts; and she continues her ongoing work to put the LAL's special collections finding aids and inventories on-line via an ArchiveSpace database.

Information about my ongoing archaeological research and professional activities can be found on my homepage at tulane.academia.edu/ChristineHernandez/About.
 

Primary Responsibilities

The Latin American Library's Research and Instruction Librarian develops reference services and instructional programs for the Latin American Library in consultation with the Director. They combine advanced academic research expertise, information fluency, instruction and outreach with collection development in Latin American Studies. They have collection development duties for Cuba and Brazil. They also coordinate the LAL web site and the library’s presence on social media.

About Juan Pablo Gómez

Juan Pablo has a Ph.D. in Latin American Cultural and Literary Studies from The Ohio State University and an M.A. in Social Sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO).  He has held teaching and research positions in libraries and archives, including the Institute of Nicaraguan and Central American History, at Central American University (IHNCA-UCA) in Managua, and the Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences (AVANCSO) in Guatemala. His research interests include Central American and Nicaraguan history, culture, and memory.

Primary Responsibilities

The Special Collections and Engagement Librarian provides access to special collections in Latin American, Caribbean and Diasporic Studies through processing, teaching, digital initiatives, and outreach. She connects users with the LAL’s wide range of primary sources and collaborates to create online exhibitions and publications, develop the LAL’s online presence, and contribute to the library’s outreach activities.  With other LAL librarians she works with faculty, instructors, and students to develop instructional sessions and classroom presentations. She serves on library committees and actively participates in national and international professional and scholarly associations. 

About Teresa Clifton

Teresa Clifton holds a PhD from Brown University with a dissertation on the pastoral mode in 17th-century Mexican fiction. A former Tulane student and student-worker at the Latin American Library, she earned a BA in English and Spanish and a BS in Linguistics and was awarded the William Wallace Peery Medal. Before returning to Tulane, she taught in the Foreign Languages Department at Berea College and in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh, where she served as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She was a J. M. Stuart Fellow at the John Carter Brown Library and is involved in several publication projects, including a translation of late-20th-century Puerto Rican poetry and book chapters on ekphrastic literature in Mexico and Spain and on the transatlantic history of pastoral fiction.

Primary Responsibilities

The Library Unit Coordinator manages the day-to-day operations in the front office, supervises student workers and acts as the LAL stacks and study carrel manager. She is also the person to contact regarding missing books.

About M. Verónica Sánchez

Verónica Sánchez joined the Latin American Library staff in February of 2004. Verónica received her Licenciatura in Sociology from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where she served for ten years as Academic Research Technician at the UNAM’s Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales conducting social surveys, compiling social statistics and subject bibliographies, and analyzing archival and documentary sources. From 1994 to 2000 she served as Librarian in the Rare Book Collection of the Francisco Xavier Clavigero Library at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where she provided bibliographic instruction to faculty and students, provided specialized reference in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and organized the Manuel González Presidential Archives. She conducted graduate studies in History at the Universidad Iberoamericana. 

Primary Responsibilities

The Library Associate for Collections and Administrative Services supports all phases of processing the LAL’s special collections, and works with LAL librarians to support collection development initiatives. They are also the point person for any duplication or reproduction requests relating to the LAL special collections.  This position assists researchers who come to the LAL to consult rare materials and provides administrative assistance for day-to-day activities of the Latin American Library.