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Puerto Rico's libraries, archives and museums road to recovery: A timeline of events after Hurricane Maria

Support

One thing that sticks out during an emergency situation is the solidarity. As Puerto Rico's libraries, archives and museums were emerging from the emergency others were already planning on ways to provide support and helped the recovery process. Through this process 46 institutions with highly unique collections received assessment from the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF and the National Heritage Responders (NHR) and the diaspora exploded with initiatives to aid those in needs.

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Introduction This project compiles the available resources (in my possession or found through the Web) related to the impact and recovery process of libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions in Puerto Rico. It is not exhaustive, but, hopefully it will provide enough documentation for future generations to understand part of the recovery events that took place immediately after Hurricane Maria or at least inspire other projects that can help tell a more holistic story. There are so many hands and hearts involved in almost a year of activities that I found its dissemination imperative.

Thanks to Dr. Joel Blanco-Rivera from the Escuela Graduada de Ciencias y Tecnologías de la Información (EGCTI) and his students, available links were saved in the Internet Archives to ensure they are preserved for long-term access. Also, videos were preserved using Webrecorder.

Also, thanks to the wonderful support of future library and archives professionals, interviews in Spanish with institutions were performed to gather a deeper insight into the recovery strategies. Again, thanks to Dr. Joel Blanco-Rivera and his students from the Biblioteca Digital Course (August - December 2018) and from my students in the Preservación, Conservación y Restauración de Documentos (January - May 2019).

Navigating the timeline
The timeline is dived into two main sections: Timeline and Interviews. In the timeline, each page represents a month arranged chronologically and where available, a link is provided. The images are screenshots of the original content, a visit to the websites is suggested for full content (this will be a hyperlink at the beginning of the text, according to the three main topics: event, funding or publication). The links will take you to the archive version of the original content to ensure its availability. To view the original content, go to the Details tab and look for "dcterms:isFormatOf". Even though descriptions are in English, most of the content in the links will be in Spanish. In the interviews section, each page contains an interview (in Spanish) from a specific institution. Recordings can be either a video or an audio recording. The author of the interview is listed with the text.

Loading time will depend on Internet connection speed. Be patient. To move around the timeline, use the arrows located on the corners or drag the box to the date or item of your interest. To move between pages, use the navigation menu on the top left corner or the button located at the end of the page.

Exploring visualizations and alternatives paths
The wonderfulness of this tool (Scalar) is its multiple pathways to information and understanding. Each reader can either follow the events by month or use the visualization menu on the top left (the one that looks like a compass) to explore how the content is connected. Also, during the research, I was able to regroup items in four main topics: funding, activities, media coverage and publication, and support. But, it is up to the readers to choose their path (like Cortazar suggested in 1963 with Rayuela).

Fair use & take down notice
All works included in this project are used solely as an educational tool under "Fair Use" as stated under the section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If any copyrighted material needs to be removed, please fill out this form.

Cover image
National Heritage Responders visit to the Library at the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao
Source: Evelyn Milagros Rodríguez

In awe, I leave you a very humble tribute to resilience and solidarity

Puerto Rico's libraries, archives and museums road to recovery: A timeline of events after Hurricane Maria by Hilda Teresa Ayala-González is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.