DIAZ-AYALA CUBAN AND LATIN AMERICAN POPULAR MUSIC COLLECTION TRAVEL GRANTS

Application Deadline: March 3, 2008

The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) and the Libraries at Florida International University (FIU) are pleased to announce the Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection Travel Grants and request applications for Summer 2008.

The grants will provide graduate students and scholars the opportunity to visit the Díaz-Ayala Music Collection at the FIU Green Library, thereby enhancing its value as a national resource.  CRI and the Libraries are offering two research stipends of up to $1500 each to offset the costs of a minimum one week stay to use the collection.  Scholars in the humanities and the social sciences whose work will be enhanced by using the resources of the collection are encouraged to apply.  Priority will be given to scholars who are not previous recipients of the award.  Due to our fiscal year, at least one award recipient will be required to complete his/her travel by June 30, 2008.

As a condition of the award, recipients will give one lunchtime lecture to interested FIU faculty and students on their recent research, and following their travel, will submit a one-page single spaced summary of their work in the Collection and suggestions on how the Collection can be improved.  Any publications resulting from research undertaken at FIU during the grant period should acknowledge the Cuban Research Institute and the FIU Libraries for their support.

The Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection is the most extensive publicly available collection of Cuban music in the United States.  The collection’s approximate 100,000 items span the history of popular Cuban and other Latin music, including 25,000 LPs and 14,500 78 mms.  The collection also includes 4,500 cassettes containing radio interviews with composers and musicians; 4,000 pieces of sheet music; 3,000 books; and thousands of CDs, photographs, videocassettes, and paper files.  Among the collection’s rarest items are recordings made in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

A portion of the collection can be searched online at http://library.fiu.edu/latinpop/.  The vast majority of items are only searchable and accessible in person.  Supplementing the Díaz-Ayala Music Collection, an excellent and varied collection of Cuban materials and electronic resources is available at the FIU Libraries:  http://library.fiu.edu.  For more information on the  Díaz-Ayala Music Collection and other collections, and to determine if your research project will be enhanced by the Díaz-Ayala Music Collection, please contact either Mayra Nemeth, Head, Sound & Image Resources Department, nemethm@fiu.edu or Gayle Williams, Latin American & Caribbean Information Services Librarian, Gayle.Williams@fiu.edu at the FIU Green Library.

The Díaz-Ayala Music Collection is one of the many resources available to the Cuban Research Institute, the nation’s leading institute for research and academic programs on Cuba and Cuban-American issues.  Since its founding in 1991, a combination of advanced scholarship, teaching, outreach activities, and the singular resources of the Greater Miami community have enabled the CRI to produce exceptional programs in its field.  In addition to the Díaz-Ayala Music Collection, the CRI enjoys the unique resources of the Leví Marrero collection of historic Cuban documents and additional Cuban research collections, all housed in the Green Library at FIU. 

The CRI is located at Florida International University, part of the State University System of Florida.  FIU is an urban, multi-campus institution offering more than 190 baccalaureate, masters and doctoral degree programs in 19 colleges and schools.  FIU has more than 34,000 students and 1,100 full-time faculty. No other university outside of Cuba surpasses FIU in the number of Cubanists on its faculty, or in the number of faculty and students who are of Cuban birth or descent. The CRI draws upon the Cuba-related expertise of more than 40 FIU faculty members, led by Director Damián Fernández, a professor in the Department of International Relations, and Associate Director Uva de Aragón, an author and humanities scholar.

For additional information on the CRI, FIU, and the FIU Libraries, please visit our websites:

CRI: http://cri.fiu.edu   FIU: http://www.fiu.edu  

FIU Libraries: http://library.fiu.edu/