WUSF Public Media: Massive Digitization Effort Is The Latest Plot Twist For Cuban Radio Soap Operas. “Binge-worthy podcasts may be a 21st century phenomenon, but addictive, serialized storytelling is nothing new. From the 1930s through the 1950s, Cuba exported more daytime and nighttime radio serials than any nation in the Spanish-speaking world — even Fidel Castro was a fan. After the Revolution, Cuban emigrés in Miami began making original Spanish-language radio soap operas — better known as radionovelas — that reportedly ran on more than 200 stations worldwide. The Latin American Library at Tulane University is now digitizing a whopping collection of those 1960s-era programs and encouraging academic study of Cold War soaps.”
Cuba
CTV: Cuba, Google move to improve island’s connectivity
CTV: Cuba, Google move to improve island’s connectivity. “Cuba and Google signed a deal Thursday moving the island one step closer to having a state-of-the-art connection to the modern internet. The American internet giant and the Cuban government agreed to create a seamless, cost-free connection between their two networks once Cuba is able to physically connect to a new undersea fiber-optic cable that would be laid sometime in the future.”
Manilia Bulletin: Cubans use new found social media heft to challenge leaders
Manilia Bulletin: Cubans use new found social media heft to challenge leaders. “Cubans are using newfound social media muscle to challenge their leaders in ways hitherto unseen on the communist-run island. Using Twitter to snipe at once-untouchable ministers over government failures is catching on in a country whose leadership once demanded, and got total unity.”
Cornell: Botanical illustration pioneer goes from obscurity to online
Cornell: Botanical illustration pioneer goes from obscurity to online. “Dating back to 1826 and brimming with meticulous descriptions and vivid watercolor illustrations, Nancy Anne Kingsbury Wollstonecraft’s manuscript, ‘Specimens of the Plants and Fruits of the Island of Cuba,’ never saw print in her lifetime despite her attempts at publication. Nearly two centuries later, the lush life she captured can now be admired and downloaded from HathiTrust, where it was shared by Cornell University Library.”
OCLC: National Library of Cuba collection registered in WorldCat to benefit researchers worldwide
OCLC: National Library of Cuba collection registered in WorldCat to benefit researchers worldwide. “The University of Florida is working with the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí (BNCJM), the National Library of Cuba, to register Cuban materials in WorldCat, the most comprehensive global database of library collections, making these resources available to researchers around the world. Through a unique partnership between the BNCJM, the University of Florida and OCLC, 133,000 Cuban titles have been registered in WorldCat. More than 97,000 of these are unique records in WorldCat, and valuable additions to the worldwide library community.”
Times-Picayune: Carnival season celebrates art of Latin America in New Orleans
The Times-Picayune: Carnival season celebrates art of Latin America in New Orleans. “The Latin American Library, a unit of Tulane University’s Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, has been awarded a Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to support the project Bringing Back the Soaps: The Louis J. Boeri and Minín Bujones Boeri Collection of Cuban American Radionovelas. The project was only one of 14 selected from a total of 125 applications nationwide. The grant awards $229,189 over two years to digitize 36 program titles from the Radionovelas Collection of master audio recordings contained on reel to reel tapes produced between 1963 and 1970. “
New Museum Event: Art for the Offline Internet
An event at the New Museum, one I am very sorry I will not be able to attend: Art for the Offline Internet. “El Paquete Semanal [the Weekly Package] is a one-terabyte media collection that is aggregated weekly in Cuba and circulated across the country via in-person file sharing. The package usually contains between 15,000 and 18,000 files, including software, sports, soap operas, music, magazines, and more. Though it is often described as a workaround to the widespread lack of internet in Cuba, El Paquete is perhaps better understood as an extension of traditions of physical media circulation that came before it.”
