With experience in digital library projects specializing in Latin America and given the objectives of “dLOC as Data: A Thematic Approach to Caribbean Newspapers”, I was recently selected as the Caribbean Data Curation Intern under the direction of the project lead. Starting off as a student library aide at the Latin American & Caribbean Collection (LACC) at the University of Florida during my sophomore year, I quickly became interested in archival work and assisted with several archival and research projects under the guidance of the LACC’s senior staff. Through these projects and an undergraduate fellowship with the Association for Research Libraries the following year, I began to concentrate on the cultural and educational roles of archives and similar institutions, particularly digital collections. As digital institutions such as dLOC become increasingly vital resources for students and researchers alike in the modern world, accessibility to and understanding of such resources become even more necessary.
With these interests and the nature of this internship in mind, I hope to explore different aspects of web development and data utilization in the context of libraries and other educational institutions. I hope to better familiarize myself with the processes of data collection, enhancement, and diffusion as well, particularly within and concerning Latin American and the Caribbean. As such, I look forward to contributing to this project and its objectives over the course of the next few months.
