UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Libraries’ librarian Manuel Ostos has been awarded the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials’ (SALALM) 2021 José Toribio Medina Award for co-authoring "Spanish-language print materials within academic consortia: assessing the impact of resource sharing in two academic libraries." He shares the award with co-author Lisa Gardinier, Latin American and Iberian studies librarian at the University of Iowa Libraries.
Ostos, librarian for romance languages and literatures, curator of Latin American and Latinx collections, and interim librarian for English and theater at Penn State University Libraries — and Gardinier — were granted the international award in recognition of outstanding contributions by SALALM members to Latin American studies and to encourage and acknowledge truly superior accomplishments in research and scholarship.
“The article is influential for Latin American librarianship in that it provides clear data that demonstrates that Spanish-language print materials have a significant impact beyond their home institution via Interlibrary Loan,” the 2021 Medina Award subcommittee shared in its July presentation. “Moreover, the impact of the article goes beyond Latin American librarianship. ... It was quickly disseminated and discussed throughout those communities via listserv discussions, conferences and roundtables where it was praised as a model for collection analysis of other foreign language materials.”
“Because most collections from outside the United States are produced and disseminated primarily in print, we hope that our research contributes to a better understanding of print culture and the impact of international collections on campus and beyond,” said Ostos of his collaborative work with Gardinier, which began at a SALALM conference in 2015. “We also hope our findings contribute to an informed implementation of shared-collection models across academic libraries. As a result of our research, we have initiated collaborations with subject librarians at other institutions as well as with book vendors in Latin America to ensure that these materials are available for local and consortial use.”
In 2019, Ostos and Gardinier — with collaborators — published a follow-up to the Medina award-winning article, titled “Borrowing Latin American Materials in the Big Ten Academic Alliance: A Case Study for Consortial Data Analysis,” that assessed the Latin American holdings of all 15 libraries of the Big Ten Academic Alliance as well as the interlibrary loan lending patterns across institutions.
Prior to joining Penn State University Libraries in 2012, Ostos held a position at the Semitics Library at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and teaching positions at Indiana University-Bloomington and the University of New Mexico. His current research investigates the production, distribution and use of international collections and their impact on research and scholarship in North American universities. He further investigates how international collections in academic libraries support and promote diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and how these collections contribute to increasing visibility and magnifying the voices of underrepresented communities in the United States and across the world.