San Diego State University                                        Library and Information Access

San Diego State University is known for having a culturally diverse campus, both in its student body and its faculty. According to the Association of International Educators' 2002 Internationalization of the Campus Report, SDSU has more than 650 courses with an international focus and enrolls international students from 92 countries. "To create a global university" is part of SDSU's mission statement, and the SDSU Library is committed to helping the university reach that goal.

Librarians Cecilia Puerto, Patrick Sullivan and Martha McPhail have served as unofficial ambassadors abroad for SDSU's ideals on education and cultural exchange during their many trips across the U.S./Mexico border and around the world. They also have been welcoming hosts to librarians, educators, authors and students visiting SDSU from many nations. Each has an interesting story and an impressive list of accomplishments in the international arena.

SDSU librarians Cecelia Puerto (second from left) and Patrick Sullivan (far right) are joined by library directors from several Mexican universities: Raul Rodriguez, CETYS Tijuana (far left); Armando Robles, CETYS Mexicali (center); and Amanda Valenzuela, CETYS Ensenada (second from right).

Ceclia Puerto

"Although I select a great deal from booksellers' lists and catalogues, hands-on selection from publishers at book fairs assures timely and more economical access to resources and to ephemeral and small-press publications and materials that may go unnoticed in the regular book distribution channels," Cecilia Puerto said. "These events are always accompanied by a series of author readings and talks, which add a cultural and professionally enriching dimension to the book-buying experience."

Since 1994, she has traveled yearly to the Guadalajara International Book Fair under the auspices of the ALA/FIL Free Pass Program. This year she was awarded airfare by Proexport, a Colombian government international trade agency, to visit the book fair in Bogota. With support from a William and Flora Hewlett Foundation grant, administered by political science Professor Brian Loveman, Puerto has undertaken book-buying trips since 1999 to Chile, Mexico and Colombia. The grant also has enabled her to develop electronic reference workshops for faculty and library personnel at several universities and research institutes in Chile and to coordinate several week-long visits of Chilean librarians and administrators to the SDSU Library and other regional academic libraries.

Puerto's native Spanish-language fluency has enabled her to assist students and faculty from the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and Tijuana's CETYS Universidad to learn about SDSU's resources. "As the largest institution of higher learning on the U.S./Mexico border, we are regarded by institutions on the other side of the border as a leader in education, an honor which extends to our library because of our ability to make available a broad range of English and Spanish-language information in all formats," Puerto said.

Since joining the SDSU Library's faculty, Sullivan's south-of-the-border interests have skyrocketed. He now is a member of the governing board of the Phi Beta Delta international scholars society, a member of the American Library Association's International Relations Sister Library Committee, and a board member of the San Diego REFORMA chapter, which is a national association that promotes library and information services to Latinos and other Spanish-speaking people. He also has provided tours and presentations in Spanish to visiting faculty and students from Baja California.

"By providing both SDSU and Baja California faculty and students with an understanding of the breadth of resources available via the neighboring libraries, our classes and curriculum provide a much stronger cross-border component," Sullivan said.

Now it is Sullivan's turn to tour Baja California. He recently was awarded a U.S.-Mexico Fulbright Border Grant, which will allow him to further explore the Baja library community during the spring 2006 semester. Sullivan intends to visit all of the major academic libraries within the state of Baja California and to interview library directors and librarians to explore, among other things, aspects of librarianship such as faculty outreach, student services, interlibrary loan programs and administrative challenges.

Martha McPhail Martha McPhail is on sabbatical this fall in El Salvador, continuing a long history of consultation, research and teaching in this small Central American country. McPhail is teaching cataloging to library science graduate students at the Universidad Panamericana, where she spent six months as a Fulbright Scholar in 1999 and has returned yearly since. She first was invited by the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador to consult on special libraries and archives in 1989 when she was a Fulbright Scholar in Honduras. This was at the height of the 12-year civil war when few scholars were visiting, and she formed a strong relationship with her colleagues. "I was so

In addition to her travels to Central America, McPhail attends annual conferences of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) as a delegate of the Special Libraries Association. She has been to Moscow, Barcelona, Beijing, Havana, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Oslo. "I was an eye-witness to the 1991 coup in Moscow when Gorbachev was toppled. I joined Yeltsin and the Russian people at their White House, standing up to the military tanks. I knew I was experiencing world-changing events. This was the most interesting library conference I've ever attended!" McPhail said. In 1993, she was one of 10 U.S. academic librarians invited by the British Council to meet colleagues in Northern Ireland.

McPhail invites authors, artists and librarians to visit SDSU to share their expertise. In April 2003, she organized a symposium held at both SDSU and the University of California, San Diego, on "Literature of El Salvador: From Conflict to Hope." While in Buenos Aires for IFLA last summer, she met the curator of an exhibition about the 30,000 people who disappeared during the "dirty war" of the 1970s. In collaboration with the San Diego Public Library and a local translator, she helped arrange for the curator to speak at SDSU and to display the "Poes’a Diaria" exhibit from April through June 2005 at the Mission Valley branch library.