Blog del Instituto Cervantes Nueva York

NYPL

Last Friday, October 8th, the second “Social Friday” was held in the Berger Forum at the NYPL organized by the librarian Jay Barksdale.

Mr. Barksdale is in charge of the Allen and the Wertheim Study Rooms. The two research rooms have been set aside for writers working long on term, and with pressing needs for the NYPL collections. Mr. Barksdale thought it would be interesting to invite two librarians as special guests to talk about their respective libraries and specialties.

Wine and cheese, a door prize and a selection of cookbooks from the stacks was waiting for us. This time the librarian guests were:

• Rebecca Federman from the NYPL, Databases Specialist
• María Vázquez Estévez from ICNY, Head Librarian from the ‘Jorge Luis Borges’ Libary, Instituto Cervantes New York 

I was very impressed with Mr. Barksdale´s kind proposal and the friendly reception from the researchers. I presented the promotional materials I brought along. Some writers took them. Others asked me about the mission of the Instituto Cervantes, and about the bibliographic collections and services of our ‘Jorge Luis Borges’ Library.

I found this gathering a very interesting and rewarding experience. These meetings will take place every second Friday during the month of November and from January through April. 

I wish Mr. Barksdale much success in the “Social Friday’s” to come.