FIU, UF scholars awarded grant to increase accessibility to Caribbean primary research data

FIU Libraries, in partnership with the Digital Library of the Caribbean and the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries, has received $50,000 to support dLOC (Digital Library of the Caribbean) as Data: A Thematic Approach to Caribbean Newspapers.

The grant was one of six awarded by Collections as Data: Part to Whole, an initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Funding will enhance access to dLOC’s existing Caribbean newspaper collections by making underlying page image and textual data freely available for scholarship and teaching.

From analyzing topical trends in newspaper coverage to visualizing photojournalism across time and space, the project will provide scholars with insights into Caribbean culture and society, enabling them to delineate a more complete story. 

"We are honored to be one of the recipients of this grant which will enable us to shine a brighter light on the work and efforts of dLOC’s more than 75 contributing partners," said Miguel Asencio, director of the Digital Library of the Caribbean. "By further enhancing dLOC’s Caribbean Newspaper collections, we will enable more accessibility, discovery, preservation and continue to help advance Caribbean Research and Scholarship,” 

Led by Asencio, Hadassah St. Hubert and Jamie Rogers of the FIU Libraries' Digital Collections Department—as well as Perry Collins of the University of Florida's Digital Partnerships and Strategies department, the project will focus on the coverage of hurricanes and tropical cyclones in Caribbean countries, such as the Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.

Upon completion, the multilingual project will grant access to the full corpus of newspaper text as well as the thematic toolkit through an open access data repository hosted by FIU.