Attending FIL 2019 by Valeria Dávila

     Hi, Reformistas! My name is Valeria Dávila and I’m an Argentinian living in the US since August 2016. I became a member of the REFORMA Oregon Chapter in July 2019, after learning about the chapter at the quarterly meeting held in June with the REFORMA National president Madeline Peña in attendance. Being particularly excited about the program Libros for Oregon, which since 2016 assists Oregonian libraries in developing their collections in Spanish through cooperative book-buying at Guadalajara’s International Book Fair (FIL) in México, I volunteered to travel with Libros as the student representative, sponsored by the Emporia State University, where I’m currently pursuing my MLS degree.

     The Guadalajara’s FIL is a vibrant event bringing massive amounts of people from all around the world, which makes it exciting and stimulating. Arriving in Guadalajara on November 30th, we took advantage of the professional days of early December, which gave us a fair amount of hours a day to move around the fair more easily and make the purchases. This was key, considering that Libros for Oregon had a record of eleven participating libraries this year! In order to more efficiently purchase for them all, we subdivided the Libros group into two. Mine was led by Jessica Marie, Youth Services Senior Librarian at Salem Public Library, who had attended the fair the year before, and Jennifer Fischer, Children's Services Librarian Specialist at Crook County Library, who, like me, was also attending the fair for the first time.

     In this being my first time choosing books for people other than myself, the task was challenging for me at times, especially with adult fiction and non-fiction. I often found myself choosing books that attracted me but that did not meet the interests and needs of the communities of the participant libraries. Considering that this was a key topic of discussion this first semester at school, attending the fair was a unique learning opportunity for me where, in the course of those days, thanks to the guidance of Jessica and Jennifer, I was able to refine my criteria and find the kind of books we were looking for. In choosing books for children, on the other hand, I felt nothing but great excitement and enjoyment.

     A common factor for my selection criteria, though, was that it was always informed by the values of librarianship and those I’m honoring and helping advance as 3rd Diversity Scholar at Oregon State University Libraries and Press (OSULP) ––namely, diversity, inclusion, equity, and multiculturality––in choosing books like “Habla Maria” by Bernardo Fernández, a graphic novel about a teen with autism, and “The Black Book of Colors” by Menena Cottin, a beautiful book with raised illustrations for visually-impaired children. Also, in learning adults’ most wanted genres are the police procedural and the thriller, and noticing the big absence of Argentinian literature in our Latin American selections, I added to our selections “Los casos del comisario Croce,” a police novel by Ricardo Piglia, and “La luz negra,” a novel by Maria Gainza with thriller elements.

     In attending Guadalajara’s International Book Fair, I was also able to purchase children’s books in Spanish with ocean themes for the Oregon State University’s Guin Library located in Newport, which specializes in Marine Science, in support of its current efforts to expand their Spanish book collection for kids. As with selecting books for Libros for Oregon, I was aiming to bring books that would be hard to get in the US, and with a $100 budget, I managed to bring five fiction and non-fiction books for children of all ages, from picture books to early and middle-grade readers. Here again, my values as a librarian and a Diversity Scholar informed my choices, choosing “Madre Sirena” by Afro Cuban Teresa Cárdenas, a denunciation of the slave-trading of Africans to Cuba; the wordless book “¿Dónde está la estrella de mar?” by French Stephane Barroux, about ocean ecology; “Jacques Cousteau: El Mar, el otro Mundo” by Mexican Manola Rius Caso, a dive into Jacques Cousteau’s research in Mexico through the unique perspective of his cruise partner; “Sofía viaja a la Antártida” by Australian Alison Lester, which take kids on an Antarctic expedition; and last but not least, “El Gran Libro del Mar” by English Yuval Zommer, a sea fauna encyclopedia, and an advocate against sea pollution.

     Attending FIL 2019 with Libros for Oregon was an enriching experience both as a library student and a person, and one that I’d most definitely love to repeat in the future!