Previous part: History of Literacy and Libraries in Mexico: Public Book Initiatives Around the same period, many of the same problems plaguing the public library system were also seen in the National Library. Peñalosa, writing in 1953, states that although the National Library was unrivaled in terms of its vast holdings and prominent status, it had […]
History of Literacy and Libraries in Mexico: Public Book Initiatives
Read the previous part: The Foundation of Mexico’s National Library: History and Cultural Context After the triumph of the Mexican Revolution, there was a strong movement to make books available to all of the nation’s citizens. Although by this point, this very same goal had been seen before, both at the time of the first public […]
The Foundation of Mexico’s National Library: History and Cultural Context
Read the previous part: Libraries at the Time of Mexico’s War of Independence While the topic of public libraries was discussed in numerous other municipal legislatures around this period, a small number of projects would actually be implemented, the most notable being the State of Mexico Central Public Library in Toluca in 1827 (Peñalosa 117). This […]
Libraries at the Time of Mexico’s War of Independence
Previous part: Spanish Libraries in Mexico: Shift from Religious and Private to Secular and Public The next major event of interest to libraries is Mexico’s War of Independence, which took place from 1810-1821, resulting in the separation from Spain and the creation of a new republic (Francis). Around this time, in line with the spirit of […]
Are Texting and Tweeting Destroying the English Language?
In his book A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers and the Digital Revolution, Dennis Baron poses the intriguing question of whether new writing technologies such as texting, email, and instant messaging are debasing the English language and doing major damage to society as a whole. He proceeds to dismiss these notions as overreactions, a point […]
Spanish Libraries in Mexico: Shift from Religious and Private to Secular and Public
History of Libraries in Mexico Part 1 The first Spanish libraries in Mexico were located in monasteries. Their collections served an almost exclusively religious mission, as the majority of the books held “dealt with ecclesiastical or philosophical subjects; heretical or liberal works were excluded” (Peñalosa 116). To refer to these colonial libraries as non-circulating would […]