About Us

Partners

The Harvester for Creating Knowledge Streams in the Americas Project coordinated by the Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII) at the University of New Mexico (UNM), addresses the challenge of identifying and maintaining stable and reliable Internet access to library and institutional collections and digitized archives in and about Latin America. The project is building a Latin America Knowledge Harvester (LAKH) that identifies and indexes multidisciplinary Latin American content collections. LAKH offers researchers a searchable interface pointing to institutional repositories that permit access to their contents based on Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. The project goal is to stimulate new Latin America scholarship through the use of the portal and the formation of cross-disciplinary and multilingual knowledge communities.

LAKH is a collaboration among the participating University of New Mexico (UNM) units and a pilot group of Latin American partners. Initial Latin American partners were selected from institutions with longstanding relations with UNM and university-wide bilateral agreements for faculty and student exchanges and collaboration.

University of New Mexico (UNM), USA

Universidad de Guadalajara (UG), Mexico

Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB), Venezuela

Brazilian Science and Technology Information Institute (IBICT)

IBICT is a research, exchange, and training center with a mission to contribute to the advancement and innovation of science and technology in Brazil through the development and strengthening of communication and information in these fields.

IBICT, for over 50 years, has contributed to the production of knowledge in the fields of science and technology in Brazil through efficient communication and support mechanisms for research about information science challenges. The Institute, through its information science initiatives and support of decentralized information systems, plays an important role in integrating science and technology information in Brazil, such that IBICT has become a global leader in this field.

IBICT is currently facing the challenge of finding innovative answers to the demands of globalization. It has assumed the mission of facilitating access for all Brazilian citizens to science and technology information produced in their country and internationally.

Collaborators


Alliance for Innovation in Science and Technology Information (AISTI)

The Alliance for Innovation in Science and Technology Information is a collaborator of LAKH. The organization’s vision is to become “an innovative leader in cyber SCI/TECH information, producing new models of scholarly communication.” AISTI has a history of:

  • Joint events and projects with UNM Libraries, a founding member of the Alliance
  • Working with Latin Americanist organizations such as LAII and ISTEC
  • Seed funding for leading-edge information science projects.

AISTI is an acknowledged proponent of open access and interdisciplinary research. An early project funded by AISTI analyzed software options for institutional repositories. This resulted in the UNM DSpace installation, which also houses several of the LAKH collections.

AISTI educates stakeholders about the changes in scholarly communication. Some of the member organizations are global leaders in this area, especially the Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

LAKH shares AISTI’s vision of sophisticated open access information systems and will be implementing some of AISTI’s aims. One of the LAKH co-PI’s, Johann van Reenen, has been on the AISTI Board of Directors for more than a decade and is the current chairman. LAKH project members attended the AISTI April 2006 mini-conference, a highly-regarded conference on future information science trends that provides an opportunity to envision alternative futures for information management five to ten years hence.

The synergy created by the partnership between LAKH and AISTI has already born fruit through ideas to enrich the LAKH project and in project staff training. It could have far-reaching outcomes in the future as LAKH explores the potential of new AISTI-supported projects such as the international KARST Information Portal project. The latter is prototyping virtual scientific research communities, a development that we envision will grow out of the LAKH portal.

Ibero-American Science Technology and Education Consortium (ISTEC)

ISTEC is a non-profit organization comprised of educational, research, industrial, and multilateral organizations throughout the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula. The Consortium has been established to foster scientific, engineering, and technological education, joint international research and development efforts among its members, and to provide a cost-effective vehicle for the application and transfer of technology.

Consortium of the Americas for Interdisciplinary Science (CAIS)

The Consortium of the Americas for Interdisciplinary Science is a Center of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of New Mexico (UNM) established to encourage collaborations between Latin America and UNM in interdisciplinary science. The Consortium has the strong participation of scientists and administrators from several Latin American institutions of research and higher learning, and the National Laboratories in New Mexico. The research focus covers four specific directions that are timely and of crucial importance to advances in science and technology: mathematical biology and ecology, computationally complex systems, novel materials, and nanoscience.

People

USA

Cynthia Radding

LAKH Project co-Principal Investigator
Director, Latin American & Iberian Institute,
University of New Mexico
cradding at unm dot edu

Johann van Reenen

LAKH Project co-Principal Investigator
Assistant Dean, Research & Instruction Services
University of New Mexico
jreenen at unm dot edu

José Almeida Vinueza

LAKH Project Manager
Latin American & Iberian Institute,
University of New Mexico
joalmevi at unm dot edu

Zhiwu Xie

LAKH Project Programmer
University of New Mexico
zxie at ece dot unm dot edu

Simoni Maria Benicio Valadares

LAKH Project Assistant
University of New Mexico
simoni at unm dot edu

Vickie Nelson

LAII Senior Program Manager
Latin American & Iberian Institute
University of New Mexico
vnelson at unm dot edu

Celia Iriart

UNM/LASM/LAKH, Coordinator
Assistant Professor, Family and Community Medicine
University of New Mexico School of Medicine
iriart at unm dot edu

Jonathan Tregear

UNM/LASM/LAKH, Analyst/Programmer
Health Sciences Library and Information Center
University of New Mexico
jtregear at salud dot unm dot edu

Ulf Hofemeier

Programmer/Analyst
Latin American & Iberian Institute
University of New Mexico
ulf at ladb dot unm dot edu

Brazil

Helio Kuramoto

Special Projects Director
Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT)
kuramoto at ibict dot br

Mexico

Francisco J Mercado-Martínez, MD PhD

Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud, Director
UG/LASM/LAKH, Coordinator
Universidad de Guadalajara, México
fjaviermercado at yahoo dot com dot mx

Luis Eduardo Hernández Ibarra

UG/LASM/LAKH, Abstract Production Manager
Universidad de Guadalajara, México
eduardo_ibarra at hotmail dot com

Igor Ramos Herrera

Professor/Researcher
Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud (CUCS)
Universidad de Guadalajara, México
ramos dot igor at gmail dot com

Venezuela

Carole Leal

Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas Bolivarium, Director
Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela
cleal at usb dot ve

Ezio Serrano

Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas Bolivarium, Project Manager
Universidad Simón Bolívar (USB), Venezuela
eserrano at usb dot ve

Angel Almarza

Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas Bolivarium, Researcher
Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela
aalmarza at usb dot com

Yolfram Aquino

Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas Bolivarium, Technical Programmer
Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela
aquinoy at gmail dot com

Francisco Muñoz

Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas Bolivarium, Technical Programmer
Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela
perolator at gmail dot com