By Michelle Lopez, SCSU student and RBML Fall 2025 archives intern In 2020, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired the papers of Puerto Rican playwright, director, educator, and cultural leader Myrna Casas (1934–2022). A major figure in Caribbean and Latina theater, Casas’s work addressed questions of identity, politics, and women’s experience through realism, satire, […]
Category: Latino Art & Activism
Staging the World with Josefina Báez
By Emily Oliveira, Latin American and Iberian Cultures PhD student The challenging thing about processing Josefina Báez’ papers is that processing definitionally requires categorization—and Báez is a person who resists categorization. In no particular order, she is a sui generis Dominican dancer, writer, performer, Mantra Yoga initiate, actress, theorist, and teacher, among a sea of […]
Processing the Jack and Irene Delano papers
The Winthrop Group recently finished processing the papers of Jack and Irene Delano on behalf of the RBML. Here is a guest blog post written by Cristina Stubbe, the Winthrop archivist who processed the papers. A Personal Connection with the Delano Collection There is so much I could say about the Jack and Irene Delano […]
Tips for researchers’ first time in the archives: photos and scanning
Carrie Smith, Lecturer at Cardiff University, recently posted a thread on Twitter with basic advice for first-time archives researchers. The thread has tips that work well for our own RBML users — even for our more regular visitors. […]
Rare Book & Manuscript Library Acquires the Archive of Playwright Myrna Casas
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Myrna Casas papers in the Latino Art and Activism Archives. The new collection contains a range of rich materials pertaining to the life and work of playwright Myrna Casas (1934-present), one of the most important Puerto Rican, Caribbean, […]