First Latin American and Caribbean Studies Librarian at UChicago, David Woken

David Woken joined the University of Chicago Library on July 1 as our first Latin American and Caribbean Studies Librarian. Woken holds an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an M.A. in History with a minor in Latin American Studies from Indiana University, and an M.A. in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin.

Prior to his arrival at the University of Chicago, Woken served as the History and Latin American Studies Librarian at the University of Oregon. As the first Latin American studies subject specialist at UO, Woken provided research and instructional services to faculty and students, as well as building library collections. He has acquired titles from small alternative and independent publishers, including Latin American zines, cartonera publications (small press zines and chapbooks bound in individually decorated recovered cardboard covers), and from radical or avant-garde small presses. In addition, he focused on information resources in areas such as immigrant and transnational migrant communities, Latin American water and resource extraction politics, anarchist and horizontalist political radicalism, and Latin American queer literature and queer theory. Woken has experience with a variety of digital projects, including a digital oral history project, Oregon’s Latino Roots, and the establishment of an open access Latin American studies journal, Periférica.

As UChicago’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Librarian, Woken supports research, teaching and learning for faculty, students, and staff by providing research services such as consultations and customized instruction as well as developing the library collections for Latin America. Woken will connect with the Center for Latin American Studies and the Katz Center for Mexican Studies, as well as with departments and programs across campus with connections to Latin American studies. In collaboration with Library colleagues such Stacie Williams, Director of the Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship, and Cecilia Smith, GIS/Maps Librarian, Woken will use his experience with digital projects to develop services to support new types of scholarship in Latin American studies.

Woken’s office is in Regenstein Library Room 565. Contact him at woken@uchicago.edu or 773-834-3181.