Reading Puerto Rico Exhibit

Beyond the images of sandy Caribbean beaches, tropical rainforests and exotic flora lies a country with a complex history and culture that still today remains virtually unknown to many in the continental U.S.

Photo by Dr. Sandra M. Casanova-Vizcaino

The Reading Puerto Rico exhibit highlights the Libraries’ collections on Puerto Rico and its diaspora. It features materials that study the Caribbean island and U.S. territory’s modern socio-political history and the different views related to its current political status, as well as focusing on Puerto Rico’s art, music, literature, language and food and how these relate to the construction of multiple Puerto Rican cultural identities inside and outside of the island.
We invite you to take a tour of the island right inside the Bartle library and learn more about it by “reading Puerto Rico.”
The exhibit will be on view starting Oct. 5 in the lobby of Bartle Library.

Guest Curator: Sandra Casanova-Vizcaíno,Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Exhibit Talk

Pura Belpré: A Puerto Rican Librarian in 1920s NYC
6-7 p.m., October 23, 2017, Zurack Family High-Technology Collaboration Center
Gladys Jiménez-Muñoz, professor of sociology and Latin American & Caribbean Area Studies, will give a talk about Pura Belpré, the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York City. Belpré began her career in 1921 at the New York Public Library (NYP) and pioneered NYP’s outreach within the Puerto Rican community.
Refreshments will be served. Registration is encouraged.


For those interested in helping with the recent disaster in Puerto Rico, visit:

The Empire State Relief and Recovery Effort for Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico recovery: How New Yorkers can help