Professionally...

I go to work pretty much every day at Carlos’ office, a law firm. The picture at right was my swanky office, though on the 6th I'll be moving to a different place--a cubicle. The law partner treatment was not to last! With the non-profit arm of their firm I am helping to develop a webpage and simple database Paraguayan laws, related articles, and precedents, etc. We had a meeting about this and the project seems very interesting. You lawyer types will be interested in this, and I’ll set up a link once there is some content to view. Also, pass along any suggestions! There are many resources which exist for similar information, but none have it all in one place and with Paraguayan interests in mind. The Executive Director of the estudio, José, is very interested in this project and wants it to be to be the resource for research in Paraguayan law.

The other project that I am working on is consultation with the Library of the National Congress. Carlos and I won a bid (he informed me when I arrived) to consult with them on the technical aspects of organization and library operation. More or less we are drafting the internal rules and organization chart, etc. and will submit it in the end of May. Carlos is relying on my experience and education in library science, which is exaggerated a bit, but, I suppose that you get what you pay for : ) Plus, a degree from an American university in invaluable here in Paraguay. I am very enthusiastic about this and it is very interesting and ambitious work.

On April 29th the American Ambassador, James Cason, had a press conference to announce the completion of his project with the National Library. He spearheaded a project to microfilm, digitize, and acquire materials for the National Library of Paraguay.




The library is in pretty poor shape, I must report, but this is a great step in the right direction. I went by the other day to meet with someone to learn about the organization and operation but the woman who told me to return and meet with her was not in on Friday. The Ambassador has funds from the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation—which preserves cultural material from various countries around the world—and has spent the $35,000 he received as a grant. The target materials were mainly newspapers, but some manuscript items as well, from the period of the War of the Triple Alliance, ca. 1865-1900. They are now in a stage to obtain more funding and more newspapers which relate to Paraguayan history. They are expecting my help in this, so if anyone reading this knows of anyone who has some money to contribute, send them a quick note : )

Another thing that I am doing is teaching English writing and research classes. Teaching is great work, and I am glad that I at last have to go through the motions of creating lesson plans and putting into words what I know about writing. Let me know if you think I’m disqualified! We had the first class this week, and the students who showed up (about 50%) were very enthusiastic and have a bit of experience with English composition. I actually get paid a bit for these—about $7 per hour.