Susan Tiano, director of the Latin American and Iberian Institute, and Johann van Reenen, associate dean of Research, Science and International Initiatives for University Libraries, are collaborating on a project to collect, work with and disseminate information about energy policy and related dialogue in Latin America. They are the co-principal investigators for a four-year, $187,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
The four-year grant will allow the group to hire a project manager and technical director to put together management and technical infrastructures to find, translate, analyze and disseminate documents and information from websites, government sources and the like from throughout Latin America. The focus will be on policies regarding traditional (oil, natural gas, ethanol) as well as renewable and alternative (wind, solar, biofuels,) energy.
The information gathered will be made available in electronic repositories, analyzed for a regular news digest, and most importantly for public and socioeconomic interest, augmented by a web-based news feed about current developments. Van Reenen says they are putting together the management, technical and collection discovery teams for the project and hope to have initial results for each of the products available by 2011,and in some cases sooner.
The collaboration would allow the Latin American and Iberian Institute to work with students interested in translation and the many other faculty and staff who expressed interest in this project. The Ibero-American Science and Technology Education Consortium (ISTEC), a sub-award partner, will provide much of the technical infrastructure for the project. The Latin American and Iberian Institute will provide overall management. The Library will be responsible for accruing collections in innovative ways.
Tiano explained that Latin American countries are playing an increasingly important role in global energy production, so it is important to understand energy policy and dialogue in the region. The grant will promote this by making relevant information accessible to U.S. scholars and researchers through the innovative use of technology.
Professor Nelson Valdez, recently retired from UNM’s department of Sociology, was a driving force in creating a viable project based on his years of interest in New Mexican and Latin American energy issues. Van Reenen says he realized the potential importance of such a project when he went looking for information to assist a client looking for energy exploration information.
He found an agreement between Venezuela and Columbia to share information about oil exploration, and when he tried to show that information a week later, it had disappeared from the web site. In exploring sources likely to aggregate such information he was surprised to find no one collection and translating information about Latin American energy and natural resources activities.
The project is very timely van Reenen says. “In the Andes, oil exploration on indigenous lands is becoming a big issue, as are sustainability in all of Latin America. The fact that Brazil has declared itself energy independent based on its own renewable and natural resources is a remarkable achievement.”
The impact of energy policies on local economies and populations, particularly indigenous peoples, and on US energy planning should be collected, translated and understood. This data will also provide a rich substrate for future research about an era of critical environmental and energy developments.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu