Scholar to Present Talk on the John Donald Robb Collection at University Libraries

Vis­it­ing Scholar Raquel Z. Rivera will present a talk Mon­day, Nov. 21 at noon in the Waters Room of Zim­mer­man Library on “John Don­ald Robb’s Imper­a­tive to Col­lect:  Towards and Archival Ethnog­ra­phy of the Robb Archive of South­west­ern Music.”

Rivera’s research project is focused on Robb’s impres­sive col­lec­tion of approx­i­mately 3,000 songs and oral his­to­ries housed at UNM’s Robb Archive of South­west­ern Music. Why did Robb devote so much time and effort to gath­er­ing this col­lec­tion of music field record­ings? Why did he deem his efforts impor­tant? What did he think his efforts would yield for the com­mu­ni­ties he stud­ied and the soci­ety at large? What plea­sures, vic­to­ries, dis­ap­point­ments and frus­tra­tions did the process of col­lect­ing pro­vide him at the per­sonal level — as a col­lec­tor, as a scholar, as a fam­ily man and as an musi­cian? What impact did his pas­sion for col­lect­ing have on his pro­fes­sional and per­sonal life?

Impor­tant clues to answer­ing these ques­tions are in the myr­iad lec­tures, notes, cor­re­spon­dence, inter­views, auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal writ­ings, and oral his­to­ries that are part of the J.D. Robb Papers, 1915–1989 at UNM’s Cen­ter for South­west Research. This project is simul­ta­ne­ously a bio­graph­i­cal explo­ration of Robb and a first step towards an archival ethnog­ra­phy of the Robb Archive of South­west­ern Music.

Rivera is an Affil­i­ated Scholar at the Cen­ter for Puerto Rican Stud­ies at Hunter Col­lege in New York City.  She was awarded the Green­leaf Vis­it­ing Library Scholar travel grant for Oct. 31 — Nov. 21, 2011. This grant is made pos­si­ble by a gen­er­ous gift to the LAII from Dr. Richard E. Green­leaf, and is intended to pro­vide schol­ars who spe­cial­ize in Latin Amer­ica the oppor­tu­nity to work with one of the largest and most com­plete library col­lec­tions on Latin Amer­ica in the United States.