Founded 1956

SALALM - Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials

The Hispanic American Periodicals Index

The Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI) is one of the leading research tools in the field of Latin American studies. In print since 1970, HAPI provides researchers with citations to articles from over 500 leading social science and humanities journals published throughout the world. HAPI first went online via Bitnet in 1992 and opened the web site to the public in September 1997. HAPI is published by the UCLA Latin American Center and is staffed by three full time librarians. You can access the site at: hapi.ucla.edu

 

The Internship Project

  • HAPI is undertaking a critical review of subject headings in its current thesaurus. Changes to the thesaurus will have a series of implications for our work and will present a number of opportunities for an intern, such as: a literature review pertaining to subject headings having to do with groups of people, chronological subdivisions, and miscellaneous headings; replacement or changes of subject headings in current records; helping to write a report on the recommendations of the thesaurus task force.
  • We are also looking to continue work on usability testing of the HAPI website. Before launching its new site in July 2006, HAPI, with the help of an Information Studies intern carried out a series of usability tests to inform functionality and design. A year later we’d like to do some retesting to see what we can improve on. In its current incarnation HAPI exists in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Users can switch back and forth between the three languages. One interesting approach might be to do comparative usability testing for the three languages. In addition, the feasibility of enhancements such as left anchored subject browsing could also be explored. At the end of the project you will provide a written report to HAPI outlining your findings.

We are looking for a second year MLIS student who has preferably done coursework in subject cataloging and classification, indexing and thesaurus construction and/or has some knowledge of usability testing. Because of the multilingual nature of our work and the projects to be undertaken, working knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese is preferred. There is some flexibility as to whether the intern would like to tackle one or both projects, however committing to both would probably take two quarters. We are looking for an intern for the summer and/or fall.

The intern will work under the supervision of one of HAPI’s associate editors, with weekly meetings to review progress and discuss next steps. The internship will consist of 120 hours of work per quarter. The intern will be paid $16.00 per hour.

 

Contact Information: Sócrates Silva, Associate Editor
Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI)
UCLA Latin American Center
10349 Bunche Hall, Box 951447
Los Angeles, California 90095-1447
ssilva@international.ucla.edu; 310-825-1057

Last modified 05/15/07

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