Reference Works
We even have our own encyclopedias and dictionaries, as one should. A strange, more complete set of “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” EcuRed includes what Wikipedia leaves out. So does The Caribbean Dictionary. Reference built by us will always reflect our own worlds in a manner that the universalists cannot. A reference work is always a series of breadcrumbs, a shout out that points us to that which is unique, and may be ours.
This directory is itself a reference work, and so are the bibliographies and syllabi listed below. The Puerto Rico Syllabus, as all syllabi, is a bibliography in its own right—curated for students, for the public—curated in the era of automatically generated bibliographies, from Google to library keyword searches. We include in reference a genre that is amenable to the internet, and yet not rewarded enough: the compendium of knowledge. Neither a database, nor a thematic library of existing artifacts, nor a publication with open submissions, a compendium is all of these at once. In “Banjology” or “Keywords for Caribbean Studies” we find a gathering of curated shorts produced around a specific theme to create a useful, self-contained thematic whole.
