About me and this blog
My name is Edgardo Civallero (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1973), and I am a librarian, researcher, educator, and writer. I have a BA in Library & Information Sciences from the National University of Córdoba (Argentina), where I also studied History (Archeology and Anthropology). I also have a specialization in Epistemologies of the South (CLACSO), a master's degree in Historical Archives and Memory (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana), and other degrees going on.
This Medium-based blog, called Libraries in the margins, presents the translated contents of a blog on libraries and archives I keep, in Spanish, on my website, a platform where many others of my publications and activities may be found.
From 2024 onwards, my professional journey is split between coordinating the library at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and working as a consultant in Bogotá, Colombia. I specialize in metadata, Digital Asset Management, digital preservation, data management, curation, programming, artificial intelligence, and IT solutions. As an educator, researcher, lecturer, and popular writer, my work spans natural sciences, traditional knowledge, cultural heritage, memory, identity, sounds, silences, musical instruments, audiovisual collections, and musical bibliographic research. I engage in collaborative projects bridging libraries, archives, and museums to construct new knowledge and revive old narratives.
I produce content (for outreach, education, and divulgation) for knowledge, memory & heritage management institutions (libraries, archives, and museums), especially related to natural sciences, traditional knowledge, and music. I have considerable experience in social librarianship; working with libraries in the margins; library services for indigenous peoples and subordinate groups; musical bibliographic research; the management of oral tradition and threatened sounds (languages and music); memory and history of science, open science, citizen science, sustainability and degrowth; semantic web, linked data, ontologies, metadata and knowledge classification; the design of digital libraries and specialized information services; preservation, conservation and digitization of heritage collections; and the analysis of musical instruments as documents.
In addition, I am a musician and musical instruments builder, an editorial designer (books and ebooks), a translator and proofreader, and a blogger with 20 years of experience in social networks. I enjoy language learning, fiction writing, Wikipedia contributions, Esperanto, citizen science, cartooning, photography, and puppet building.
