Nelson Santana
Professor Nelson Santana is an information professional and scholar of Dominican, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.
At present time Professor Santana is Assistant Professor / Collection Development Librarian at Bronx Community College of The City University of New York (CUNY) where he leads the Library’s efforts in all aspects of acquisitions and collection development. He is also Editor and Executive Producer of ESENDOM, an online Dominican cultural magazine that documents Dominican-descended people and the communities they inhabit.
Professor Santana previously worked seven years as Assistant Librarian / Assistant Archivist at the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Archives and Library at The City College of New York.
His research interests include the intellectual, social, and cultural history of Dominican migration in the United States; the role of libraries and archives in under-served communities; and cultural production that looks at the links between social movements and music in the Caribbean.
Professor Santana sits on numerous local, national, and international committees, often serving in leadership roles. He is the current Chair of the Library Association of The City University of New York (LACUNY) Institute 2020 Planning Committee. As a member of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) Professor Santana serves as co-Chair of the Scholarship Committee and co-Rapporteur General of the organization, documenting SALALM in the latter role. At Bronx Community College, Professor Santana chairs the Library/Liaison Committee and is a member of his department’s Personnel and Budget Committee (known as Tenure and Promotion or Promotion and Tenure at other institutions).
Professor Santana has collaborated on projects with renowned scholars and has contributed to several pioneering publications and digital humanities projects including Juan Pablo Duarte: The Humanist / Juan Pablo Duarte: El humanista (2015), edited by Rhina Espaillat and Sarah Aponte—the first text with the writings of Juan Pablo Duarte in English. Professor Santana contributed several essays and translations of Duarte's body of work. He also contributed six entries to the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography (2016) edited by Franklin W. Knight and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Dominican intellectual Silvio Torres-Saillant edited the Dominican entries. The biographical sketches Professor Santana contributed are “Luis Días,” “Juan Marichal,” “Pedro Martínez,” “José Mesón,” “Alex Rodríguez,” and “Antony Santos.” Professor Santana has also published in online peer-reviewed publications including Ark Republic and Latinx Talk.
Professor Santana’s most recent publication is a chapter he co-authored with preeminent Dominican Studies information professional, Chief Librarian Sarah Aponte, titled “The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Library: Bringing the Community to the Academic Library” in the edited volume Latin American Collection Concepts: Essays on Libraries, Collaborations and New Approaches (2019), edited by Gayle Williams and Jana Lee Krentz. This collection of essays won the 2019 José Toribio Medina Award. Professor Santana is currently working on an edited volume on information professionals and finalizing several articles for publication.
A recipient of numerous awards, honors, grants, and fellowships, Professor Santana has been recognized for his work and potential as a scholar. In 2014, he was named a Diversity Scholar for the Association of Research Libraries Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce and was also named a recipient of the SALALM Conference Attendance Scholarship. In addition, he has been named a Drexel Dean Fellow, received the NASIG First Timers Award, and won a Summer Mellon Grant among other awards and honors. Professor Santana was recently awarded the 2020 Dan C. Hazen Fellowship to conduct research in the Dominican Republic.
Professor Santana is a graduate of Baruch College with a bachelor’s degree in English. He also holds a master’s degree in the Study of the Americas from The City College of New York and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archival Studies from Drexel University.