Cuban Research Institute Díaz-Ayala Library Travel Grant

Every year, the Cuban Research Institute (CRI), the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, and Florida International University Libraries offer the Díaz-Ayala Library Travel Grants to study the special collections related to Cuba and Cuban Americans.  The grants provide scholars and graduate students the opportunity to conduct research on Cuba and its diaspora at the FIU Green Library, thereby expanding access to the library’s unique holdings and enhancing its value as a national resource.

CRI, LACC, and FIU Libraries offer research stipends of up to $2,000 each to offset the costs of a minimum one-week stay in Miami to use the collections. Scholars in the humanities and the social sciences whose work will be enhanced by using the resources of the collections are encouraged to apply.

Collections

The Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection is the most extensive publicly available collection of Cuban music in the United States. Its approximately 150,000 items span the history of popular Cuban and other Latin musics. Originally valued at nearly one million dollars, the collection features 45,000 LPs; 15,000 78 rpms; 4,500 cassettes containing interviews with composers and musicians, radio programs, music, and other materials; 5,000 pieces of sheet music; 3,000 books; and thousands of CDs, photographs, videocassettes, and paper files. Among the collection’s rarest items are early recordings made in prerevolutionary Cuba.