Rosa Margarita Abella (13 February 1920 – 2 April 2007) was an
exiled Cuban librarian
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...
who worked at the
University of Miami
The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...
's
Otto G. Richter Library.she was the one who started the Cuban Heritage Collection in 1962
Biography
A native of
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. , Abella received her library technician degree in 1955, a professional publicist certificate in 1957, and a PhD in 1958. She served as the head of the circulation department for the National Library of Cuba from 1960 to 1961, at which point she left the island for Miami, Florida, as a political refugee. She worked as a librarian at
Assumption Academy until she was hired as an acquisitions librarian for the Otto G. Richter Library in 1962, specializing in Spanish and Hispanic materials.
Abella started the Cuban collection with a few materials in 1962 . She worked with fellow librarians like the poet
Ana Rosa Núñez to build the library's Cuban and Cuban exile collections, and she was instrumental in the founding of its Cuban Heritage Collection.
The library also has an eponymous collection, the "Rosa M. Abella Collection, 1996-1997," which contains archival material related to the
1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes by a Cuban Air Force MiG-29UB. Abella coauthored a bibliography, in Spanish, about the incident.
References
Publications
*''Febrero 24, 1996, derribo de dos avionetas : Armando Alejandre, hijo, Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales y Mario de la Peña: bibliografía''. Miami:
ublisher not identified 1999.
*''Publicaciones periódicas editadas en el exilio y en existencia en la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Miami''. Washington, District of Columbia: Pan American Union, 1966.
External links
Library resources by and abou
Rosa M. Abella
Rosa M. Abella Collection, 1996-1997at th
Cuban Heritage Collection University of Miami Libraries
Rosa Abella Photograph Collection part of th
University of Miami Libraries Digital Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abella, Rosa M.
1920 births
2007 deaths
Cuban librarians
Exiles of the Cuban Revolution in the United States
Hispanic and Latino American librarians
American librarians
American women librarians
People from Havana
American librarianship and human rights
20th-century American women
21st-century American women