---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 13:11:05 -0400
From: Kathryn L Engstrom <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: New Chief of LC Geography and Map Division

I am VERY pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. John Hébert as the new Chief of the Geography and Map Division.  Dr. Hébert, who was a senior reference assistant in the Geography and Map Division from 1969 to 1974, returns to G&M after serving for 25 years in various positions in the Library of Congress Hispanic Division.  He was the coordinator of the Library of Congress* five year program 1492-1992:  An Ongoing Voyage established to commemorate the Columbian Quincentenary (1989-1993), as Assistant Chief, Hispanic Division (1976-1993), and, most recently as the Senior Specialist in Hispanic Bibliography (1993-1999).

A historian (M.A *67., Ph.D.*72 Georgetown University in Latin American History;  B.A.*65 University of Southwestern Louisiana in History), Dr. Hébert has written extensively on the 18th century Spanish presence in the U.S. (the Spanish borderlands), historical cartography, and Latin American bibliography.  He is the editor and contributor to 1492: An Ongoing Voyage (Washington: Library of Congress, 1992), directed and contributed studies in the preparation of an exact facsimile of the indigenous 1531 (Mexico) Huexotzinco codex (1995), in the study of the Oztoticpac (Mexico) 1540 lands map, and the 1562 map of America by Diego Gutiérrez (issued in facsimile by the Library of Congress in 1999), contributed for 13 years, as the editor of the cartographic and the bibliography and general works sections, to the annual Handbook of Latin American Studies, and authored The Library of Congress Hispanic and Portuguese Collections, An Illustrated Guide (Washington, 1996).  He was one of the contributors to Eyes of the Nation (Alfred Knopf and Library of Congress, 1997), with Anthony Mullan produced The Luso Hispanic World in Maps;A Selective Guide to Manuscript Maps to 1900 in the Library of Congress (1999) which was supported by a Library of Congress James Billington Grant from the Krasnoff Family.  While in the Geography and Map Division he prepared Panoramic Maps of Cities in the United States and Canada (1st edition 1974, rev. edition 1984) among other books and articles.

>From 1989 to 1993 he directed the Library of Congress's Columbus Quincentenary Program, which featured the major exhibition 1492-1992: The Ongoing Voyage, a national education component (3 week program with the participation of National History Day), the traveling exhibition In Their Own Voices, numerous publications, conferences, and concerts.  He served as a member of the presidentially appointed U.S. Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission.  He has been interested in the study of the initial Spanish and French presence in North America.

A Louisiana Cajun, Dr. Hébert has been employed in the Library of Congress since 1969.  He is a past president of the Seminar for the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM).

_____________________________
Diane Nester Kresh
Director, Public Service Collections
Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540

email: [log in to unmask]
202-707-5325
Fax: 202-707-6269