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(Techowriting: Literature and Technology in Latin Ameri- University of Minnesota’s publications and its support of
ca) edited by Andrew Brown in 2007 and a special section digital scholarship in the U.S. are working effectively to fight
of the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies edited by the still existing perception that digitally born, open-access
Luis Correa-Díaz and Scott Weintraub in 2012 called “Li- journals are less rigorous or scholarly than their print coun-
teratura latinoamericana, española, portuguesa en la era di- terparts. Digital humanists such as Kathleen Fitzpatrick
gital (nuevas tecnologías y lo literario)” (Latin American, have spoken out in favor of open access publishing while at
Spanish and Portuguese Literature in the Digital Age [New the same time addressing concerns of reputation (see Fitz-
Technologies and the Literary]). These three prestigious patrick’s Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and
journals have fairly large readerships and two are accessible the Future of the Academy. New York: New York Universi-
electronically, but they are, nonetheless, subscription-based ty Press, 2011.) So, then, with this publication, the field of
journals. As such, they reach a reduced audience. Hybrid Hispanic Studies joins the larger digital humanities con-
Storyspaces in Hispanic Issues Online is, to my knowledge, versations both in theory and in practice. (As an aside, I do
the first open-access publication about the digital in the di- want to note that Hybrid Storyspaces is not indexed quick-
gital form. Furthermore, it is the first publication fully in ly in premier databases such as the MLA Bibliography and
English and thereby accessible to English-speaking scholars Dialnet; Google does a better job of indexing Hybrid Storys-
who might be interested in incorporating Hispanic works paces than these academic databases, which are not updat-
into their world literature, comparative literature, or new ed with the same speed that digital journals are published.
media studies courses. In this way, the volume serves not Unfortunately, timely and relevant articles must endure the
only as a study of Hispanic works for Hispanists, but also lag of the databases in order for scholars to find them.)
facilitates the dissemination of Hispanic literature and cri- Let me now turn my attention to the content of Hybrid
ticism to a broader audience. Storyspaces. The editors and accomplished scholars Chris-
Since the fall of 2006 the University of Minnesota Press tine Henseler and Debra A. Castillo state in their intro-
has published Hispanic Issues Online as a refereed, open-ac- duction that “the goal of Hybrid Storyspaces is to contribute
cess electronic journal that complements Minnesota’s His- to the rethinking of transnational Hispanic literary theo-
panic Issues book series. While HIOL is itself a strictly dig- ry and practice, taking into account the evolving literary
ital form, Hybrid Storyspaces is the only of its eleven issues forms of our time” and to do so “through the lens of new
that focuses on the digital as an object of study. There are a media technologies” (2). The issue is a compendium of se-
handful of open-access online journals devoted to Hispanic lect, peer-reviewed articles that were developed from papers
Studies—CiberLetras, Decimonónica, Letras Hispanas, and delivered from Cornell University’s Latin American Studies
Revista de ALCESXXI come to mind—but none of these Program’s working paper series. The volume has an online
have exclusively featured digital studies. The quality of the
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