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Pedro Padilla
An "Information Pirate" in the Caribbean

Pedro Padilla, Foreign and International Law Librarian at the University of Puerto Rico, is the 'information pirate of the Caribbean' traveling around the region, acquiring resources that will bolster the University of Puerto Rico's robust collection of materials from this area of the world. 

However, like any pirate, Pedro's trips do not come without risk. On a recent visit to Colombia, for example, Pedro was able to buy a complete set of the Leyes de Colombia, the Gaceta Judicial, and the Anales del Consejo de Estado, plus all the major codes and treatises -- a total of 420 volumes stuffed into 14 bags of luggage. Rather than pay an exorbitant price to have the materials shipped home, Pedro chose to take the bags with him on the flight from Bogotá to San Juan. After watching each bag get opened and scrutinized by drug trafficking officers and taking two taxis home from the airport, Pedro delivered the materials, safe and sound, to his library at the University of Puerto Rico, where they are regularly consulted by local patrons as well as other legal researchers throughout the world.

Adventurous quests like these have helped Pedro establish himself and UPR as the central resources to turn when others are searching for legal materials from the Caribbean and Central America. 

After obtaining a degree in Journalism from the University of Puerto Rico in 1981, Pedro worked briefly as an Insurance Technician in the Treasury Department. When a former colleague, (Nuncia Bonini), convinced him that he would make a successful librarian, Pedro accepted a position as a cataloging assistant at the University of Puerto Rico. Once he realized that a library career appealed to him, Pedro went on to pursue his MLS degree at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Despite the shock of cold winter weather, Pedro successfully completed his degree in 1991 and promptly returned to the sunny shores of San Juan, where a position as Reference Librarian awaited him at the University of Puerto Rico Law Library. A year later, Pedro became UPR's Foreign and International Law Librarian, a position he still holds today. His primary responsibility is to maintain the library's extensive collection of Caribbean legal materials and EU depository collection.  As if that isn't enough to keep him busy, Pedro also works part-time as the Evening Law Librarian at Fiddler Gonzalez & Rodriguez, P.S.C., a San Juan law firm, and one of the largest in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Like many of his librarian colleagues, Pedro enjoys helping local patrons and others from around the world find the information they are seeking, particularly when it involves obscure materials from the Caribbean and Central American countries. Pedro likes to see himself as a 'bridge' over the cultural and language barriers that prevent people from successfully uncovering the resources they need from these locales. 

Pedro travels extensively to not only build up his library's collection, but also to cultivate contacts in places like law schools, courthouses, publishers, booksellers, and government agencies. This 'leg work' is vitally important to maintaining a current collection of materials in the UPR Law Library, because many legal materials from the small Caribbean island states and countries of Central America are not accessible via the Internet. In addition, the people whom he contacts on these trips form an extensive network on which Pedro can rely for subsequent information requests. 

Like all librarians, Pedro understands the importance of networking and employs this practice successfully in his position. Through online connections, such as the INT-LAW discussion group, and relationships with others whom he has met personally or electronically, Pedro has a earned a widespread reputation as an expert in uncovering materials from the Caribbean and Central America. For example, Pedro is proud of the fact that he was able to provide a Canadian researcher with relevant copies of the Government Gazette of Belize, which contained statutory instruments and other information vital to the work conducted by a Canadian International Human Rights Programme. Pedro's goal is to have as many people as possible be aware of the services and materials that he can provide on behalf of the University of Puerto Rico. 

Since beginning his librarian career in the 1980s, Pedro has seen significant changes in the way that information is exchanged and in the types of information that people are requesting. Pedro comments, "Compared with the mid-1990s, I spend nearly twice as much of my time answering questions related to global information, or from international colleagues." The reasons for this, according to Pedro, are the proliferation of technology; global Internet access; and the reputation that Pedro has earned for himself and the University as being reliable resources for certain types of international information. 

While technology facilitates contact among people from around the world, it does not come without its drawbacks. Pedro feels that the reliability of information found on the web is a 'constant problem', and that many patrons feel that if information exists, someone must have posted it online. This is simply not true, especially when it comes to documents from the Caribbean and Central America, where there are a limited number of publishers and print runs, thus making accessibility through the Internet an unlikely reality in the near future. 

Pedro Padilla is someone who can truly say that he gets paid to do the things that he loves most in life. His personal interests, including travel, fine dining, and meeting new people from different backgrounds, are all satisfied when he embarks on any of his acquisition crusades in other countries. Pedro is not afraid of adventure and readily admits that his job can be very exciting. One of his greatest satisfactions is helping other people, although this can occasionally lead him into trouble. For example, while at the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) convention in La Habana, Cuba a few years back, another librarian asked Pedro to carry four books back to Puerto Rico for him. Of course, Pedro kindly agreed. Little did he know that the presence of these books, published before the Cuban revolution, would land him in the airport basement, with his luggage opened and searched all around him! Eventually, he was allowed to bring the books home and deliver them to their rightful owner. This story stands as a testament to the exciting and unpredictable nature of Pedro Padilla's job - the information pirate of the Caribbean.

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