The Library of Congress has appointed Suzanne Schadl as the chief of the Latin American, Caribbean and European Division. Schadl brings more than 25 years of experience as a scholar, educator, and librarian in library leadership and international studies.
Since 2018, Schadl has served as Chief of the Hispanic Division at the Library of Congress, where she led efforts to successfully rebrand the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape as the PALABRA Archive, underscoring this collection’s emphasis on the spoken word and a broader Latino audience. She has also led a team that coordinates the volunteer service of 130 researchers contributing metadata and trends essays to the Handbook of Latin American Studies. A strong proponent of hands-on-learning, she has led the charge in guiding interns from project proposals to demonstrable published works on webpages at loc.gov.
“Suzanne takes on this role at an exciting time at the Library as we engage with more audiences and users across the country and around the world,” said Eugene Flanagan, director of General and International Collections. “Suzanne’s experience and leadership will be central to how we improve the development and discovery of our Latin American, Caribbean, European, and heritage collections, including traditionally represented and underrepresented narratives, perspectives, and people, in all their richness and diversity.”
Before joining the Library, Schadl was a faculty member and curator for Latin American Collections at the University of New Mexico (2008-2018), and director of the Gerald & Betty Ford Library, at the Bosque School, in Albuquerque, NM (2004-2008). Schadl is an accomplished author, researcher and curator with three decades of academic experience in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and seventeen years of progressive library leadership and supervisory responsibilities. She is active in the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, having served as vice-president, president, and past president (2016-2019). Schadl has also served as board member at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and the New Mexico Humanities Council, and on advisory boards for Latin American initiatives under the umbrella of the Center for Research Libraries.
Schadl has a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio State University (OSU) in Spanish and International Studies, and a doctorate from the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Latin American Studies.
“Information crosses boundaries and languages and research benefits from the same! The Latin American, Caribbean, and European division is well-poised to help increase communication and understanding across many boundaries and languages, and I am excited to lead the critical work of the new division,” said Schadl.
The Latin American, Caribbean and European Division (LAC&E) was created in 2021 as part of a general Library of Congress reorganization. LAC&E consists of three sections and two reading rooms — the Hispanic Reading Room, and the European Reading Room— that cover 83 countries and 16 territories from Central and Eastern Europe to Northern and Western Europe and Iberia, and from the Caribbean across South America and the diaspora communities of the Americas. The division plays a vital role in the Library's acquisitions program; offers expert reference and bibliographic services to the Congress and researchers in this country and abroad; develops projects, special events and publications; and cooperates and participates with other institutions and scholarly and professional associations in the U.S. and abroad.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.
Press Contact: María Peña, mpena@loc.gov