by: Samhi C. 

Día de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday that offers observers the chance to commemorate their deceased loved ones with calaveras, marigold flowers, and ofrendas. An ofrenda is an at-home altar comprised of photos of the loved ones.

On November 1 and 2, the staff of Lilley Library, in accordance with the traditional dates on which Día de los Muertos is celebrated, designed an event so that students, staff, and faculty could pay respects to their deceased loved ones or cherished public figures by submitting photos for an ofrenda in Room 102 of Lilley Library. Those who did not submit photos were still welcome to visit the ofrenda, eat Mexican snacks, and make crafts, specifically calaveras, which are decorative masks that look like skulls.

Yesterday evening, I spoke to Stephanie Diaz, a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Lilley who is currently in charge of student outreach and who was in charge of the event to learn more about why the Lilley staff wanted to give the Behrend community a chance to celebrate Día de los Muertos.

“A few of us did it last year,” she tells us. Diaz, who studied Spanish in college, is partially of Mexican descent, and has visited Mexico several times before, states that she wanted to give people the chance to not only view the ofrendas but contribute to them because she wanted to “bring to life that experience… in an authentic way [and] give students an experience they can participate in.”

But there is another motive that the Lilley staff have for the Día de los Muertos, as well as for most of their events.

“We have content covering anything and everything [but] we don’t ‘just shelf books’,” Diaz says.

She explains that the Lilley staff are actively trying to let students know that the Library too is a part of the community and a place students can come to for more than research material for final projects. She mentions that she believes their community outreach endeavors are “most successful… partnering with students” and that they would like to build more alliances with Behrend student organizations to further their reach.

In contemporary popular culture, there is an unspoken thought that libraries are the place you go to when you need a book for class and nothing else. “We’re constantly trying to dispel that myth. Libraries are supposed to be for use.”

When you get a chance sometime before the end of the semester, if you have yet to, visit Lilley and ask our amazing staff about all their resources and all that you can do in the Library.